Content warning: This article contains mentions of suicidal ideation
It starts with a silent video of Winston Churchill with more and more loud voices and clips from the news and media accumulating on screen, talking about mental suffering and suicide, piling up in my head as I watch.
Suddenly, all goes quiet. The images transition to an animated post-apocalyptic scenario where a solitary figure with bright eyes tries to repair the cogs in their brain.
Then, the interviews begin.
This is The Mind of Others, a feature documentary that aims to challenge societal perceptions of mental illness and to humanise those we often hear as nothing but statistics. Directed by Luke Mordue, who has himself lived experience of mental illness, The Minds of Others takes viewers on an emotional journey as it explores the lives of individuals affected by various mental health conditions, and provides information on relevant clinical and scientific evidence. It uses captivating storytelling and fascinating animation to invite viewers to confront what they think they understand about mental illness, regardless of whether they have their own lived experience or not. We at Inspire the Mind are delighted to have co-produced The Mind of Others, and I am honoured that the documentary features me as one of the clinical experts. Today, we are very excited as The Minds of Others is now available for all to view on YouTube.
This touching, warm, and compassionate documentary is a auditory, visual, and intellectual roller-coaster, alternating personal stories with evidence-based information, interspersed with short, compelling animations bringing a pictorial representation of mental health difficulties.
The film features diverse perspectives, including individuals with depression and anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, eating disorders, and obsessive compulsive disorders. All individuals open up to candidly and truthfully tell their stories about their experiences with medications, therapy, diagnosis, public perception, and, at times, suicidal acts. Some are public figures in the world of mental health activism and advocacy; all are household names: the poet and broadcaster, Lemn Sissay, the author and vlogger, Jonny Benjamin, the writer and advocate, Rachel Kelly,
the psychological wellbeing practitioner, Rachel Bailey, the solicitor and writer, Sam Dalling, the mental health activist, Adam Torr, and the director himself, Luke Mordue. They provide valuable insights into the societal, cultural, and systemic factors contributing to mental health stigma.
Besides me, we also hear from other clinicians and scientists: the general practitioner, Dr Emily MacDonald, the professor of clinical psychology, Peter Kinderman, the psychotherapist, Antonia Murphy, and the consultant psychiatrists, Dr Derek Tracy. Together, we provide thought-provoking discussions regarding how we treat mental illness, each with our own perspectives. We do not agree on everything, and there is a breadth of opinions on potentially controversial topics that are relevant to me, such as psychiatric medications and the biology of mental health problems, but the views are all complementary and are expressed respectfully, based on scientific and clinical evidence.
This documentary was intended to be filmed and completed in 2018, but, in the director’s own words, “somewhat understandably and somewhat ironically”, time had to be taken out from post-production due to another fall in Luke’s mental health. Between 2019 - 2020, Luke was at his lowest, partly due to the lockdowns but in January of 2021, during the third and most harrowing lockdown, Luke decided to give it all one more go, and he had our full support.
Luke calls this documentary “a call to action” to fight back against this consistently pushed, black-and-white narrative of the world that is becoming so prevalent in society; to understand people's differences and to look a little deeper into what is going on in the minds of others, to remind us of the complexity going on in others’ lives, whilst also reminding us – and here I am using Luke’s words again – “that we are not crazy for feeling what we do … (that) we all have far more in common than we often remember.”
The production team hope to reach audiences globally and inspire a renewed commitment to understanding and supporting those affected by mental illness, and, most importantly, to a deeper level of empathy.
I am fond of a quote that Luke shared in the press release for the documentary: “It was ten years ago now that I planned to take my life. I was lucky in that I could stop before I crossed the line of no return; I was also fortunate that I had people around me who would put up with far more than I could and should have ever asked for until I got myself back on my feet.”
And this is ultimately the true message of The Mind of Others. It is not all dark.
The documentary finishes with a series of uplifting, courageous declarations from the participants, on the importance of helping people and of connecting to others.
And, at the end, the animation fills up with persons and animals surrounding the solitary figure, while the darkness dissipates as light appears in the streets and colours emerge where before it was all pitch-black.
