The Therapy of the Cinema
Cinematherapy, reality or fiction?
As well as being for pleasure or entertainment, watching a film can also be good theraphy and can help personal growth.
To recognize ourselves in a movie character is incredibly useful for helping us reflect and analyse our biggest problems
No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls. These words from the film star Ingrid Bergman define the way in which we can become submerged in a film, to the point where we confuse fiction with reality. From a psychological viewpoint, to recognize ourselves in a movie character or a scene is incredibly useful for helping us reflect and analyse our biggest problems and fears. Cinematherapy has emerged precisely in order to make the most of those personal introspective moments offered by a series or film. It is a technique that uses the multiple psychological benefits of cinema together with cognitive therapy. It’s objective? To use audiovisual material as a tool to help ourselves overcome all kinds of psychological disorders. With a film a director meets one of the purposes of therapy: to make the public and the patient identify with the characters and feel that the changes, thoughts, and feelings of the fictional characters are just like their own, says psychologist Jaime Burque, director of the Hodgson and Burque psychotherapy centre in La Coruña. It’s because of this that while watching a film we can rise above negative attitudes such as anxiety, depression or low self esteem, and pain, sexual disorders or serious identity problems that often prove difficult to treat.
Distinct objectives
The genre of the film depends on the therapeutic objective. For example, in moments when we have lost love, it’s not strange to want to watch a romantic drama to help us to wallow in our pain. Although it seems paradoxical , this balances the emotions and viewing is part of mourning that helps us deal with and recognize
As well as being for pleasure or entertainment, watching a film can also be good theraphy and can help personal growth.
To recognize ourselves in a movie character is incredibly useful for helping us reflect and analyse our biggest problems
No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls. These words from the film star Ingrid Bergman define the way in which we can become submerged in a film, to the point where we confuse fiction with reality. From a psychological viewpoint, to recognize ourselves in a movie character or a scene is incredibly useful for helping us reflect and analyse our biggest problems and fears. Cinematherapy has emerged precisely in order to make the most of those personal introspective moments offered by a series or film. It is a technique that uses the multiple psychological benefits of cinema together with cognitive therapy. It’s objective? To use audiovisual material as a tool to help ourselves overcome all kinds of psychological disorders. With a film a director meets one of the purposes of therapy: to make the public and the patient identify with the characters and feel that the changes, thoughts, and feelings of the fictional characters are just like their own, says psychologist Jaime Burque, director of the Hodgson and Burque psychotherapy centre in La Coruña. It’s because of this that while watching a film we can rise above negative attitudes such as anxiety, depression or low self esteem, and pain, sexual disorders or serious identity problems that often prove difficult to treat.
Distinct objectives
The genre of the film depends on the therapeutic objective. For example, in moments when we have lost love, it’s not strange to want to watch a romantic drama to help us to wallow in our pain. Although it seems paradoxical , this balances the emotions and viewing is part of mourning that helps us deal with and recognize