A film about spiritual emergency, Emerging Proud, is produced by the founder of the Emerging Proud campaign, Katie Mottram. Her documentary re- frames madness as a catalyst for positive transformation.
Katie Mottram worked in the mental health field for fifteen years. But when she experienced her own breakdown, she thought it was more of a breakthrough. She decided not to turn to the mental health services for help because she knew they would see it differently. She knew they would pathologise her, medicate her and worst case scenario, section her.
Katie says she received guidance from spirit during her crisis, telling her that she was a vehicle to bring a new conceptual framework into western psychiatry. She quit her job, wrote a book ‘Mend The Gap’ and now helps others who are going through a similar process of spiritual emergency.
Emerging Proud is a campaign that provides hope – that breaking down does not mean we are broken. It means that we can be amidst a difficult journey to ‘breakthrough’. In the same way that the caterpillar completely dissolves before emerging as a butterfly from its chrysalis, the human ‘emergence’ process can look exactly the same. Emerging Proud aims to add to the voices aiming to create a society in which it feels safer to speak out about our extreme experiences without fear of being told there is something wrong with us, or that we are “crazy”.
Emerging Proud the film features accounts of people telling their personal transformation journey story, to show that it is possible to go from breakdown to breakthrough; what kinds of things they experienced, and what helped them to work their way out of the chrysalis. Personal story- sharing is one of the things people say is a helpful tool in the recovery journey. You can order the DVD here.