Education about symptom self-management is a shared learning experience among
course participants and course facilitators in the group. Course facilitators express their
interest and appreciation for the opportunity to learn from voice hearers. Course
participants often share their experience more openly if they know it will help others with
unpleasant AH. Course facilitators demonstrate each strategy in the group and have
course participants practice the strategy together in the group. IPRs have directions for
how to practice the “strategy of the week” twice a day (AM and PM) at home. Practicing
the behavioral strategies in each voice hearer’s living environment and completing an
IPR increases the likelihood that a course participant will incorporate the strategies into
their lives (Liberman, 1988). Green and Kinsbourne's (1989) taught subjects to hum in
the lab when they heard voices. In the lab, humming was 100% effective in managing
the voices but not one subject hummed outside the lab when they heard voices.
Sometimes we are able to provide small rewards/incentives to course participants for
completing and returning the IPRs to encourage practice until they experience the
benefits of practicing the strategies