My Beautiful Psychosis: Making Sense of Madness

By: Emma Goude

Narrated by: Emma Goude

My Beautiful Psychosis is a stunning debut memoir from international award winning documentary filmmaker, Emma Goude. It is a gritty tale of transformation, depicting from the inside some of the most powerful experiences a human mind can endure.

What if psychosis is really a wake up call?

Emma is a 20-something who likes to party and take drugs...until she decides to give them up...and that’s when the insomnia starts. After five nights without sleep she ends up in A&E.

Three questions determine whether she is sane or not.

Three questions stand between her and the psychiatric ward.

She gets them wrong.

Emma is an atheist, a skeptical cynic who chose dope over God, so when she has some spiritual experiences she is not entirely sure if she is delusional. The psychiatric system has forgotten that "psyche" means soul. All they know about is medication and they have ways of making her take it. It becomes a game she has to play in order to get out. It is also a perception of herself she must do battle with in order to stand strong in her belief that her psychosis is some kind of awakening.

This powerful, honest and lucid memoir turns on its head the idea that psychosis is a debilitating illness, caused by a brain chemical imbalance, which requires medication for life. My Beautiful Psychosis questions conventional methods of "treating" psychosis and points towards a radical vision where "diagnosis" of mental illness makes allowances for spiritual growth rather than simply treating a perceived chemical imbalance.

My Beautiful Psychosis is a heart wrenching true story. Raw and vulnerable, spiritual but funny, it will change the way you see psychosis.

©2020 Emma Goude (P)2020 Emma Goude

Critic reviews

“I was taken by her authenticity and vulnerability.” (Phil Borges, director of Crazywise)

"A guiding light for individuals, loved ones and healthcare providers." (Emma Bragdon, PhD. Executive Director, Integrative Mental Health for You)

Amazing!

Thank you for sharing your story. So insightful.
Father of a daughter with lived experience.

Good insight- bad background noises

Likes the story and it gave me more insight to psychosis. However there’s some really annoying clicking or mouth noises in the background in many chapters.

Amazing Emma!

Insightful and beautifully told. I grew to love Emma. Her story is captivating and thought provoking.

Well written

Great representation of what is currently an underrepresented perspective on spiritual emergence. Thank you to the author for sharing her story!

Not good

I went through psychosis from mental illness and had a wonderful spiritual awakening. learned a lot about who I am. was looking fwd to this story. It was so boring I couldn't get past chapter 2.