Theories, Ideas and supporting documents

Matt has developed new concepts and Ideas in the field of mental health.

Content in preparation. Check back for further content:

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Dissociachotic:

​"The experience of animation and giving life to being at variance of companionship to self for the survival of self in relationship to interpersonal threat from other" - Ball & Picot, 2023.

"Dissociachotic is a neologism developed by Matthew Ball, combining dissociation and psychosis (Ball and Picot, 2023). It reframes psychosis not as a broken brain, but as an extreme form of dissociation – a response to contexts of overwhelming trauma, loss or oppression and other bad life situations (Moskowitz et al., 2019). JL challenges pathologizing frameworks of schizophrenia or psychosis: Hearing voices, delusions, or altered states are reframed as deeply meaningful responses to trauma or existential crises (Corstens et al., 2018). Dissociachotic experiences can be understood to be communicative if we are willing to listen without interruption so that a person can share the narrative behind the expression. Thus, this framework underpins JLs call for justice-oriented listening: where the goal is not control or correction, but deep witnessing and co-regulation as described by Mosher (1999)." Nsiah et al, 2025.

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Dissociachotic: Seeing the non-psychosis we share -  pre-publication vers.

https://youtu.be/lXR7g8EWV04?si=WaYRN9ToI7jpcp5a

Public video content - Playlist: 

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv_GicK5Mk-NzdDsfvFDs1WLid06V8dxF&si=Aht1xuErGClQcK9D

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Suicide Narratives

"Suicide Narratives (Ball et al., 2020) as a concept explores how people make sense of suicidality not as an outcome of a damaged brain and faulty thought process, but as a deeply human response to pain, oppression and meaning-loss. It reframes suicide away from “risk to be managed” toward “story to be heard.”

Suicide Narratives provides a functional framework to embed psychosocial understanding and responses to suicide risk, consistent with NICE guideline on Self-harm: assessment, management and preventing recurrence (NG225) that places the imperative on a psychosocial approach over a risk prediction model (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence [NICE], 2022)." - Nsiah et al, 2025.​

Selected Publications related to Suicide Narratives

Suicide Narratives: Healing Through Knowing  - Original Suicide Narratives paper 2020

Public Suicide Narratives video content:

​Suicide Narratives webinar: https://youtu.be/GLXmhVjHb0Y?si=CAZ--TQFqBjPtIZv

​2024 - 8th Vilnius Conference on Suicide Intervention Methods / Matt Ball, Rory Ritchie and Berny Maywald

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Just Listening 

​"Just Listening‘s novelty lies in emphasizing the concept of “giving justice to a person’s story by listening,” listening in a just way (Ball et al., 2022; Just Listening Community, 2024). Improved mental wellbeing is almost a by-product of connection enacted in the process of listening. Justice in this context means that the listener allows the story to unfold without offering judgement, opinion, solutions or inserting their own similar stories (Ball et al., 2022; Just Listening Community, 2024). In a nutshell, the listener is not listening with the intention to fix or respond, but to provide space and empathy to allow the speaker to hear themselves out loud (Ball et al., 2022; Just Listening Community, 2024). This also enables the listener to listen to their own inner voices and impulses to respond (Just Listening Community, 2024). It is in the context of a person being supported to hear their own story, through the process of Just Listening, that the individual can hear their own experiences in a new way, a way that creates opportunity to process the impact of events in their lives, be these work or personal difficulties." Nsiah et al, 2023.

Selected publications related to Just Listening: ​

https://justlistening.com.au/publications/ 

Content developed through GP scholarship project in London: https://nwltraininghub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/1-page-JL-A4-Anna-DENTSCHUK-1.pdf

​Video content relating to Just Listening:

Reflections on the ethical principles of Just Listening: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv_GicK5Mk-OHwQQHGUruOpCLSvTHJWJ1&si=LyVVCFk3n74UbODw

Just Listening short film: https://vimeo.com/798641930?fl=pl&fe=vl

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Humane Clinic supervision model

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