‘Do No Harm’ is an abiding principal of psychiatry. It is abandoned time after time in this shocking, utterly compelling exploration of the profession’s collusion with state sponsored torture over the past 70 years. Director Stephen Bennett untangles a web of secrecy, denial and complicity to explore the legacy of Scottish-born psychiatrist Dr Ewen Cameron and the experiments that helped devise systems of torture employed across the globe, from Northern Ireland to Guantanamo Bay. Experts, victims and families provide chapter and verse on fundamental violations of human rights.
Eminent Monsters traces the origins of modern torture, examining early experiments with sensory deprivation, drugs, and "de-patterning". It describes the work of the eminent psychiatrist Ewen Cameron (1901-1967), whose notorious "Montreal experiments" received funding from the Canadian government and the CIA. The documentary also shows how the fate of the fourteen "Hooded Men" in Northern Ireland helped set the stage for "enhanced interrogation" at black sites in the War on Terror.