Movie and Cinema Therapy for Mental Health: How It Works

Movies are powerful – most of us have experienced that. Whose soul has never been touched by a movie story? Who has never felt sad, inspired, or moved in any way after watching a movie? In its simplest form, movie or cinema therapy is what we do when we play a light hearted movie after a hard working day to lighten up and let go of stress. So, in a way, we’ve all been practicing movie therapy already. Cinema therapy also has a much deeper and conscious application. This is what we will be covering in this article. Let’s see what movie therapy is and how it works.

Movie or cinema therapy works by using movies to help us open our horizons and see new perspectives and potential solutions to our problems. We can make peace with our own present situation when we see the movie hero going through the same. They can be cathartic and help you live those emotions you are struggling with or pushing away. They can offer hope or even give you a role model. Also, there is something very powerful in seeing your problems from a third person perspective. 

We wrote more on how to use the third person perspective when struggling with negative self-talk here. It’s a technique many psychologists suggest because it helps you take distance and see the situation with a more reasonable set of eyes, so go on and check it out. 

Why Cinema Therapy Works

There are so many things in a movie that can affect you. Either one can touch your soul – the music, the story, the images, a certain character, a line in the dialogue. “Movies transcend all barriers and differences, whether these barriers are culture, language, religion, geographic borders, or belief systems (Niemiec & Wedding 2014:3).”

Open Mind

Because people tend to be more open with movies than with people, they are also more likely to get influenced by them. Movies can influence us to change our limiting beliefs, manage difficult emotions, and become more resilient and confident

Learning from Others

Movies can be an incredible tool for mental health, communication and relationship skills. By observing others who are going through a situation similar to ours, we can get inspired or motivated to change something about our own situation. Also, we can learn different strategies from the characters for the communication, relationship or mental health challenge we are experiencing. 

Healthy Distance

Movies help us create a healthy distance to our own struggles. It’s more difficult to think and respond correctly when a certain situation is happening to you. With movie or cinema therapy we observe our problems from a safe space, so it makes it easier to notice certain things about ourselves or our close ones. Also, we are safe to live and feel someone else’s emotions although in reality we are reliving our own. 

Inspires transformative learning

Cinema or movie therapy promotes self-reflection (the good kind) and can even inspire transformative learning! Transformative learning is about reorganizing the structures of the self. Unlike mere accumulation of knowledge, which is what most of us tend to do, transformative learning facilitates change in behaviors, attitudes, and even our personality. “It is pervasive learning which permeates and alters every portion of their existence and leads to deep changes in the individual’s personality.” trainerslibrary.com

Our innate love for story telling

Also, human beings simply love story telling! That’s how our cultures survived. And we have always been drawn to learning about ourselves through the experiences of others. We humans are vicarious beings, so through others we live and we feel. 

We wrote more on empathy and just how innate to humanity it is in our article on healthy empathy. 

Of course movies have to be good to work. A lot of psychology is invested in writing a good screenplay. Also, creating solid characters requires quite a bit of psychological thinking and understanding of human feelings, thoughts and drives.

How Cinema Therapy Works

Psychotherapist, grief counselor and hypnotherapist Dr. Birgit Wolz, PhD, MFT uses Cinema Alchemy technique which she herself created. In this video, she explains the 3 approaches she uses in cinema or movie therapy:

1. The walkative ways
2. The prescriptive way
3. The cathartic way 

For the first approach, movies are like dreams, entryways into our subconscious. So with this approach, the therapist explores what touched the client. And then they go deeper into that, of why something touched them. 

The prescriptive approach is when the therapist has a certain goal to work with, addiction or couples’ work. The therapist then prescribes a certain movie to help them understand their condition.

For the cathartic way, find movies that make you laugh or cry or both. So, the hormones in the body get triggered, and certain neurotransmitters get released. And laughing therapy has been scientifically proven to work even in cases of cancer! Also, it helps with depression because it can act as a valve for releasing our own suppressed emotions while watching a movie. It helps us face those unwanted emotions that get stuck and cleanse. 

So, the therapist is there to help the client connect the insights from the movie with their real-life experience. It’s even possible that cinema or movie therapy can shorten the overall time spent in classical therapy. 

Cinema Therapy Studies

There is a 2010 study in which researchers used movie therapy in their sessions with preadolescent children whose parents were going through a divorce. After the movie, the therapists asked questions and promoted a discussion in combination with other tools such as drama, art, and storytelling. In all three cases, children found it easier to identify and verbally express their emotions. They felt more comfortable to share with others, and were better at coping. 

Another study from 2013 tackled the issue of anxiety among youth. It was done on 60 participants, 30 in the experimental group and 30 more in the control group. The participants were youth ages 19-22, both male and female. There was a significant decrease in anxiety found among the participants in the cinema or movie therapy program as opposed to those from the control group. 

A different 2017 study looked into how effective and helpful cinema therapy was in helping couples solve different relationship problems, from sexual disatisfaction to frequent conflicts. The researchers measured the effects of the 28 sessions they administered to 6 participants, which showed that the cinema intervention proved useful. What was more fruitful than watching the movie was the discussion that followed. It helped participants generate new insights and also apply them into their own problem areas. 

What’s the Best Thing About Movie Therapy?

It’s fun! It’s entertaining, it’s pleasurable and requires no effort on your side. All you’ve “got to do” is lay back and get immersed in an engaging story. And this is exactly what Albert Einstein, a guy who, I think we can all agree, deserves our respect, told to his 11 year old son: ‘That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice that the time passes’ (Popova 2014).

How to Practice Cinema Therapy?

With movies you can engage in a number of ways because there’s the linguistic, visuospatial, interpersonal, and intrapsychic component. All this increases the transformative effects of cinema or movie therapy because researchers now know that learning works best when information reaches us through several channels. 

All you have to do is pick those movies that have themes which mirror your present situation. 

What’s also great about movie or cinema therapy is that you can either use it on your own, or even with someone, such as your family or your partner. All those things left unsaid or issues you have difficulty conveying to each other can be much easier understood when seen in a movie. They can instigate empathy in you or your loved ones, and facilitate your communication. They also do a great job in making you become more aware of your and other people’s feelings. 

How to practice cinema therapy on your own:

As you watch the movie of your choice, write down your answers to the following questions:

1. Pay attention to any details that you liked or disliked in particular. Anything that got you triggered, excited or emotional in any way. What was the situation and why did it have such an effect on you?
2. Are there any characters that touched you in particular? Why?
3. Are there any behaviors from any of the movie characters that you would like to emulate?
4. Have you ever felt like the main character? When? How was that for you? 
5. Are there any traits that you and the main character have in common? Which ones? 
6. Are there any traits of the main character that you’d like to develop?
7. Are there any traits of yours that could have helped the main character? 

How to do movie or cinema therapy with others:

1. Organize a brainstorming session to discuss what needs, problems you all want to work on. 
2. Then, as you watch the movie, focus your attention on your own moods and inner experiences. 
3. After the movie, sit in silence and reflect on anything that touched you and you feel should be mentioned during public sharing. Write it all down.
4. Open sharing. Everybody takes turns in sharing what they found important to them.

A Selection of Therapy Movies for Different Challenges

What movie to watch depends on your needs. The topic of the movie should reflect your own personal struggles. Gary Solomon provided a comprehensive list of movies to watch depending on your personal challenges. For example, if you or anyone close to you is struggling with addiction, try watching Clean and Sober or When a Man Loves a Woman. Aside from that, you can look into natural ways to treat addiction as described in this post.

Depending on what’s aching you and what life struggles you are looking to overcome, take a look at the following suggestions:

The suggestions above have been taken from a more comprehensive list. 

Present Limitations of the Movie/Cinema Therapy

Depending on each person’s state, the heaviness of their personal problems and their ability to deal with them, movie or cinema therapy might not always be that successful. For some, it might be too traumatic or triggering and for others it might yield no effect. It all depends on each individual’s personal state of mind and body.

And to read more about the connection between the body and the mind and how one affects the others, check this article on embodiment. 

Get Ready to Learn About Yourself With Cinema Therapy

Whether you are into movies or not, movie therapy deserves a shot. Approach this experience with curiosity and openness and see what it opens up for you. Follow the steps we outlined above whether you do it on your own or with someone, Let us know on our social channels (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) what you’ve discovered.

Tatjana Glogovac, Senior Contributor At L’Aquila Active

Learn more about Tatjana by reading her bio below.

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