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.
A film by Ton Mazzone · 1 hr 36 min
Traumality — The Film
The link between trauma and mental health diagnoses
Licensed by NHS trusts, universities, schools, councils, workplaces and community groups
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.
Bring Traumality to your people
Host a screening
License Traumality for a public or private screening, with the option of a live or virtual Q&A with director Ton Mazzone.
NHS & healthcare teamsUniversities & collegesSchoolsCouncils & charitiesWorkplaces & HRCommunity groups
Prefer to host online? Set up your own paid, ticketed TRAUMALITY virtual screening on Kinema and earn from ticket sales.
Host a paid online eventDocumentary
Traumality Film
Watch the feature-length documentary, see the trailer, and bring the film to your school, workplace, charity or community through licensing and screenings.
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Community
Traumality Community
A trauma-informed space for practitioners, people with lived experience, organisations and allies to share blogs, resources and conversations.
Join the communityBlogs · Spaces · Discussions
The contributors
The experts
Researchers, clinicians, campaigners and people with lived experience who shaped the story of Traumality.
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
Trailer not loading? Watch it directly on Vimeo.
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.
More about the filmmakerRatings & reviews
What audiences are saying
IMDb9.8/1042 ratingsView on IMDb →Janina Fisher, PhD The Psychologist IMDb user review IMDb user review London premiere audience
“A brilliant documentary.”
“An essential and powerful film that every human should watch.”
“Traumality reframes mental health with clarity and compassion — it never lectures, it listens.”
“Honest, careful filmmaking that gives language to something many people have carried alone.”
“The interviews are extraordinary. It left the whole room talking afterwards.”
Coverage & updates
Press & journal
Press
Press
Press
Press
Journal
Journal
British Psychological Society
Seeing people beyond their diagnoses
The Psychologist magazine on Traumality and the case for understanding distress through what has happened to a person.
The Psychologist
Kurier · Austria
„Traumality": Wie Therapie den Blick auf Trauma verändert
Austrian national newspaper Kurier on the documentary and how therapy changes the way we look at trauma — with an Austrian psychotherapist's perspective on the film.
kurier.at
PTSD UK
Why I made Traumality
A guest post by director Ton Mazzone for PTSD UK on the ten years of unexplained anxiety that led to the film — ahead of their online screening on 6 October.
ptsduk.org
Mad in Ireland
Documentary challenging the medical model to screen in Ireland
Ahead of the Irish premiere in Dublin and the Northern Ireland premiere in Belfast, Mad in Ireland looks at the film's case for asking what happened to a person rather than what is wrong with them.
madinireland.com
Sunday 13 September 2026
A free community platform for people working towards trauma-informed change
TRAUMALITY has built a free community where people can meet, share and organise around trauma-informed change — with spaces as one of the ways to do it.
Read the post
Friday 11 September 2026
Scotland Is Seen as a Trauma-Informed Leader. So Why Doesn’t It Feel Like One?
At the Scottish premiere of TRAUMALITY, the conversation exposed the gap between understanding trauma and creating systems that respond differently.
Read the post