When was the last time you cried while watching a movie? Me? This happened a few months ago with Moana. It actually took me by surprise. Normally I’m not the type of person who’s easily moved by films. I swear I didn’t cry when Rose let Jack die (there was enough space for him!). I didn’t even shed a tear when Andy gave away his toys. Nah, I’m kidding, I cried my eyes out with that one. But my point is that, as my family says, I’m a cold-blooded person. So when I felt a tear coming out of my eye when Moana finally decides to go find Maui, I was completely in shock. What had just happened?
Well, I was going through a tough moment in my life, and I didn’t feel like talking to anyone about it. It turns out that watching how this young girl overcame her problems worked as a cathartic process where I unconsciously released all the emotions I was holding inside. It all came out, not only what I felt about those particular issues. As the story progressed, many problems from the past erupted like a volcano. Even today, I swear every time I listen to one of the film’s songs, I find myself sniffing and with watery eyes. But enough of me. I bet many can relate to this, not precisely with Moana, but with countless films that relate to our lives in mysterious ways. In fact, there’s now a brand of psychology called Cinema Therapy that aims to help people overcome their problems by watching specific films.
According to Gary Solomon Ph.D., cinema therapy or reel therapy can help people explore their minds through movies that can help them cope with loss, depression, anxiety, and other affections of the mind. How does it work? Well, movies –and we could add TV series– are the only artistic discipline that can create a fast and easy bond with the spectator and make them feel empathy towards its characters. By creating this bond, we can match their issues with ours and see a way of overcoming them. The best part of it is that as Solomon states: “cinema therapy is something that is self-administered […] this is an opportunity to do interventional work by yourself.”
It doesn’t really matter which movies you select. It’s not really about quality or of proving your personal taste. It’s a cathartic exercise that can work with actually any movie. Thanks to the extensive variety of genres and motifs movies deal with, we literally can find the perfect film for every situation. The trick is to choose those films that mirror your current situation or those problems you want to work with.
This therapy is not only centered on sad issues such as death, depression, heartbreak, etc. It can be used to deal with any emotion we want to highlight or convey.
Whether you want to relive a moment of happiness or foolishness, perhaps you feel a bit insecure and need something to increase your self-confidence, watching movies is the perfect way to achieve it. The thing with films is that they depict all human emotions and drives. So, besides creating empathy with its spectators, they also show us other ways of living we can either get inspired by or reject. By doing so, our brain works with our own life experiences and helps us grow as individuals.
There are countless cases of people being moved by a particular story where they feel and get the confidence boost they need to pursue their dreams. This happens because movies work as a way to escape from reality for some minutes in order to experience things we never thought of living, and by the time we have to come back to reality, we’ve already acquired all those things we needed to work on ourselves. We feel as if we were part of that fantasy, and thus, we feel as if these characters have joined us in our path of life.
Basically, we put ourselves through this cathartic process each time we’re in front of a movie screen or the TV. However, doing it consciously will actually make a huge difference in our psyche.
If you want to know more about the connection between cinema and psychology, take a look at these Top 10 Movies That Were Inspired by Psychoanalysis.
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Sources:
Film School Rejects
Web MD
