Movie Therapy to Help Troubled or Depressed Patient’s?
Mine Fielding
Emotions in motion (pictures)
If you’ve been reading my newsletter (or the Daily Dose) for any length of time at all, you already know that in my opinion, certain segments of the mental health field are based less on medicine than on marketing. In other words, convincing people that they’re mentally ill, then selling them the drugs, (or self-help books) they “need” in order to deal with it. However, I’m not exactly sure what to make of the latest treatment that’s making inroads in the mental health community
Movie therapy.
In this latest twist on psychology, patients are “prescribed” a course of motion pictures that are hand-selected by a therapist based on the particular patient’s issues and challenges. An increasing number of mental health professionals are turning to this course of therapy to help troubled or depressed people to mend their wounded or damaged psyches.
According to a recent article on the topic, movie therapy can be useful for people of almost all personality types and levels of therapeutic need. One therapist highlighted in the story even uses movie therapy to help prison inmates learn from their crimes (since their paltry sentences teach them nothing except that the American criminal justice system is laughable).
On the one hand, I’m skeptical of the notion that watching movies, however poignant or moving some of them may be, constitutes meaningful therapy. It’s a slippery slope, because to embrace this idea is to also give credence to the idea that what we see on screens big or small can actually influence our behavior. That’s an old saw of the “no-fault” political left – the notion that viewing violence on screen breeds violent behavior in real life (personal accountability be damned).
On the other hand, a good movie can be a great and enriching source of stress-relieving entertainment that most certainly could yield at least as much benefit as a session on the average shrink’s couch – and at a micro-fraction of the cost. Also, experiencing a catharsis through real-seeming characters you can relate to instead of being lectured and made to feel inferior by some PhD or M.D. definitely has some merit
And at the very least, a prescription of film-therapy would be infinitely preferable to a prescription of drugs – under almost any circumstances.
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Flowers exploding – with color
In the past, I’ve been mostly skeptical and hard on genetic engineering, as you may well know. As a concept, I find it a little scary. As much as I foresee the incredible opportunity for advancement in the healing arts because of these emerging technologies, I also see tremendous (and horrendous) propensity for abuses – for genetic modification to spiral out-of-control until we’re fighting off mutants of our own design.
Need an example? Some time ago, I wrote about the disease-resistant “Frankenskeeter” mosquito that scientists have spent years cooking up to combat insect-borne threats to our health – instead of just frying the little buggers with harmless DDT! In that case, genome science took the place of the proper solution, at who knows what expense and effect in the long run.
That’s why I’m extremely reluctant to praise any kind of genetic modification of anything. However, a recent Reuters online article struck me as exactly the kind of GM project I could get behind and support with all my heart. Here’s the scoop, in summary: A Danish biotech firm has developed a cheap, harmless flower variety that changes color as it grows
But only when planted over an UNEXPLODED LAND MINE!
By reacting to the nitrogen dioxide land mines gives off, these lifesaving plants could safely and easily protect innocent people in 45 countries around the world from the estimated ONE HUNDRED MILLION pieces of unexploded ordnance currently buried from wars past. Ingenious in its simplicity, this is precisely the kind of development that fills my heart with hope for the future of gen-tech.
Imagine if this same kind of technology were put to work in our everyday lives. What if there were an ordinary houseplant that would change color in the presence of otherwise undetectable radon gas in the home? What if that flower on your kitchen window would drop all of its leaves if you watered it with tap water containing too much fluoride, lead, mercury or other toxin? Wouldn’t it be great if the plants you artfully landscaped your property with could somehow warn you of unsafe air, electrical impulses from nearby power lines, or even nuclear fallout?
I’m sure these things are a long way off (if ever), but it’s sure nice to see someone thinking along those lines now, isn’t it?
Reporting from a field that’s truly mine,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
