A feature-length documentary challenging the way we understand mental health. Traumality explores the growing evidence linking childhood trauma and adversity to many of the mental health diagnoses seen today. Through world-leading experts, lived experience, and emerging science, it examines why our mental health system remains rooted in a medical model, what a trauma-informed approach could look like, and what it might take to create a society that understands people not simply by what's wrong with them, but by what's happened to them.
The contributors
The experts
Researchers, clinicians, campaigners and people with lived experience who shaped the story of Traumality.
Dr Peter Levine
Founder of Somatic Experiencing
Author of Waking the Tiger, whose work on the body's natural capacity to release trauma reshaped how the field understands recovery.
Deb Dana
Clinician & author on Polyvagal Theory
Translates polyvagal science into practical ways of working with the nervous system in everyday life and therapy.
Janina Fisher, PhD
Clinical psychologist & trauma specialist
Author of Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors, and a leading voice on how the body and brain carry what happened to us.
Dr Richard Schwartz
Founder of Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Creator of the IFS model, which understands our most difficult behaviours as protective parts rather than pathology.
Dr Jessica Taylor
Psychologist & author
Author of Why Women Are Blamed For Everything, writing on trauma, victim blaming and the pathologising of distress.
Mandy Saligari
Psychotherapist & addiction specialist
Clinical director and author working on addiction, self-worth and the family patterns underneath them.
Dr Graham Music
Consultant child & adolescent psychotherapist
Tavistock clinician and author writing on early relationships, neuroscience and the developmental roots of distress.
Dr Suzanne Zeedyk
Developmental psychologist
Researcher on babies' innate connection to others, and what early relationships mean for lifelong wellbeing.
Dr Eugene Ellis
Psychotherapist, founder of the Black, African and Asian Therapy Network
Writer and therapist on race, the body and intergenerational trauma in mental health care.
Dr Veronique Mead
Physician & trauma researcher
Former family doctor researching how adversity and the nervous system shape risk for chronic illness.
Lou Lebentz
Trauma psychotherapist & educator
Founder of a trauma-informed training practice, translating trauma science into everyday care.
Julie Harmieson
Co-director, Trauma Informed Schools UK
Works with schools and communities to build trauma-informed practice into education.
Benjamin Fry
Psychotherapist & author
Writer on trauma, the nervous system and why conventional mental health treatment so often falls short.
Benna Waites
Consultant clinical psychologist
NHS psychologist working on trauma-informed approaches within mental health services.
Dr Susanna Petche
Trauma-informed physician
Doctor working at the intersection of trauma, the body and how healthcare responds to both.
Dr Angela Kennedy
Clinical psychologist
Works on trauma-informed practice and how services can misread distress as disorder.
Dr Asha Patel
Psychologist & social entrepreneur
Founder working to make psychological support accessible in schools and communities.
Kevin Feighery
Psychotherapist
Therapist speaking to addiction, recovery and what genuine care looks like in practice.
Sophie Olson
Survivor advocate, founder of The Flying Child
Campaigner on the impact of childhood sexual abuse and how services can respond without re-traumatising.
Deborah Cooper Jones
Lived experience contributor
Shares her experience of the mental health system and what being understood, rather than labelled, changed.
Joe Tudor
Lived experience contributor
Speaks to the gap between diagnosis and understanding in his own journey through mental health care.
Ton Mazzone
Writer, director and producer
Filmmaker behind Traumality, whose own experience of the mental health system set the film in motion.
Watch the trailer
The road so far
Milestones
What's happened
What's upcoming
The why
Why Ton Made This Film
Throughout his twenties, director Ton Mazzone struggled deeply with his mental health. When he finally went to his GP for help, he was told that he had a mental disorder and needed medication to make him feel better.
That explanation did not bring relief. It brought shame. Ton came away believing there was something fundamentally wrong with him, yet instinctively felt that this could not be the whole story.
Years later, he learned about trauma and how our past experiences can shape the way we think, feel and respond to the world around us. This knowledge was revolutionary. For the first time, his struggles began to make sense. He was not broken. There were reasons he felt and reacted the way he did.
But it left him with many questions. Why was this not common knowledge? Why had his doctor not known about it? Why was none of this taught at school?
Ton made TRAUMALITY for the younger version of himself who felt broken and did not understand why. He created the film in the hope that it reaches anyone carrying that same shame and helps them realise that they are not broken either.
TRAUMALITY is the film Ton wishes he had been shown when he first asked for help.
“An essential and powerful film that every human should watch.”
The Psychologist
“Traumality reframes mental health with clarity and compassion — it never lectures, it listens.”
IMDb user review
“Honest, careful filmmaking that gives language to something many people have carried alone.”
IMDb user review
“The interviews are extraordinary. It left the whole room talking afterwards.”
London premiere audience
In the press
Seeing people beyond their diagnoses
The British Psychological Society's magazine, The Psychologist, on Traumality and the case for understanding distress through what has happened to a person.
