‘Unexpected Guests’: re-imagining relationships to voices

Hearing voices, seeing visions, and experiencing unshared beliefs are commonly pathologised as psychosis, yet many people claim that these experiences can provide meaning and depth to their lives. “Unexpected Guests” is a short documentary film exploring Elisabeth’s unusual perceptions and experiences, how she makes sense of and finds value in them, and brings them into our shared social world.

The film will be followed by a panel discussion and Q+A hosted by Alex Edmonds, Professor of Social and Medical Anthropology.

Unexpected Guests was funded by the Edinburgh Neuroscience Our Minds Scholarship. It screened at the Edinburgh Science Festival and the 25th Hearing Voices Congress in Copenhagen. The film score was composed by award-winning musician and composer Charlie Jefferson.

This is an in-person event aimed at University of Edinburgh staff and students, as well as the general public.

Our guest speakers

Robyn Thomas

Robyn is an award-winning filmmaker, a guest lecturer and a PhD candidate in social anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on voice-hearing, psychosis, and altered states of consciousness. She's interested in how people find meaning in these experiences and negotiate them relationally. Her last short film, Follow My Brain, screened at numerous film festivals and was broadcast on Telus Optik TV.

Elisabeth Svanholmer

Elisabeth Svanholmer is a voice-hearer support facilitator, helping to develop support to voice-hearers and other users of psychiatric services, as well as teaching health-care professionals how to relate to voice-hearing, how to support them in the experience, and how to initiate and facilitate self-help groups.