“Making Sense of Paranoia & Beliefs a Lived Experience Perspective” with Peter Bullimore
January 15, 2026 | 1:30PM – 3:00PM | Virtual – Zoom
Join international speaker and trainer Peter Bullimore as he shares unique insights from lived experience into understanding and supporting individuals experiencing paranoia and unusual beliefs.
This presentation will explore:
With compassion and clarity, Peter will challenge common misconceptions and offer practical strategies to foster understanding, reduce fear, and build meaningful connections with those navigating paranoia and unusual beliefs.
Peter Bullimore
Pete Bullimore, chair of the National Paranoia Network, is testament to how powerful acceptance of and learning to work with voices and paranoia can be. Pete heard his first voice aged seven, “I heard a child’s voice telling me to keep going, that everything would be OK. It was reassuring, a bit like an imaginary friend,” he says. But as bad things happened in my life the voices increased in number, eventually turning sinister and aggressive. “They told me to set myself on fire, to slash myself and destroy myself, often 20 or 30 voices all shouting at me at once,” he says.
By his mid-twenties Pete had lost his business, his family, his home, everything. “The voices just encompassed my life; I curled up in a chair and didn’t wash or eat. “I was locked in a world of voices, paranoia and depression, and it was probably the most frightening time of my life,” he says.
Pete spent more than a decade after that on heavy medication, the voices never went away. He had to get out of the psychiatric system to recover. Once he was off the medication and he met people who shared his experiences at the Hearing Voices Network, he was able to stop being so afraid of the voices and he started to listen to them. His relationship with the voices changed and he learned the meaning of his voices and paranoia.
He now runs his own training and consultancies agencies the National Paranoia Network, Asylum Associates & the Sheffield Hearing Voices Network delivering training on hearing voices, childhood trauma, paranoia and how to use the Maastricht interview for hearing voices & problematic thoughts, beliefs and paranoia internationally. He is a guest lecturer at 21 Universities in the UK and Ireland. He has set up Maastricht Centre’s at the Radbone unit in Derby and the Hartington unit in Chesterfield in collaboration with Derby NHS trust; he has now launched a Maastricht Approach center in Bradford and a National Maastricht Center in Telford
“I wouldn’t want to get rid of my voices now, they’re part of me,” he says.
“Trauma informed Care in Leadership (Part 1)” with Michael King
January 29, 2026 | 1:30PM – 3:00PM | Virtual – Zoom
In leading communities deep in the depths of substance use and behavioral health, trauma is so often an ongoing component in the dynamic. It is critical for leaders in the these worlds to come to terms with trauma and lead from a place of responsibility:
Michael King
Michael King is a leadership trainer and coach, the Director and Creator of The Communities Project, and the Managing Principal of Impact Leadership Training & Coaching, LLC. He spent over a decade in the political arena, working on Presidential, Gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, and local campaigns, from county to state legislative efforts. He is a past Campaign Director, Field Director, Communications Director for the Washington State Democratic Party, and the former Executive Director of the Washington State Senate Democratic Campaign Committee.
The former National Director of Outreach & Engagement for Facing Addiction with NCADD, Michael is also a co-founder of a Washington state-based not-for-profit organization that empowers young people to engage in the political process. He is an alumnus of JustLeadershipUSA’s Leading with Conviction program and a graduate of the Rockwood Leadership Institute’s online Art of Leadership program.
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