Documentary
2026 United Kingdom
25 minutes
Language: English
Director: Emma Goude
Producer: www.greenlanefilms.co.uk
Synopsis from the producer
OPEN DIALOGUE & THE ODDESSI TRIAL follows the journey of Emma Goude, author of My Beautiful Psychosis, who spent three years filming the Peer Supported Open Dialogue training in the UK. Following the progress of the ODDESSI trial, which has been evaluating the effectiveness of Open Dialogue outside of Finland, Emma is keen to know what the results are. For someone who has experienced six hospital admissions, she wonders what her life would have looked like if she’d had Open Dialogue.
Summary
When award-winning filmmaker Emma Goude was commissioned in 2014 to film the NHS Open Dialogue training for online educational purposes, she realised she had been given access to a unique inner circle of mental health professionals. Already familiar with Open Dialogue, Finland’s arguably greatest export, through Daniel Mackler’s influential film, which he generously made available via YouTube, Emma wanted to add to this offering by documenting actual network meetings. Her hope was that by seeing people come together and talk as a group, those unfamiliar with the approach might become more open to this new way of providing mental healthcare.
Emma’s interest in Open Dialogue is also deeply personal. She has experienced severe mental health crises and seven hospital admissions, three of them under the Mental Health Act, for what was labelled psychosis. Having never received Open Dialogue herself, she became increasingly curious about what her life might have looked like had this approach been available to her.
Over three years of filming, Emma developed relationships with both the mental health professionals delivering Open Dialogue and the people experiencing it. The approach emphasises relational, network-based care, bringing together practitioners, family members and others who are important to the individual, with a focus on listening and dialogue.
In 2017, the nationwide ODDESSI trial began, evaluating the effectiveness of Open Dialogue across five NHS trusts and exploring whether the Finnish model could work within the NHS at scale.
Emma focuses on two particular individuals and their family networks. Sally, who was so impressed by her own experience of Open Dialogue that she went on to become a peer worker and trained with Dr Russell Razzaque at Cambridge University; and Adam, a Devon-based father and divorcee, who was recovering from his first episode of psychosis and was still undergoing treatment during filming.
Through their stories, the film offers an intimate insight into what happens when people in mental health crisis are met by practitioners trained to listen, alongside family members and others who are invested in their recovery. It asks whether this way of working can lead to a better experience of care—and potentially reduce the need for hospitalisation.