FILMAKERS LIBRARY
PSYCHOLOGY
Untangling the Mind
The Legacy of Dr. Heinz Lehmann
Produced by Catherine Mullins for Green Lion Productions
This
riveting documentary shows the transformation that has occurred in psychiatric
care through the pioneering work of Dr. Heinz Lehmann. When Dr. Lehmann fled
Nazi Germany to Montreal in 1937, he devoted the next sixty years to finding
new and more humane treatments for the mentally ill. One of his dramatic achievements,
captured on archival film, was a series of experiments involving intense human
contact with his most regressed women patients. They had spent their days smearing
feces on the wall, but by the end of the treatment were nicely dressed and participating
in activities.
But Dr. Lehmann’s greatest legacy came with a single pill – Largactil
– the first anti-psychotic drug used in North America. By successfully
treating patients with this drug, Lehmann introduced the world to the idea that
biology plays a role in mental illness.
While Untangling the Mind is a record of Lehmann’s perseverance
and humanity, it is also an important historical record. Extraordinary archival
footage of doctors performing electric shock therapy and lobotomies demonstrate
how far psychiatric medicine has come.
The film takes us to the world’s leading brain research center in Washington,
D.C. where Lehmann’s remarkable work is being taken to the next level.
This film will be an indispensable resource for courses in the history of psychiatry.
54 min. Video or DVD. Sale $295. Video rental $75.
Chris Statuette Columbus Film Festival, 2000
Western Psychology Association, 2000
Best Documentary, Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival, 2000
Certificate of Merit, Golden Gate Awards Competition, 2000
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