Free film: Little Brother, Big Pharma

To download an updated one-page color flyer (PDF) about this free film showing, click here. 

Free Film!

The Green Your Mind Film Series Presents:

“LITTLE BROTHER BIG PHARMA”

Sponsored by: VALID, MindFreedom and Opal Network

When:  Tuesday, June 30, 2009 – 6:30 PM

Where:  Eugene Public Library Bascom-Tykeson Room, Eugene, Oregon

Free popcorn, beverages and other snacks!

Immediately following the film showing will be a discussion with film director David Heine and a panel including mental health professionals, psychiatric survivors/consumers and family members, with audience participation.

About the film “Little Brother Big Pharma”:

Danny was first put on powerful psychiatric drugs — starting with Thorazine — when he was 12. Now in his 50’s, Danny has never, until recently, envisioned a life without psychiatric drugs.

This film is about Danny’s journey and his struggle to get off or reduce his psychiatric medications. Along the way we hear from his family members, psychiatric survivors, psychiatrists, authors and mental health workers. Each thoughtfully considers the current mental health treatment paradigm in America.

Part of the film was shot in Lane County with local mental health workers and activists.

For info about The Green Your Mind Film Series contact MindFreedom International, a nonprofit coalition united to win human rights and alternatives in mental health care.

Phone: (541) 345-9106   E-mail: office@mindfreedom.org

Thanks to Helios Network for support for the GREEN MIND events. 

The next two films in the series — also to be shown at Eugene Public Library at 6:30 pm — are described below:

Tues., 28 July 2009

Take These Broken Wings

Producer/Director Daniel Mackler

Take These Broken Wings is a feature-length documentary film showing that people can recover fully from schizophrenia without psychiatric medication. The film features the untold story of bestselling author Joanne Greenberg, whose fictionalized memoir of her recovery from schizophrenia, I Never Promised You A Rose Garden, rocked the mental health world.

The film also features Catherine Penney, whose gripping tale of unmedicated recovery was chronicled by her therapist, Daniel Dorman, MD, in the book Dante’s Cure: A Journey Out of Madness.

Their accounts are interwoven with interviews of internationally renowned giants in the field of schizophrenia recovery. These include Peter Breggin, MD (author of Toxic Psychiatry), Robert Whitaker (journalist, author of Mad in America), and Bertram Karon, PhD (author of Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia: Treatment of Choice).

The result is not just an arc of a healing story, but a challenge to the current model of schizophrenia treatment – that schizophrenia is a lifelong, incurable “brain disorder” treatable only with anti-psychotic drugs.  The film coherently portrays an alternative view, in which “schizophrenia” may be an understandable response to life stress and trauma, and that recovery is possible in the context of healing relationships.

Trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnzIlwLDBY4

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Tues., 25 August 2009

The Doctor Who Hears Voices

Producer/director:  Leo Regan

This film tells the true story of Ruth, a junior doctor, who has begun to hear a male voice telling her to kill herself. Suspended from her job, she turns to clinical psychologist Rufus May who is known for his unconventional approach to treating people with severe mental health problems.  (Rufus  has a special expertise on the subject:  he was himself diagnosed with “schizophrenia” at age 18.)

Although she admitted feeling depressed and suicidal to her employers, Ruth knows they would have sacked her immediately if she had told them about the voice.

The film follows Ruth’s unorthodox journey with Rufus as she strives to combat the voice and regain her job.

Trailer at http://tinyurl.com/doctor-who-hears-voices