One South: Portrait of a Psych Unit - Part Two (2024) [CC, HD]

One South: Portrait of a Psych Unit offers an intimate look inside One South, a specialist inpatient psychiatric unit at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Queens, New York, where young adults and college students receive treatment during serious mental health crises. In Part Two, treatment progresses as patients begin forming close connections with one another and putting therapeutic skills into practice. Group and individual sessions explore Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), distress tolerance, radical acceptance, personal values, boundaries and learning how to respond differently to overwhelming emotions. The documentary follows patients experiencing depression, suicidal thoughts and attempts, panic attacks, trauma, psychosis and auditory hallucinations. For some, treatment also involves difficult conversations with family members, including learning to communicate emotional pain, establish healthier boundaries and feel heard and validated. As discharge approaches, the focus increasingly moves towards life outside the hospital. Patients work with staff to recognise warning signs, develop safety plans, arrange outpatient therapy and consider how they will cope when familiar stresses return. Several patients leave One South and return to their families, education and everyday lives, while new patients continue to arrive in crisis. Part Two also captures the uncertainty faced by the clinical team. Staff discuss the difficulty of deciding when somebody is safe enough to leave, knowing that recovery is rarely linear and that inpatient treatment is only one stage of a much longer process. Throughout, the relationships between patients provide moments of friendship, humour and hope, as people who arrived feeling isolated discover others facing many of the same struggles. ⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: Contains frank discussion of suicide and suicide attempts, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, overdose, depression, trauma, PTSD, psychosis, auditory hallucinations, psychiatric hospitalisation and emotional distress. This video is shared as part of an online wellbeing library focused on mental health, addiction recovery and neurodiversity. It is intended for education, awareness and discussion and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice.