An article entitled, Film Therapy, by Meg McConahey, covers this new form of therapy based around clients watching films. This method has become so popular that the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute issues a list of top-10 psychological films under the heading, "shrinkies"
She states that films help patients "reach insights into their own self-defeating behaviors and bad relationships." For instance, the founder of Film TX, Patti Nolan, recommended As Good as it Gets, a film in which Jack Nicholson portrays an unfriendly man who has OCD, to other suffers of OCD so that they might be able to withness the effect that their behavior could be having on other people in their lives.
According to therapists, individuals have difficulty recognizing their "demons" and might find them easier to see in a character from a film.
Also, marriage and family therapist, Nancy Feehan, states that emotional subjects can be addressed easier by referring to a movie character than by directly confronting the client.
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This subject is highly relevant to what I am trying to achieve with my personal research project, Audiovisual Therapy. It highlights the power of narrative and identifying with a character. The movies that have been used for this purpose however, were not created with this intention. Perhaps, in a piece specifically designed for certain mental illness and other disorders, watching a character's actions in scene that relates to the issue at hand could have an even greater therapeutic effect.
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