Australian
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Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows sports reporter Craig Hamilton recounting the psychotic episode he experienced while at a train station on his way to cover the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Hamilton is shown speaking to an old friend, Chris Williams, about his breakdown and recalling the progression of his state of mind from euphoria to aggression. The narrator describes the response of station staff, Hamilton’s wife and the police who took Hamilton to a psychiatric hospital. The altered state of mind Hamilton experienced is portrayed in a stylised re-enactment of the episode.

Educational value points

• A sports reporter with ABC radio, Craig Hamilton was on his way to cover the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games when he experienced a psychotic episode on the platform of the Newcastle train station in New South Wales. He was taken to a psychiatric hospital and later diagnosed as having bipolar disorder. Since recovering from this episode he has campaigned to raise awareness about mental health and in 2004 published Broken Open, a candid account of living with a mental illness.

• Bipolar disorder is a mental illness that was formerly known as manic depression. Sufferers of bipolar disorder experience extremes of mood from depressed to manic that are far beyond the ups and downs that most people experience. Most people with bipolar disorder suffer prolonged depression lasting from weeks to months, with brief manic periods lasting from days to weeks. Hamilton suffered a long period of depression a short time prior to the manic episode he describes in the clip.

• A psychotic episode such as the one Hamilton describes involves an impairment of mental functioning that causes the individual to lose touch with reality. During such an episode people often experience hallucinations (hearing, seeing or sensing things that are not there) and delusions (fixed, irrational, false or illogical beliefs). A person experiencing a psychotic episode needs to be in a calm, controlled and safe environment and may need to be admitted to hospital.

• The feeling of euphoria and the aggressive outburst Hamilton experienced are both symptomatic of a manic state. During this state people may experience high energy levels (sometimes described as feeling 'wired’ or 'hyper’), overactivity (including bursts of creativity), irritability, inappropriate behaviour, increased spending, disrupted sleep patterns, racing thoughts, rapid speech, grandiose ideas, hallucinations and delusions. Severe mood changes can range from feeling unusually happy or silly to feeling unusually angry, aggressive or agitated.

• Bipolar disorder affects about 2 per cent of the Australian population. A combination of factors is believed to trigger the disorder, including a family history of bipolar disorder, stressful life events and the use of illicit drugs. The disorder can be difficult to diagnose, partly because it can be confused with other psychiatric conditions. Many people with bipolar disorder seek treatment for depression but do not tell their health practitioner about their mood swings.

• People having a psychotic episode may pose a risk to themselves or others. During Hamilton’s episode at the train station the trains were stopped for fear that he might commit suicide. People suffering from bipolar disorder may also act on a delusional belief, such as jumping out of an upper-storey window because they think they can fly. Hamilton does not fault the police response to his episode, but believes that the mental health area should be resourced so as to enable trained medical teams to deal with situations such as this.

• Hamilton is now an advocate for mental health issues and works to remove the stigma attached to mental illness and to show that, with the right treatment, those with mental health problems can lead stable lives. A combination of medical therapies, in particular antidepressants and mood stabilisers, and psychological therapies are used to treat bipolar disorder, but Hamilton is also careful to avoid stress, sleep well, maintain a healthy diet and exercise regularly.

• The stylised reconstruction of the incident described by Hamilton attempts to portray his altered mental state at the time. Overexposed colours, slow motion, distorted shapes and the use of echo on some sounds all help to convey a sense of the unreality Hamilton experienced. Much of this clip has been filmed using a hand-held camera, which changes the perspective from that of observer of the initial conversation to that of Hamilton himself. The camera sometimes moves wildly from side to side to recreate Hamilton’s mental state.