Lead-in

a) Have you ever seen a film that made you think over your emotional state or deal with some problems?

b) How can ‘movies’ and ‘therapy’ be connected?

Psychotherapists are to use feature films as a tool to encourage their patients to talk more freely about their problems, in a scheme backed by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Can Ray help you understand what it means to be blind and to persevere? Can Kinsey teach you things about your sexuality? Will Finding Neverland help you tap into your inner child? An increasing number of therapists prescribe movies to help their patients explore their psyches. Proponents of cinema therapy say that, in addition to getting award nods, these and other movies can and will change the way we think, feel, and ultimately deal with life's ups and downs. Pioneers of “movie therapy” claim that discussing characters and plot lines from an appropriate film can help people to understand their feelings better and allow them to confront psychological issues that are troubling them. The technique is already being taught to psychotherapists training at Guy’s Hospital in London.

One of those using the method is Bernie Wooder, a psychotherapist from Elstree, Herts, who charges £45 for a one-hour “movie therapy” session. He said: “I was counselling a woman who had been badly let down in a relationship, but was having difficulty articulating her emotions. I told her that her situation reminded me of On The Waterfront, when Marlon Brando’s character realizes his brother is crooked and he feels enormous betrayal. My client immediately identified with how he felt and watching and discussing the film was a catalyst for unlocking all the feelings she had repressed. Each time she watched and cried, she felt better.”

Mr Wooder said that while film therapy did not work for everyone, he had used it successfully with about a third of his clients. “Freud said that images are the language of the unconscious and I believe films are too. Through their characters, plots and even music, films can bring out the most deeply buried emotions.”

He said that Falling Down, in which Michael Douglas portrays an unemployed man who lashes out in frustration, was an example of the dangerous implications of not releasing anger. “I used this film with a client who was very depressed because he held on to a lot of the anger he felt towards people who had frustrated him,” said Mr Wooder. “We talked about Michael Douglas's character and the disastrous path he takes and my client then realized that he needed to let go of his emotions more regularly to avoid erupting like a time bomb.”

Another film used is Muriel's Wedding, which depicts a socially inept woman who learns to overcome her insecurities. This, say psychotherapists, can help those suffering from low self-esteem or those who find it hard to distinguish between real friends and those who are less genuine.

Maureen McCooke, a 35-year-old publisher from London, said that she had used Moulin Rouge to recover from depression following a failed marriage. “It took a long time for me to open up, but I found that if you can find something in a movie to relate to, it really can help,” she said. “The romance between Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman’s characters made me realize that I had never really loved my husband. I try to use the lessons I learnt from that film in real life and have a greater understanding of how deep my feelings are for people in relationships.”

Brian Mills, a therapist from Hampton, Middlesex, has used “cinema couch” sessions to help more than 60 clients to overcome psychological problems, using questionnaires and discussions. “One of the questions I put to people is what films they never tire of,” he said. “From that, I can identify what characters and story lines they associate with and are most comfortable watching, which often reflects their own situations.”

Mr Mills, 54, a former cinema projectionist, said that film was a particularly effective way of helping clients deal with denial. “An alcoholic will often not accept the impact that their illness is having on those around them,” he said. “A film like When a Man Loves a Woman (in which an alcoholic housewife lets her addiction destroy her family) can show them how failing to face up to an illness can result in tragedy. We can then work together to identify their emotional blockages and talk about how they can change their lives for the better.”

Mr. Mills, who charges £55 for a session, said that American Beauty was the film he discussed most regularly with his clients. “It covers so many emotions - dissatisfaction, low self-esteem and depression,” he said. “It also demonstrates the consequences of being too much of a perfectionist, like Annette Bening’s character, or too much of a doormat like the role played by Kevin Spacey.”

But “there’s not one definition of cinema therapy,” says Oakland, Calif.-based cinema therapist Birgit Wolz, PhD, author of The Cinema Therapy Workbook: A Self-Help Guide to Using Movies for Healing and Growth.

There is “popcorn cinema therapy,” which can include watching a movie for a needed emotional release. According to Wolz, popcorn cinema therapy is rather heavy on cinema and rather light on therapy.

In what she dubs as “evocative cinema therapy,” Wolz prefers to uses movies as therapy to help others learn about themselves in more profound ways based on how they respond to different characters and scenes. It works like this, she says: “First, I ask about their personal situation and get a sense of where they are at in their lives, and then I will recommend movies that may speak to them on certain levels.”

There’s also cathartic cinema therapy involving laughing or crying, Wolz says. “This is also effective if it's done right as a precursor or a first stage of psychotherapy,” she says. “Say a person is in the midst of a depression; a movie that helps them to cry can open up different levels of their psyche.”

When watching movies, Wolz recommends sitting comfortably and among other things, noticing what you liked and didn’t like about the movie and which characters or actions seemed especially attractive or unattractive. She also suggests asking yourself whether there were any characters in the movie who modelled behavior that you would like to emulate.

In what may be the Sundance festival of the cinema therapy world, the Chicago Institute for the Moving Image (CIMI) helps people seeking therapy for depression or other serious psychiatric illnesses, including schizophrenia or amnesia, to write, produce, and direct their own movies.

“We work with patients who tend to have personal interests in making a movie or a screenplay and are already working with a therapist,” says Joshua Flanders, CIMI’s executive director. “We will be brought in as a consultant to work with the patient and therapist to edit screenplays, rehearse scenes, and try out people,” he says. “The process of filmmaking provides a certain amount of therapy, organization, and order that people with psychological diseases need, and it helps the therapist see what the conflicts are within their patients’ lives,” Flanders explains. In a sense, making a movie or creating a screenplay enables the therapist or loved ones to see the world through this person’s eyes. In the past, Flanders has seen people make “enormous breakthroughs” with this form of cinema therapy.

But patients should not cancel their next therapy session to catch a matinee. Dr Rex Haigh, a consultant psychiatrist at the Berkshire Healthcare Trust and a member of the psychotherapy faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said that he welcomed movie therapy as an alternative to more conventional methods, but only if used in conjunction with other forms of treatment. “It is an interesting idea and could be useful to people who find it difficult to articulate their emotions,” he said. “I would be suspicious of using it as a sole form of therapy. Watching films and talking about them is unlikely to be adequate in treating someone with deep-seated problems.” Like art therapy, dance therapy, and music, you can bring it into a traditional form of therapy, and as an accessory it can be very useful.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-21