The Wounded Healer Film
Together with filmmakers from the London College of Communication we successfully secured funding from the Institute of Inner Vision to commission the production of The Wounded Healer documentary film. A synopsis of the Wounded Healer film can be found below. We are currently screening the Wounded Healer film in international film festivals, conferences and events worldwide (including London, Sydney, Cambridge and Berlin)
The Wounded Healer film (HD documentary film, 31 mins, colour). The genesis of this half hour film is "The Wounded Healer", an innovative anti-stigma lecture targeted at medical students given by medical practitioner Dr Ahmed Hankir. The power of the highly dramatic lecture is that Dr Hankir is 'honest, open and proud' about his own mental health experience. The subjectivity and the immediacy of connection with the audience challenges medical students and doctors to confront their responsibility towards their own mental health.
Psychiatric discourse tends to reduce and objectify the 'client' by treating him/her as a 'case history' that is a predictable repertoire of manifestations or symptoms. Dr Hankir's lecture unsettles clinical categories through the paradox of the archetype the "wounded healer" - the biomedical professional who offers us a glimpse of his own radical subjectivity. This dichotomy is explored through cinematic representation of the subversive and experiential qualities of an autobiographical presentation. Dr Hankir's concept to destabilise conventional and stigmatising representations of mental illness offers powerful potential to reach a wide audience.