The Healing Art of Film

This issue brings us to part four, and the finale, of our four part Healing Art Series emphasizing Entertainment Beyond Entertainment. Frankly, there are two things going on with me right now: There’s a part of me that is bedazzled because I don’t want to end this Healing Series.; Then there’s another part of me that’s rejoicing inside because we’re celebrating our two year anniversary of  T E News (T E N’s first issue was August 17, 2008). There’s also that part of me that knows every issue has been poignant, informative and down-to-earth, and has reached some reader in a significant way.

So we bring closure to the Healing Art Series, knowing that this is just the beginning of so much more to read and learn about ourselves, and the world we live in, in  future issues of T E News, and how we all are affected by the art & spirituality component of the universe, whether we’re artists or not.

The Healing Art of Film fits in so perfectly, I think, as an ending for this series. It also fits in perfectly for our two year anniversary of T E News. So why The Healing Art of Film fits in so well as the final four of a four part series on healing art is for the following reasons:

Film in the context of motion picture or cinema with sound, is the last performing art form that’s being utilized in our culture. Music, dance and theater have been in existence since ancient time.

Film is the most synergistic of the four art forms. It is art captured through the lens of a camera and projected on screen, and it allows you to store and playback whenever, and as often as you like.

Although music can also be captured through a recording device that picks up sound frequencies and store them to be played back, there are more ways in how music can be presented to an individual or audience. Music can be performed live before individuals and audiences, or it can be heard through a sound machine such as radio, or some type of music machine. Film on the other hand must be presented through audio/visual device.

All in all, what does film have to do with healing?

We’ve learned that Healing art of Theater heals pain, conflict, and fear through a transformational process of theatrical performances and practices of reconnecting to the divine power within us. In Healing art of Dance we discussed how dance diverts our mood and instantaneously takes us to another place in consciousness. We’ve learned that music sound healing can be used through chanting and toning, as therapy, medicine, and that sounds can have a tremendous effect on our mood, and our over-all mind/body connection in many ways, even through recordings.

So what works for healing through Film?

Introduction – Healing Art of Film

Studies show that “conscious watching” of films can enhance perspective, insight and empathy. The impressions of images, music, dialogue, lighting, camera angles, sound and special effects can educe feelings deep within. Film affects most of us in a powerful way and can help us reflect on our lives, gain better understand our selves, provide catharsis, and suggestive to new ways of thinking, feeling and pursuing our lives.

People who appear uptight and often hold their feelings back may find it easier to let go of their defenses and access feelings that arise during and after watching a movie.

Rapport is developed rapidly through film because it speaks a language that is familiar and less intimidating than verbal instructions and psychological jargon.

 

Movies have been quite useful in demonstrating behavior change, enabling one to envision how their own problems might be solved.

T E News recently connected with someone who has gone far beyond the discussion phases of  the healing art of film. She actually has years of  practice, and teach professionals the game of  healing through film. She refers to her practice as Cinematherapy.

 

Birgit Wolz, Ph. D., MFT

Birgit Wolz has worked as a psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and grief counselor with individuals, couples, and groups since 1991. But in 2002 she visited a workshop called “Movies and Mythic Imagination – Using Films in Depth Psychology. She became  fascinated with the idea of using movies with her clients to understand their emotional issues and to support their process. So now she uses Cinema Alchemy  in her writing, her practice with individual clients, couples, in a weekly Cinema Alchemy group.”

She facilitates cinema therapy groups and workshops for personal spiritual growth.

Birgit also offers training and online courses for therapists and nurses. Her practice is based in Oakland, CA.

How Birgit work with clients

Wolz uses cinema therapy as an adjunct to effective traditional therapeutic methods. The power of movies enhances the efficiency of these tools.

There are three way Wolz uses movies for use in therapy. - The Evocative Way, The Prescriptive Way, and The Cathartic Way

Evocative Way utilizes movies in a therapeutic and growth-provoking manner can help clients to understand themselves better. Therefore, When certain movies resonate with clients, they’re touched by an unconscious or preconscious part of their psyche.. A character or a scene might also upset them intensely. Understanding their emotional responses to movies, is comparable to understanding their nighttime dreams.

Both dream work and The Evocative Way of Cinema Alchemy are ways to bring their unconscious inner world to a conscious level.

 

The Prescriptive Way

In The Prescriptive Way, specific films are prescribed to model specific problem-solving behavior. Based on Milton Erickson’s Teaching Tales. How it works: by listening to stories and watching movies in a focused way creates a form of trance state, similar to the guided visualizations. This approach may help clients get in touch with a mature part of themselves and overcome problems and strengthen positive qualities. Utilizing movie viewing this way, may help client undo the negatives intheir lives,  because they see the negative consequences of a character’s action.

The Cathartic Way

. Cathartic therapeutic techniques allow therapists to help clients access these stored emotions and release them. Painful emotions have proven to create stress chemicals in our bodies. Catharsis helps to counter these by releasing buried feelings. Nature has provided us natural cathartic processes like laughing and crying to move us through and beyond our pain. For many of our clients it is safer and therefore easier to let go of their defenses while watching a movie than it is in real life with real people

By identifying with certain characters and their predicaments, they can experience emotions that lie hidden from their awareness. By eliciting emotions, watching movies can open doors that otherwise might stay closed.. Laughter decreases stress hormones, increases pain-relieving hormones, and activates our immune system. It relieves anxiety as well as reduce aggression and fear.Laughter can. Often clients are able to approach a solution to a problem they were worried about with less emotional involvement and a fresh and creative perspective after watching a humorous movie. Even light depression can lift for a while.

Cinema Therapy with Groups:

. By understanding and sharing what moved them about certain movie scenes or characters, participants acquire an effective tool to get to know themselves and others. After leaving the group they are able to continue using what they have learned about self-discovery when watching films.

Here are some examples of how Cinema Therapy can be used:

Addictions: Leaving Las Vegas (1995) demonstrates how addiction can ruin a life when untreated.    Postcards From the Edge (1990) and 28 Days (2000) demonstrate how addictions can be successfully overcome, even though the recovery process is challenging.

Trauma: Clients can get in touch with and successfully process unresolved trauma through such movies as Affliction (1997) and Mystic River (2003).

       Depression: Movies, such as About Schmidt (2002), can serve as a psycho-educational tool in cognitive work with depression.

-          Grief: In America (2003) is an excellent for clients who tend to hold back emotions while grieving. Frida (2002) demonstrates courage, determination, endurance, acceptance and the potential for transformation.

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What You Got Ta Say ‘bout That?

 

Can a movie affect your emotions, heal your soul?

By David Glover

Is there anyone reading this article that hasn’t at least once in their life, been affected emotionally by a movie or television episode, in a way that caused them to either feel sad, happy or empowered just from the experience of watching it? Well I certainly have, perhaps a number of times. But I’ll give you two flicks that hit me in a way I’ll never forget. The first was [1]Imitation of Life when Sarah Jane (Susan Kohner), a fair complexion black girl who grew up despising her adorable mother Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore) because she was black, and even denying her own partially black identity to the point of trying to pass for white. But near the end of the movie her mother dies. In the final scene, Sarah rushes to the funeral, breaks through the crowd sobbing over her dead mother’s casket as Mahalia Jackson sings “Trouble of the World” at the funeral.

That was an emotional human moment. A transformation took place in her life where as self denial, vanity and racial identity crisis became totally irrelevant. The mother-ship has died and she never got to say “I love you mama, please forgive me,” until now.

 That was one of the saddest moment of any scene I’d ever seen in a movie. And yes, I sobbed, as did everybody else in the movie house.   [2] Shaft was the other one. When the camera rolled and Shaft (starring Richard Roundtree as Shaft) cool walk down a mean ghetto street, and the music came up with Isaac Hayes’ Themes from Shaft, I was mesmerized. I was so locked into the character, Shaft, throughout the movies, I almost felt like I was him. And it didn’t end there. I went shopping and bought a black leather jacket, cropped my natural (hair style), and didn’t even realize the emulation I played out on trying to be like that character. Many of us become affected by characters and scenes from motion pictures, subconsciously. Sean Combs “Diddy” claims he has seen the movies “Scarface” more than 63 times. So if there’s a certain place in consciousness you’re trying to go, perhaps the right movie might get you there.

If you have a movie in mind that affected you, or even changed your life. Share it with us. Tell us What You Got ta Say ‘bout That?    (GIVE US YOUR FEED BACK)

Ten21stcentury@yahoo.com