Going to the cinema is a favourite pastime for many people. But for some, watching a movie can be a deeply emotional experience which can have a profound psychological impact on them. So far, however, there has been very little written on these experiences from a film viewer’s perspective, especially if they are then shared in the therapeutic setting. A research project which I undertook as part of a master’s degree in transpersonal psychotherapy highlighted the value of bringing this more into the public domain – both as an insight into clients’ experiences and possibly as a tool to aid more effective therapy. 


One often hears of people who rarely shed a tear in their everyday life and yet can cry while watching a film. I had a friend who was shocked at the deeply emotional responses he had to some films and yet it was impossible for him to access these feelings the rest of the time. For him, and many others, films can bypass the intellect, and possibly our defences, and go straight to our feelings. My friend decided to explore the issues behind the feelings he experienced at the cinema by turning to psychotherapy. Sprengnether¹ in her book Crying at the Movies provides a good example of this when she writes about her personal experience of how films have helped her emotionally: ‘Film, in a multitude of ways, serves my need to recollect – to go back and pick up – the feelings I suppressed or abandoned in the process of growing up.’ 


She recounts how she repressed her feelings at the death of her father when she was nine and found herself crying, uncontrollably, at the movie Pather Panchali (Ray, 1955) years later. This film brought back the memories and feelings she had cut herself off from when her father died. She gives other examples of films that, at certain times in her life, marked the personal difficulties that she needed to face, but found challenging to confront head-on.

Painful consciousness
Clients also, at times, experience this accessibility of feelings in the therapeutic session and some comparisons have been made between watching a film and therapy. For example, the impact of the film The Matrix (Wachowski, 1999), and more recently The Matrix Reloaded (Wachowski, 2003), have brought into focus – although, many cinema-goers are unlikely to see it this way – the question of painful consciousness versus blissful unconsciousness in the individual. This bears some similarity to the therapeutic process. In my own private practice, this question is often raised, especially by new clients: ‘Is it worth knowing what is actually going on within me because it might be very painful to go there?’ The film says, yes, it is worth it, and so do most therapists. 


Weimer and Lu² describe how, when working with their patients, the therapist has elements of both director and audience: ‘His skill and judgment guide his moves in drawing the patient’s awareness to themes with emotional importance. As audience he is privileged to hear a story, watch the protagonist and see the impact of his intervention.’

In an article entitled ‘Honey, I kidded the shrink’,³ psychoanalyst Andrea Sabbadini is quoted as believing that seeing a film is similar to the psychoanalytical experience: ‘For a brief period, you are taken outside of your world, outside of real time, to a place where entire lives can pass by in a matter of minutes. And then of course we have to emerge from it.’ 

Like sitting in a cinema, it is the receptivity of the viewer/client that enables him or her to be open to the cinematic/therapeutic effect. Hauke⁴ also discusses how the experience of watching a film can be a special place where the psyche can come alive, be experienced and commented on, just like in a therapy session. As in therapy, he believes that watching movies can have a replenishing and healing effect on the viewer’s psyche even though, at times, the experience may be painful. 


So how are movies used in psychotherapy and counselling? There are two distinct approaches:

A receptive approach
There are times in therapy sessions when a patient brings a film to discuss the impact or meaning it has had on them, and the therapist ‘receives’ it as part of the patient’s material. RD Laing⁵ described how a young schizophrenic patient who, after months of coming late to their sessions, if she even bothered to turn up at all, dramatically changed after watching a film: ‘One day she arrived punctually and amazingly transformed... She began the session by saying that she realised that she had been cutting herself off from any real relationship with other people, that she was scared by the way she was living, but, apart from that, she knew in herself that this wasn’t the right way to live. Obviously something very decisive had happened. According to her, and I see no reason to doubt this, it had arisen out of going to see a film. She had gone every day for one week to see the film La Strada.’ (p154-155). 


This film was about a young girl whose family sold her to a man who frequently beat her and raped her. What stood out for Laing’s client was that, although this character was facing tragedy every day of her life, she never lost her spirit. She was still able to laugh. Laing’s client realised that she had forgotten how ‘forgiving and refreshing life could be’ and, by watching this film and identifying with the main character, she was able to live her life in a new way.  


In my own practice I have had many clients who have brought films to our sessions because of the feelings evoked and the insights they have gained about themselves. It seems that, at times, these films acted like a bridge between the conscious and the unconscious processes in their own psyche. These films also gave them some connection and affirmation between their own experience and the collective, everyday life experience outside the therapeutic session. In other words, they didn’t feel alone in what they were going through.

An active approach
At the other end of the spectrum, there has been a recent movement in the therapeutic field called cinema therapy. Gibbons,⁶ in an article called ‘Films unlock the troubled mind’, describes how: ‘Films have long played with the emotions of cinema-goers and now psychologists are using them as a tool to get through to their patients.’

Psychotherapists, such as Solomon,⁷ who calls himself ‘The Movie Doctor’, or Wooder,⁸ who is known as ‘The Movie Therapist’, use films as a therapeutic tool in their private practice. This is where a therapist actively ‘directs’ the client to watch movies that may have a healing impact on his/her life. Solomon⁷ writes: ‘As a result of watching these healing stories you will achieve self-enrichment and an increased awareness that will help you to your recovery.’


However, Solomon’s active prescribing of movies assumes that the movie will heal the problems of the patient rather than being a tool or aid in the therapeutic process. This approach to counselling and psychotherapy does have its critics. Psychiatrist, Dr Irene Goldenberg, is quoted on her disapproval: ‘Movies are a way that an inarticulate therapist has of expressing himself.’⁹ ‘Cinema-therapy’ could be seen as simplistic and as ‘dumbing-down’ the therapeutic process. In the same vein, Perkins¹⁰ discusses how psychologist Erich Fromm included film-going with daydreaming as activities equally harmful in distracting us from real problems. He writes that some consider film only in its negative aspects, as an alternative rather than an addition to our real lives. However, Perkins defends watching movies as what he sees as an escape into something rather than an escape from aspects of our lives. In other words, films may offer a way into our issues rather than an escape from them. This is what Sprengnether experienced from watching Pather Panchali and what I experienced when I watched the film Phenomenon (Turteltaub, 1996). Although it was panned by critics, I discussed this film in my own therapy because it helped me to get in touch with the deep upset I was feeling at a time when my brother was critically ill. I was mentally present for him, but I had cut off emotionally.

A middle ground
I believe that there is a middle ground between the receptive and active approach, depending on one’s style of therapeutic practice. However, although therapists, in my view, can suggest a film to their clients, it should not be in place of the therapeutic process. I remember my first counsellor recommending that I see the film Groundhog Day (Ramis, 1993), which was a great help to me at the time, but I would have been wondering why I was paying her if she had recommended a film each time an issue came up.

Films, like books and other forms of popular culture, can be a useful tool or aid in therapeutic work with clients, but they are not a replacement for the therapeutic relationship. As the popularity of modern cinema continues to grow in the U.K., the impact that films can make on spectators, and clients will be something that may be addressed in the therapeutic session. Whether it is Terminator 3 (Mostow, 2003), Whale Rider (Caro, 2003), or even the newly released videos and DVDs of The Hours (Daldry, 2003) or About Schmidt (Payne, 2003), films will continue to touch us in a way that may help us to understand ourselves better, or to move on with our lives.

This article was first published in the Counselling and Psychotherapy journal (now Therapy Today) in October 2003.

1 Sprengnether M. Crying at the movies: a film memoir. St Paul: Graywolf Press; 2002.
2 Weimer S, Lu F. Personal transformation through an encounter with death. Journal for Transpersonal Psychology, 19(2):148. 1987.?
3. Honey, I kidded the shrink. 17 June, 2011. The Observer.
4. Hauke C,  Alister I. (eds) Jung & Film: post-Jungian takes on the moving Image. Hove: Brunner-Routledge; 2001.
5. Laing RD. The divided self. Middlesex: Pelican Books; P. 1979.
6. Gibbons, F. Films unlock the troubled mind. 3 August, 1999. The Guardian.
7. Solomon G. The motion picture prescription: Santa Rosa: Aslan Publishing; 1995.
8. Wooder B. 2001. http:www.themovietherapist.com
9. Brayfield C. Prozac or It’s a Wonderful Life? Which is the best cure for depression?. 11 January 2000. The Times.
10. Perkins V. Film as Film. Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd; 1972.