Marius Romme

Who is Marius Romme?

Marius Anton Joannes Romme is a Dutch psychiatrist. He is best known for his work on hearing voices and regarded as the founder and principal theorist for the Hearing Voices Movement.

Romme studied medicine at the University of Amsterdam, where he also received his PhD in 1967. From 1974 to 1999 he was professor of social psychiatry at the Medical Faculty of the University of Maastricht, as well as consultant psychiatrist at the Community Mental Health Centre in Maastricht. He is now visiting professor at the Mental Health Policy Centre, Birmingham City University in Birmingham.

Romme has stated that schizophrenia "is a harmful concept" and that delusions, hearing voices and hallucinations, so-called "symptoms" of schizophrenia are not related to an illness but may be reactions to traumatic and troubling events in life.

He is also credited with developing Experience Focussed Counselling together with Dr. Sandra Escher & Joachim Schnackenberg.