CEP-UK and AntidepressantRisks. org present Medicating Normal - the film, and Q&A

Join the Council for Evidence-Based Psychiatry and AntidepressantRisks.org for a virtual community screening of Medicating Normal, a 76-minute documentary film that follows the stories of five high-functioning people whose doctors prescribed pills to help with common problems such as stress, depression, insomnia and grief with devastating impact on their lives. It is the untold story of the serious consequences that can occur when profit-driven medicine intersects with human beings in distress (Click here to view the film's trailer). There will be an interactive community discussion immediately after the film. 

Schedule for Wednesday, January 26, 2022 

7:00 pm - 8:15 pm GMT* -- Welcome and Film Screening

8:15 pm - 9:30 pm GMT*-- Post-Screening Panel Discussion and Q&A with the audience

*Note: All times above are in GMT (Greenwich Mean Time). To determine the event date/time in your location, click here to use Time Zone Converter. Or, at the very bottom of this registration page, a black box will appear asking you to allow Dandelion (the registration page's host) to ‘Set Time Zone’ to your location; please accept that setting.

Post-Screening Panelists include:

Luke Montagu, is an entrepreneur who now spends most of his time managing his family’s estate at Mapperton in West Dorset. After graduating from Columbia University, Luke founded a series of technology, education and media businesses. In 2003 he co-founded the Met Film School, which he led as CEO until 2009.  In 2104 Luke co-founded the Council for Evidence-based Psychiatry, a group of experts committed to reducing the harm caused by the overprescribing of psychiatric drugs.  Luke is a founding member of the Secretariat for the All Party Parliamentary Group for Prescribed Drug Dependence and was a committee member for the NICE guideline on Safe Prescribing and Withdrawal Management.  Luke is also chair of the trustees for the Dalai Lama Centre for Compassion which produces courses to promote compassion in schools.

Katinka Blackford Newman is a BBC trained documentary film-maker who lives in London. Her interest in psychiatric drugs began in 2012 when she nearly lost her life because of an adverse reaction to an antidepressant. She was hospitalised and prescribed more drugs which made her extremely ill. After a year she was lucky to be taken off all the drugs and made a full recovery. She researched the side effects of antidepressants and wrote a best-selling book, ‘The Pill That Steals Lives , One Woman's Terrifying Journey to Discover the Truth about Antidepressants.' In 2017 her research was made into a BBC Panorama programme  'A Prescription for Murder' which investigated whether an antidepressant could be the cause of one of the worst mass killings of this century. She has been interviewed on radio and TV about her experience and writes articles for national newspapers. She is co-founder of a not for profit organisation Antidepressantrisks.org which gives a platform to those who have been harmed to tell their stories. 

Rachel Kelly is a bestselling writer, public speaker and mental health campaigner. She writes regularly for the press and gives TV and radio interviews to help educate and break down the stigma around mental illness in her role as an ambassador for several mental health charities. She also shares evidence-based strategies on how to stay calm and well and is the author of four books covering her experience of depression and recovery and her steps to wellbeing from poetry to nutrition. Rachel speaks at events and wellbeing workshops, sharing her motivational and holistic approach to good mental health. She is an official ambassador for Rethink Mental Illness, HeadTalks, SANE and The Counselling Foundation. Her books include her memoir Black Rainbow about her expression of depression and three subsequent books about her recovery and how to stay calm and well - Walking on Sunshine: 52 Small Steps to Happiness; The Happy Kitchen: Good Mood Food; and Singing in the Rain: An inspirational workbook published in January 2019. She is a member of the Speakers Collective, a group of speakers with lived experience of mental health conditions. 

 Dr Anne Guy, UKCP (Reg), MBACP (Accred) is a psychotherapist in private practice, having previously worked as a lecturer at the University of Roehampton. She is a member of the Council for Evidence-Based Psychiatry, the secretariat co-ordinator for the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Prescribed Drug Dependence and an associate member of the Institute for Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal. She is the lead editor for the “Guidance for Psychological Therapists: Enabling Conversations with Clients Taking or Withdrawing from Psychiatric Drugs” created in collaboration with leading UK therapy organisations and academics. She has co-authored articles on patients’ and therapists’ experiences of psychiatric drugs and reports for the APPG describing current and potential service models for supporting prescribed drug dependence in the UK. She chairs the Withdrawal Services Working Group convened to define patients’ needs and sits on the NHS Advisory Group for the NHSE&I programme considering the implementation of PHE’s recommendations for action on prescribed drug dependence.

The panel discussion and Q&A will be moderated by: Angela Peacock, MSW, subject of the film, Medicating Normal.

Synopsis: Medicating Normal follows the journeys of a newly married couple, a female combat veteran, a waitress and a teenager whose doctors prescribed psychiatric drugs for stress, depression, sleeplessness, focus and trauma. Our subjects struggle with serious physical and mental side effects as well as neurological damage which resulted from taking the drugs as prescribed and also from attempting to withdraw. 

Review: “Medicating Normal is a powerful and moving film about the damage that is done by the inappropriate medicalisation of human predicaments and the reckless prescribing of psychiatric drugs. The film reveals the harm done to its subjects whose lives were derailed by prescribed medicines, and it shows the courage and determination it took to get off the drugs. Watch it and weep for all the others who have been harmed in this way- I did!” -Professor Joanna Moncrieff, University College London, London, UK

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If you are in need of a gratis (scholarship) ticket, please email medicatingnormal@gmail.com for a ‘no questions asked’ free ticket. 

Accessibility: If you have any accessibility needs or need language subtitles, please contact us at: medicatingnormal@gmail.com