Thursday 16 January 2014

Some more things that may have contributed to the making of 'The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland'


Watching the 1967 Frederick Wiseman documentary ‘Titicut Follies’ in 2003 and again in 2013

Reading hundreds of books on the subject, amongst them ‘What is Madness?’ by Darian Leader and ‘The Myth of Mental Illness’ by Thomas Szasz

Rereading ‘Awakenings’ by Oliver Sacks and trying very hard to watch the sentimental film again

Being mesmerized by the Roy Anderson films ‘You the Living’ and ‘Songs from the Second Floor’

Watching 'The Bothersome Man' for the third time, saying it’s for research purposes, although it wasn’t really

Reading Auden’s Christmas Oratorio while trying to write a Chorus for ‘The Eradication’

Watching a documentary about Brian Blackwell, who had narcissistic personality disorder, killed his parents and then took his girlfriend on an expensive holiday to the States, fantasizing that he was a professional tennis player  

Downloading the Finnish saga ‘The Story of Burnt Njal’ with a view to plagiarizing it for our Chorus

Revisiting Anouilh’s ‘Antigone,’ in which I played the messenger at university. ‘The queen! The queen! Where is the queen?’

Seeing Alan Ayckbourn's ‘The Norman Conquests’ in Liverpool because a character's exit from one play corresponds with an entrance in another and this is something we would like to try

Meeting Ben Sessa, psychiatrist and author of The Psychedelic Renaissance, and hearing him talk passionately about the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelic drugs

Visiting systemic family therapists in the Tavistock Centre who tell us about a man called Jaakko Seikkula who’s developed a dialogic approach to treating psychosis - Open Dialogue – that’s practically eradicated schizophrenia from Western Lapland

Driving to Western Lapland with David Woods 

Stopping on the motorway to take some photos, marveling at the special quality of the light and getting covered in mosquitoes

Searching for Keropoudas Hospital, where Open Dialogue began

Meeting a drunk man in a Tornio pub and finding out he’d been in Keropoudas Hospital
  
Wondering if an apparently deranged man in the street in Tornio is pissing or masturbating or both

Being welcomed by Timo Haaraniemi at Keropoudas Hospital and taking part in an impromptu simulated Open Dialogue session

Attending a Dialogic Practices conference in Hameenlinna and being over-awed by Jaakko Seikkula, Peter Rober, Professor John Shotter, Markku Sutela and just about everyone there

Tolerating uncertainty

Witnessing Jaakko Seikkula and colleagues disco dancing on the last night of the conference in Hameenlinna


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