Mental illness documentary still transforming minds

Shadow Voices
"Shadow Voices

Certain films leave a lasting impression. Like the enduring image of the final scene in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, where Chief Bromden drifts into the shadows as the screen fades to black. He had smothered his unresponsive friend, Randle McMurphy, with a pillow after realizing surgeons had performed a lobotomy to "cure" McMurphy’s mental illness. Then Bromden rips the huge hydrotherapy console from the floor and rams it through a window, escaping from the mental health asylum just as he and McMurphy had planned.

Released in 1975, Cuckoo’s Nest won several awards, including Oscars for best picture and best actor for Jack Nicholson, who played McMurphy. It also helped inspire major improvements in mental health treatment. Yet, Cuckoo’s Nest would, for generations, also further embed in the nation’s consciousness long-held negative stereotypes that the mentally ill are violent and irrational, and that those who treat them are insensitive and even brutal.

This is partly why professor Traci Sims, who teaches a psychology course to undergraduate nursing students at an Atlanta-area university, has used the hour-long Third Way Media documentary, Shadow Voices: Finding Hope in Mental Illness, for the past five years to show her students that many people diagnosed with these illnesses lead fruitful lives.

Shadow Voices, produced in 2006 by Third Way Media, is slated for re-release for six months starting in June on the NBC television network via the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission (www.Interfaithbroadcasting.com ) at the discretion of local NBC stations.

An estimated one in four Americans (more than 54 million people) suffer from a mental illness each year, according to the National Comorbidity Survey Replication.

In the documentary, everyday people who could be anyone’s friends or neighbors, share their gut-wrenching stories of being misdiagnosed, misunderstood and mistreated. The results in many cases: years of drug abuse, suicide attempts, and tremendous pain. Yet, through faith in God, family and community support, they triumphed and live – not in institutions – but in communities.

Sims said the documentary helps her to explain complex concepts and terms such as "stigma." Most of her students, who range from their early 20s to 30s, don’t have a good grasp of the word, she said.

"When we think about stigma, it’s different than marginalizing," Sims said. "Stigma is a mark of shame, disgrace or disapproval that results in an individual being shunned or rejected. People who are mentally ill don’t want to talk about it."

Many mental illnesses, however, are as treatable and manageable as some common physical ailments such as diabetes or arthritis. Besides, anyone can encounter a major crisis – a blindsiding job loss or the death of a loved-one – and fall into a bout of depression, Sims said.

Through the documentary, students also learn that religious faith is crucial to the recovery process.

Sims shared some of her students’ responses to the documentary:

"I liked most how it contrasted the standard society view of mental health with real people who seem normal on film," wrote Clifford Robertson. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is the standard, not only for those with mental health issues, but, unfortunately, for those who work in institutions."

"I think teachers would also benefit from having a course like this, and maybe they would be able to recognize and help troubled students better and be able to refer students to professional help," wrote Tracy Chalgren.

As more students and the general public see the documentary, hopefully their impressions of mental illness will be transformed as well, Sims said.

Melodie Davis, one of the documentary’s writers, said she is excited the film has been used in a classroom, and that it still speaks to people years after its release.

"It’s very satisfying to hear that it’s six years out from when we produced Shadow Voices and it’s still relevant," she said.