cinematherapy

When you’ve taken a heart-breaking hit or are facing serious adversity, it’s smart to utilize as many tools as possible if you want to bounce back from what’s happened to you. If you wan to increase your resiliency in the face of life’s trials and challenges, one very powerful tool available to you is Cinematherapy. We talk a lot about the power of books to help you through difficult times and to help you begin the healing journey but the medium of film is also a potent source of solace, wisdom, motivation, information and inspiration when you are facing problems, losses, or crises.

Sometimes, too, when you’re feeling battered by one of life’s hits, it may seem more manageable to rent a movie and settle in and watch it than it is, at times, to read a book. The fact that film engages more of our senses and also more of the multiple intelligences we possess is one reason why it can serve as a powerful catalyst for healing and transformation. Henry David Thoreau asks “How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book?” and we may also ask the same thing about film. Film has the ability to change us—story is always powerfully transformative—and film is story in living color. Here are some books and websites to check out if you’re interested in letting film help you through the hit you’ve taken:

• Rent Two Films and Let's Talk in the Morning by John W. Hesley and Jan G. Hesley Movies and Mental Illness by Danny Wedding and M. Boyd
• Psychiatry and the Cinema by Glen O. Gabbard and Krin Gabbard
• Cinematherapy by Nancy K. Peske and Beverly West

• cinematherapy.com -- one of the web’s premier cinematherapy sites (created by Dr. Birgit Wolz)
• cinemalchemy.com (also created by Dr. Wolz)
• spiritualcinemacircle.com (created by film producer Stephen Simon and psychologists Kathryn and Gay Hendricks)

This list of films that inspire, create joy, prompt release of deep emotions or help us connect with our inner heroes is by no means comprehensive. Included are films that are among our many favorites and we hope that you will find solace, humor or courage through the watching of them when the timing is right. Please feel free to write us if you know of a film that you feel would enlighten, entertain or in some way help other folks who are enduring life’s hits and hurts. Enjoy!

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