A groundbreaking new documentary
Kings Park: Stories from an American Mental Institution
Film and Discussion
Hosted by
Long Island University Post
A powerful and very personal documentary about the history and legacy of the Kings Park State Mental Hospital by Filmmaker and former patient
Lucy Winer.
Discussion with Dr. Danielle Knafo*
On June 21, 1967, at the age of 17, Lucy Winer was committed to the female violent ward of Kings Park State Hospital following a series of failed suicide attempts. Over 30 years later, now an award-winning documentary filmmaker, Ms. Winer returns to Kings Park for the first time since her discharge. Her journey back sparks a decade-long effort to face her past and learn the story of the now abandoned institution that once held her captive. Meetings with other former patients, their families, and the hospital staff, reveal the painful legacy of our state hospital system and the crisis left by its demise.
*Danielle Knafo, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program at Long Island University, where she chairs a specialty concentration on Serious Mental Illness (SMI). She is also faculty and supervisor at NYU’s Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. Dr. Knafo has written and lectured extensively on psychoanalysis, creativity, trauma, severe psychopathology and gender. Dr. Knafo maintains a private practice in Great Neck, NY.