Tonight 10 pm ET: “Bedlam” featuring Dr. E Fuller Torrey Premieres on ITVS. Don’t Miss It!
Over the past seven decades, our nation has demolished desperately needed psychiatric treatment facilities. Care for people in mental health crises has fallen to the “safety net” systems that can’t turn people away, with emergency departments, homeless shelters, and our nation’s jails and prisons serving as de facto mental health treatment facilities.
In 44 states, a jail or prison holds more mentally ill individuals than the largest remaining state psychiatric hospital; in every county in the U.S. with both a county jail and a county psychiatric facility, more seriously mentally ill individuals are incarcerated than hospitalized. Nowhere is the relationship between the loss of treatment bed and the criminalization of mental illness more apparent than in the documentary film, “Bedlam” premiering tonight at 10 pm ET on Independent Lens.
“Bedlam,” directed and produced by U.S., psychiatrist and documentarian Kenneth Paul Rosenberg, MD, takes viewers inside the failures of our nation’s mental illness treatment system. The film chronicles what happens when individuals and their families are left with few options for treatment while in crisis, leading to emergency rooms or jails serving as the first line of defense.
The deeply thought-provoking film also features commentary from expert voices including psychiatrist, schizophrenia researcher, author and founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center, Dr. E. Fuller Torrey.
Don’t miss these features before tonight’s premiere:
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We invite you to watch the clip of a bonus scene from the film featuring Dr. E. Fuller Torrey with mental health care advocate and Black Lives Matters co-founder, Patrisse Cullors. In the clip, Cullors and Dr. Fuller Torrey discuss family experience with mental illness and the need for advocates in the efforts to reform our systems of care.
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Read coverage of the film from CNN and Psychiatry Advisor featuring data from the Treatment Advocacy Center on the devastating effects of our nation’s psychiatric bed shortage.
Now more than ever, we unite to protect our most vulnerable citizens. Together, we can keep working to fix our nation’s outdated psychiatric treatment laws.
Click here to help support TAC’s efforts to modernize our nation’s mental illness treatment system in order to ensure individuals with severe mental illness get the treatment they need.
We hope you’ll join us tonight. Follow along on social media using the hashtag #BedlamFilmPBS.
