By Birgit Wolz, Ph.D, MFT
Therapists are starting to use popular movies to help clients achieve breakthroughs. The self-help book E-Motion Picture Magic (Glenbridge Publishing Ltd.) teaches the reader to heal and grow while being entertained by a movie. Can this innovative method be for “reel”?
Movies can be very powerful because the multiple impacts of music, dialogue, lighting, camera angles, and sound effects enables a film to bypass ordinary defensive censors in the viewer. These film "effects" affect our hidden or unconscious thought processes by way of evoked emotions. The movie draws the viewer into the experience, but at the same time—often more easily than in real life—affords a unique opportunity to retain a perspective outside the experience, the observer's view. This offers a person the opportunity, with the help of therapeutic exercises, to heal and grow in ways never experienced before.
Terry had problems with rage. When she got angry, she tended to go way too far. It had cost her several long-standing friendships and had alienated co-workers. Now her marriage teetered on the brink of divorce.
Regular therapy sessions had helped, but they weren’t enough. The fights with her husband Greg were getting worse. Then I suggested cinema therapy—using a popular movie as an adjunct therapeutic tool.
After I coached her on using a special conscious awareness approach to movie-viewing, Terry sat down one evening with Greg to watch Changing Lanes, a film about two revenge-obsessed men that deftly illustrated the damage that occurs when anger gets out of hand. During one of the first big scenes, at the climax of a nasty argument between the two protagonists, she and Greg started to get into a nasty fight themselves, each taking sides with one of the two main characters.
The situation could have ended badly, but before things got out of hand, Terry remembered my tips on using the movie to gain distance and perspective on her own behavior. She had just witnessed on screen the very behavior pattern she was now experiencing. That helped her take a step back. Instead of continuing their fight, Terry turned off the DVD, and they talked about the process of their fight instead of its content, with the movie providing common reference points, a common language.
Terry told Greg that she saw how she was always making the same mistake the movie characters were making. Suddenly, she saw her building rage as something absurd. For Greg, hearing Terry talk about her struggle with her anger was a revelation; it gave him hope that their marriage might be salvageable. The evening turned into a minor breakthrough, and with continued therapy, Terry gradually learned to control her rage.
Many cinema therapy scenarios have such happy endings. An increasing number of therapists are receiving cinema therapy training and using it in their practices. Increasingly more readers are using self- help books to learn to use movies as a catalyst for their personal healing and transformation. There is a growing number of cinema therapy groups, workshops, web sites, online discussion groups, and at least one trade journal.
The basic idea behind cinema therapy is simple: characters in stories struggle with the same issues as a client does; by watching their failures and successes, clients can learn new approaches to solving their problems. Therapists have been prescribing books for healing purposes since the 1930s.
Using movies for such healing seems obvious. But where books communicate mainly through one text-based “channel,” movies have the advantage of also using visual and auditory stimulation. This synergistic combination gives cinema a much greater power over a person’s emotions, which makes movies ideal for therapeutic modeling.
Movies can also be used to help people explore their subconscious world, much as dreams have been traditionally used. Sometimes a film will evoke an unbidden reaction. Exploring the underlying reasons behind that reaction can open a window into the deeper layers of one’s psyche.
Films are also naturally cathartic. By provoking tears and laughter, they help cleanse the body of toxic chemicals brought on by stress and pain while giving clients an opportunity to shift their mood. It can provide them with a needed temporary break from undesired emotions. I frequently observed that they feel safer to release deeply blocked emotions while viewing a film than they might in the context of their real life. This unique release can allow clients to start exploring their underlying issues in therapy.
Resources:
Wolz, Birgit. “E-Motion Picture Magic: A Movie Lover’s Guide to Healing and Transformation. Centennial, Colorado. Glenbridge, 2005.
Birgit Wolz, Ph.D., MFT has a private practice in Oakland. A published author and presenter, she developed a comprehensive body of therapeutic tools that utilize movies for healing and personal growth.
She is the author of the book E-Motion Picture Magic: A Movie Lover’s Guide to Healing and Transformation, Glenbridge Publishing Ltd. Birgit can be reached at (925)376-8359 or
. You may order Birgit’s book by calling 1/800/986-4135, by e-mail: Contact us, or through Amazon.com.
|
