RYL Forums - BBC4- Sectioned and Mental: A History of the Madhouse

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BBC4- Sectioned and Mental: A History of the Madhouse

I thought some of you would be interested in two upcoming programmes on BBC4.

The first is called Mental: A History of the Madhouse and is on Monday at 9pm.

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Documentary which tells the fascinating and poignant story of the closure of Britain's mental asylums. In the post-war period, 150,000 people were hidden away in 120 of these vast Victorian institutions all across the country. Today, most mental patients, or service users as they are now called, live out in the community and the asylums have all but disappeared. Through powerful testimonies from patients, nurses and doctors, the film explores this seismic revolution and what it tells us about society's changing attitudes to mental illness over the last sixty years.

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The second one is called Sectioned and is on Wednesday at 9pm.

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BBC4 is to air a groundbreaking documentary about the mental health system that follows people who have been sectioned.
For the first time, programme-makers have been given consent to film three people as they pass through the UK's mental health system.
The makers of the documentary, called Sectioned, were also granted unprecedented access to one of the largest mental health trusts in the UK, Nottinghamshire healthcare trust.
Independent producer, Maverick Television, which also makes Embarrassing Bodies for Channel 4, spent months trying to find contributors for the programme.
The programme-makers also had to establish a protocol to ensure those being filmed were capable of giving consent each time they were on camera and spent weeks working with the BBC's compliance and legal teams to ensure the documentary would not leave itself open to criticism.
Sectioned followed three men, Andrew, Richard and Anthony, for between six weeks and five months as they battled with mental health issues.
Richard, a young man in his 30s, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, sectioned and brought into the intensive care mental health unit after threatening a neighbour with a knife. One of his symptoms is hearing voices and the film covers the run up to Christmas Day, when the voices were telling him to kill himself, which he planned to do with a heroin overdose.
Andrew, a retired NHS consultant pathologist, was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder more than 20 years ago, while 54-year-old Anthony has to go to hospital every fortnight to receive anti-psychotic medication.
Ben Anthony, who directed the documentary, said: "It was a big issue because obviously people with mental health problems that are so ill they are around a hospital environment, the question was about do they have the capability to understand? We relied on repeatedly getting their consent every time we filmed with anyone in the hospital."
He added: "We had to get on camera their consent and have them clarify what the documentary is about. With people as vulnerable as this we have to be especially careful."
He said that despite the upsetting aspects of filming, there were comic moments and that the contributors all said they had gained something from taking part in the 60-minute programme.
"We wanted to demystify what the treatment is for people who are sectioned. And we hope it will help break down the stigma surrounding it," he added.
Sectioned was made in partnership with the Open University and produced by Lucy Cohen. It will air on BBC4 next Wednesday, 19 May, and is part of the BBC's mental health and wellbeing campaign Headroom.

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Thanks for sharing! I will be watching! :) xxx

Thanks, I'll watch these if I can.

**%$£ "ability to understand"?
We still have brains!

Unfortunate title for one. Very.

And why all men?
Because women would feel/be too vulnerable in a vulnerable state?

Sorry, blah day.

I may watch this. I still think there should still be asylums, but hey ho.

I'm going to watch them if I remember they're on.

I think it's a good thing that it's following 3 males maybe it will help cut the stigma around men and mental illness.

Although I'll probably already know most of, I'm going to watch these if I can or iPlayer them most likely.

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Originally Posted by Rawrk (Post 2296249)

I may watch this. I still think there should still be asylums, but hey ho.

How come?

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Originally Posted by Rawrk (Post 2296249)

I may watch this. I still think there should still be asylums, but hey ho.

Why?

I might watch it on iplayer, but probably not right now :sad:

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Originally Posted by Stellata (Post 2296069)

**% "ability to understand"?
We still have brains!

Unfortunate title for one. Very.

And why all men?
Because women would feel/be too vulnerable in a vulnerable state?

Sorry, blah day.

Well, men are usually the people involved in most studies for therapies and medication, etc, so it doesn't really surprise me....Dumb, but true. But there's the whole notion of women and "hysteria," so it could go the other way too......you know?

Is there a website I could watch these on? I'm in the US...

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**% "ability to understand"?
We still have brains!

That was my first thought and I agree with you for most people even with severe mental health problems, however I think it is worth understanding that someone who was very very ill at that moment in time, e.g hallucinating, incoherent, extremely paranoid might not actually be capable of fully understanding at that time.

Why do you still think there should be asylums Tiff? I'm sure you know what went on in those places.

I resented this comment though:

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Today, most mental patients, or service users as they are now called,

I will probably do as I do with most things on mental health - sit there whinging at the TV & saying 'that's not true' or 'what a load of sh*t'... but I will watch it anyway!

not going to be able to watch!argh, if anyone finds links that can be watched in other countries post them! =D

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Originally Posted by Mannequin of Misery (Post 2296945)

I will probably do as I do with most things on mental health - sit there whinging at the TV & saying 'that's not true' or 'what a load of sh*t'... but I will watch it anyway!

Sounds like we'll be doing the same thing! =P

The thing to remember when watching programmes such as these is that they are not aimed at people currently/who have previously suffered from a mental illness. We're not the ones that they need to raise awareness to. We already know most of it. It's average joe and his wife on the street, that do still call people "mental patients" and stuff, that they need to educate.

So no, not all of it may be right, and you may disagree with how they portray stuff etc, but what I have found is that that was because I couldn't step back and see it from someone that has never experienced anything like this point of view.

I hope that makes sense!

Yeah it does- I never thought of that =) Cheers

It's been produced by the Open University, no? It'll be a bit more balanced than your average, at least in my experience.

For those not in the UK, there are plenty of books on this subject, although will probably be quite expensive. The OU also have a information 'pack' that comes with the programme, as far as I am aware, and they may be willing to post it internationally.

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Originally Posted by I.Heart.Hobbit (Post 2296756)

How come?

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Originally Posted by MissAnonymous (Post 2296773)

Why?

Because some people really are ill enough to need to be contained in a place where skilled people can help them. Some people do get bad enough that they can never safely live in a community, especially with CAMHS barely checking up on people who leave hospital and leaving them to deal on their own. Just look at the poor people who are left to their own devices with a serious mental health problem and how they either end up killing other people or themselves, because they can't get enough help.

There should be rigorous checks and things to make sure that people have to be there, but at the end of the day, it may help people better than just letting them live in the community.

^ I concur. However I don't like the term 'mental asylum'.

A Secure Psychiatric Unit would be perfect :)