Movies for Mental Patients
Every Thursday I work in the Adult Mental Health Assessment Unit located in a separate building on the other side of the road to the Hospital. I like it there, the atmosphere is a lot more relaxed, the patients aren’t confined to their bedrooms and are mostly friendly (drugs could have something to do with it) and the exchange of dialogue and mannerisms I see from the patients whom I interact with on that one day are always interesting. Not a sterile environment like in the film ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ and nothing like the main hospital environment either.
Not to divulge any harmful, confidential patient behavior that could irrevocably ruin reputations, but I’ve seen Karate moves aimed at the wind that would make Jackie Chan fall off his bench in amazement, and dance moves so fly if they opened a studio they’d put any competition out of business. It is a very comforting atmosphere for patients to feel safe and get well in. Plus the cleaner down there gives me pots of jelly and fruit which is nice of her. I never eat the stuff.
Two weeks ago while passing the lounge in intensive care I saw a bushy-browed Brad Dourif on the telly and had to back-step to do a double take. He’s one of my favourite character actors and anything with Dourif in it is bound to be special. Well the movie that they were playing for the unfortunate viewers was DUNE (not David Lynch’s cut but Alan Smithee’s version, Alan Smithee is an official pseudonym used by film directors who wish to disown a project, coined in 1968) which is one of the most heavy and trippy sci-fi films someone unaccustomed with science-fiction could ever watch. Why were they screening that for mentally unstable South Aucklanders? Then again, I doubt any of the wardens even knew what the movie was.
Dourif is in a great many of my favourite films. I recall him also starring in a memorable episode of The X-Files (“Beyond the Sea” S01E13) where he claimed being able to communicate with ghosts as a conduit for messages from the spirit world. The story revolved around the skeptic come believer, Agent Dana Scully for a change, who had recently lost her Father (played by the late Don Sinclair Davis) and whose religious beliefs coincided with Brad Dourif’s visions of a murderer loose on the streets. It was a great role reversal for the two agents. X-Files baby. Good episode. I remember way back in Primary and Intermediate school when no kid was allowed up past their bed-time, I used to tell my friends X-Files stories (sometimes only half way) so well that I’m still being reminded of that to this day. Good times.
*Ahem* To conclude; last Thursday I passed that same lounge and noticed, standing out like a mound of red sand, the awful Liz Hurley and Brendon Fraser in Bedazzled, which is a story about receiving wishes from the devil in return for a soul. In my opinion, this is another strange movie to be screening in a mental ward. Not to mention screening for anyone for that matter because that movie blows.
This is a small observation I made and I’m not suggestion brainwashing patients with movies, but perhaps the content of the movies that the Wards choose to show could help relieve patient anxiety. What do you think? Keep it PG, CMDHB.
What is Mental Illness?
Mental illness is a clinically significant behaviour or psychological (to do with the mind) disorder that is associated with distress or disability. It is not just the way someone responds to a particular event nor is it limited to the way a person interacts with society.
A mental illness can continuously or intermittently (occasionally) affect our capacity for speech, language, mood, affect, thoughts, perceptions, insight, judgement, cognition (understanding) and volition (ability to make choices). It can limit our ability to function as society would normally expect of us and can put us and others at risk.
Mental illness is therefore, a broad term that covers problems ranging from minor to severe disorders.
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