Take These Broken Wings. Recovery from Schizophrenia Without Medication. A documentary by Daniel Mackler

Last month, Gianna had a post on her blog, announcing New York-therapist Daniel Mackler's documentary Take These Broken Wings. Recovery from Schizophrenia Without Medication.

I'd been visiting Daniel Mackler's website a couple of times in the past, and thought 'I need to get hold of this, it can only be awesome.'

And awesome it is! The film's main interest is to show that recovery from what psychiatry calls "schizophrenia" is possible, that "schizophrenia" is not per se a lifelong, chronic condition, that needs lifelong - and, by the way, often chronifying - medication. And, in fact, as the documentary looks at both the scientific data, reported by Robert Whitaker, the stories of Joanne Greenberg and Catherine Penney, told by themselves, and the experiences of several professionals, among them Peter Breggin, Ann-Louise Silver, Bertram Karon and Daniel Dorman, it becomes, once more, clear that recovery, full recovery, from "schizophrenia" isn't only possible, but should be expected as a matter of course.



There are especially two among the many aspects in regard to treatment and recovery the film mentions, that are intriguing to me: the difference in quality of a recovery, that is achieved without drugs, compared to a "recovery" on drugs - if at all a recovery, that still requires maintenance medication, can be termed as such - on the one hand,



and the stark discrepancy between today's "best practice" and the kind of help for people in crisis, Peter Breggin among others, advocates for, on the other.



What does it tell me about our society in general, our culture's preferences, that we, in spite of a fundamental lack of proof for its efficacy and in spite of the fact that alternatives, that have been proven to be efficient, are available, nevertheless continue to almost exclusively treat "the most vulnerable people" in the most inhumane way imaginable?

Although the film focusses on psychotherapy as treatment, Daniel Mackler acknowledges, that this is not the one and only way to recover from "schizophrenia". All roads lead to Rome, one might say. All but one.

Just as the stories of most - if not all - people diagnozed with "schizophrenia", also Joanne Greenberg's and Catherine Penney's stories are stories of childhood trauma, while their recovery stories are those of becoming aware of the trauma, working it through, understanding it - and their reaction to it. And, obviously, there are many ways of becoming aware and understanding. While there is one way, that more efficiently than anything else suppresses, even reduces, awareness and understanding, and turns out to be a dead end in the long run: lifelong "maintenance" medication, in combination with the conviction, that "schizophrenia" is a chronic, biological brain disease, caused by a chemical imbalance, its "symptoms" thus being completely without meaning, and not worth being subjected to a closer investigation - with the guidance of a psychotherapist for instance.



Take These Broken Wings is a brilliant defence of not only psychotherapy, but all alternative approaches to crisis, that aim at understanding rather than at the mere suppression of "symptoms". At the same time it manages to, convincingly, debunk the medical model, while it navigates successfully around the trap of carrying on an aggressive controversy against psychiatry, or glorifying crisis as such.




The cutting of Take These Broken Wings with rather rapidly alternating sequences from the various interviews, that serve as the film's basis, and its subtle humour and poetic choice of images, make Take These Broken Wings also on an artistic level a treat to watch.

If there is one thing about this documentary, that is a little disturbing in my opinion, it is the collision of its philosophy with its terminology. And since I regard language as extremely important - as a means of identification - I couldn't but had to let Daniel Mackler know about my concern:

"The whole concept is so refreshingly non-pathologizing, and then, anyway: 'mental illness', 'schizophrenia', 'the schizophrenics'. 

I'd so like to see that label abolished. And the pathologizing of these states of mind, it inevitably comes along with, no matter what. In retrospect, I realized, that all that had happened to me was nothing but a somewhat 'exaggerated normality'. With the extent of exaggeration of my reactions perfectly corresponding to the extent of exaggeration of the circumstances, my experiences were a belated reaction to. That seems pretty natural, even healthy to me. Not at all ill in any way. I'd say, it would have been 'ill' to react less exaggerated. The question is, if 'illness' is something that threatens one's - physical or mental - health (like the traumatizing abusiveness of our civilization), or if it is one's natural, self-preserving reaction to the threat, that is the 'illness'. And where would one draw the line between 'normal' confusion, fear, anger, and 'schizophrenia', i.e. a whole lot of confusion, fear, and anger? Personally, I wouldn't venture to think, that I ever could. Joanne Greenberg says at some point, that 'every schizophrenic knows how sick he is,' and that she thinks, 'he knows how far he is from the center of his own being.' Well, when I look around, I see almost nothing but people, "normal" people, who are miles and miles away from the center of their own being. They're just not aware of it. If 'schizophrenia' exists as an illness, these people are the 'healthy' ones, while those, who are becoming aware, are the 'sick' ones. Definitely. But if being this far away from the center of one's own being is the real illness - and I tend to believe that - then the so-called 'schizophrenics' are the ones, who actually are recovering from this illness called 'normality'.

This maybe sounds a bit far-fetched, but nevertheless I think, it hits the nail on the head: one of Germany's leading experts in horses once said, that there is no horse, who is too sway-backed, too short-legged, too nervous, or too whatever. There only are horses who are sway-backed, short-legged, nervous, etc. Now, 'schizophrenia' sounds to me like 'too afraid, too confused, too angry'. While I think, there is no such thing as 'too' in regard to (human) behavior, in regard to (human) emotions and reactions.

To me, having to label myself explicitly (for holy, indispensable insight's sake...) was maybe the most painful experience throughout the whole therapy process. Just as I'd thought that eventually someone was really seeing me, this someone asked me to close my eyes to myself, to explain myself away, instead of to become aware of myself. Anticlimax."

Well, there is an explanation for the film's choice of terminology. And there also is this guy, at Washington Square Park, who says: "It's a gift, not a mental illness, a gift." He's right. That's what it is.

You can order the film here, and watch the trailers and more clips at Daniel Mackler's YouTube channel.