David Harewood has said that more men should go to therapy and “challenge themselves” to reflect on their emotions.
The actor, 59, best known for roles in Supergirl and Homeland, has reflected on how he has benefited from weekly therapy sessions following his 2019 documentary Psychosis and Me, in which he reflected on having a breakdown aged 23.
Harewood had a psychotic episode that meant he was sectioned in his twenties, but he “buried” everything until he worked on the documentary decades later.
Reflecting on the breakdown in a new interview with The Times, Harewood said: “I remember coming to, walking down Argyll Street or Oxford Circus at three in the morning, not knowing where I was, then blacking out and waking up in Camden the next day with no idea what was happening in between.”
He added: “I was in and out of lucidity, in and out of consciousness, and walking around a very busy city. I was very fortunate to come out of that alive.”
In Psychosis and Me, he was given the opportunity to examine his medical records and unpack what the breakdown was about, as well as seek out a therapist, whom he continues to see each week.
Harewood said that he understood part of his breakdown came from race, which helped him when he was picking an appropriate therapist.
“Because most of the causes had some roots in race, and my confusion around identity and belonging, I went for the blackest, most male, dreadlocked therapist I could find. And I still check in with the therapist every Friday,” he said.
“It’s a shame that more men don’t do [therapy]. Men should challenge themselves a little more in that way,” he said.
Harewood said that sometimes in a session, they “fall about laughing” and he will suddenly “start blubbing” out of nowhere.
“We talk about the inner child and I get quite upset because I don’t think I ever looked after my inner child. I never protected him, which is why he ended up collapsing,” he said.
Harewood previously opened up about there being shame around psychosis, which is a mental health condition in which a person loses some contact with reality.
“Most people just have psychotic episodes, and those are completely recoverable,” Harewood said during a previous appearance on ITV’s This Morning. “Mine lasted about three months, but I had medication and I’ve never experienced anything like that again.”
Harewood previously told The Independent that during his breakdown, he was restrained by a group of police officers, but suspected that if that had happened in America, he wouldn’t have survived.
“I guess I’m just lucky that there wasn’t a stray elbow or stray knee,” he said. “There was six of them. Six. I was very lucky.”
“You only have to look online and type in ‘Black mental illness, police’, and you just see people getting shot, people getting tasered, people being really violently restrained.”
“I was clearly disturbed for months. I think if I’d been doing that in America, somebody would have called the police and… f*** me, a large black man acting bizarrely? They would’ve shot me or tasered me. I don’t think I’d have made it.”
