Film screenings explore cinematic depictions of mental health
By: News Archive
Academics from the University of East Anglia (UEA) have organised free film screenings for Mental Health Awareness Week that will engage mental health professionals and members of the public in discussions about how mental health issues are represented in cinema.
The films will be screened at Cinema City, Norwich, with Family Life (1971) showing on Monday 14 May and The Three Faces of Eve (1957) on Tuesday 15 May. Both films are based on true stories and were made in consultation with psychiatrists, but offer very different perspectives on psychiatric diagnosis and treatment.
The Ken Loach film Family Life was made in consultation with the Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing, a key figure in the 1960s antipsychiatry movement. While the Hollywood film The Three Faces of Eve (1957) is based on a best-selling book by two American psychiatrists who worked with a client they diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder in the 1950s, now termed Dissociative Identity Disorder.
The film screenings are being delivered as part of the UEA-led research project “Demons of the Mind” which explores interactions between cinema and Psychological Sciences during the late 1950s through to the mid-1970s.
The “Demons of the Mind” project is a collaboration between media studies, medical history and science communication academics from UEA and the University of Manchester, delivered in partnership with the British Science Association. The project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Project Lead Dr Tim Snelson, Senior Lecturer in Media History at UEA, said: “This historical period was a time of intense struggles over knowledge about the human mind, with psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychoanalysts in deep conflict.
“Cinema became preoccupied with psychological ideas, becoming an increasingly significant way in which new theories and research were disseminated and debated within the public sphere.”
Following the film screenings there will be panel discussion between UEA academics and mental health professionals from organisations including Driftwood Counselling, The Pottergate Centre for Dissociation and Trauma, and First Person Plural.
Dr Snelson added: “The films will prompt discussions about how cinema represents conditions such as dissociative identity disorder and schizophrenia, and the influence this might have had on professional and public perceptions then and now.”
The Family Life screening is at 5.30-8pm on Monday 14 May and The Three Faces of Eve is at 5.30pm-8pm on Tuesday 15 May.
Related Articles
Nurses worldwide rely on intuition to triage patients
Nurses around the world use intuition to work out how sick a patient is before triaging for treatment according to new research from the University of East Anglia.
Read more
UEA nursing apprentice’s sky-high dive for Alzheimer's and Dementia awareness
On Sunday 24 September, University of East Anglia (UEA) nursing apprentice Francessca Turrell will be taking part in a charity skydive for Alzheimers Society, a UK care and research charity for people with dementia and their carers.
Read more
New book to focus on Norwich’s medieval logos
Logo Rewind: Trademarks of Medieval Norwich is a new book from UEA Publishing Project, in collaboration with CreativeUEA and featuring the work of Darren Leader, which will focus on the stories of Norwichs medieval merchants marks found in different locat
Read more