When I led a film appreciation group at a senior center, I found that film can be theraputic. We usually watched a part of film at the beginning, then discussed their reflections toward films and how they could relate to characters in films. It was very successful and was the most popular activity at our center. Once, they were watching Driving Miss Daisy. This film is about an old wealthy white Jewish widowed woman, lives with her housemaid in a big house. At the beginning Miss Daisy wrecks her car, so her son hires an African American chauffeur for Miss Daisy. She refuses to let chauffeur drive for her then gradually starts to accept him. She has formed a relationship with her chauffeur and their relationship grows and improves over years. Since it is a film about aging and how to deal with aging in people's old age, seniors were able to relate to Miss Daisy's experience. They shared a lot about difficulties they were facing when not only physically but also mentally. Watching this film allowed them to learn more about themselves and access their emotions through relating to Miss Daisy. Films can be used as a tool to do therapy
I would like to share some useful links
http://www.cinematherapy.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_therapy
These two links are about how does cinema therapy work.
This is really interesting. I find films to be emotionally evoking, and can illicit all kinds of things. From personal experience, I feel like I have also suffered from secondary trauma from films. Although there is little research out there about that, there was a period of time in my adult life when watching just about anything that wasn't Disney or a comedy would give me night terrors. With any art, people have a wide variety of experiences and interpretations. I'm interested to learn more about this and how to respond as a clinician if a film brings up a negative response.
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