Film fiction and shamanic operation: towards cinema-drama-therapy
The shamanic, almost ‘prophetic’, function we used to ascribe to art, here in the psychotherapeutic context of cinematherapy can be placed in what, according to Birgt Wolz and many other psychotherapists, is defined as ‘modern-day shamanism’. It is an internal work, a catharsis that often takes place in a closed box, without the interpretations of dialogue - a series of mental operations deeply involving our unconscious processes on the cognitive and emotional sphere (Tyson, Foster, and Jones, 2000), even outside our awareness.
Cindy Jones, editor, together with other illustrious scholars, of Cinematherapy, a website wholly dedicated to cinematherapy, describes the main guidelines for therapists in using cinematherapy for treatment. She suggests using a clip only after a stable relationship of counselling with the client has been established; she suggests being open to clips chosen by the clients themselves; knowing that cinematherapy cannot work for everybody; never advising a client to watch a screening without the necessary preparation and knowledge of the clip; focussing the work on the characters, the relationships, the processes taking place, thus promoting insight; suspending judgement on the movie or on the actors, if the movie has a therapeutic function; selecting movies that offer a positive role of the models, as well as hope and encouragement; starting with a list of films that can be used; discussing with other therapists in order to receive opinions and suggestions; advising the client to watch the movie with a friend or a member of the family; encouraging the client to take notes, during the viewing, of the most important points about the characters or the scenes the are most relevant for the client themselves.
What has been discussed so far describes the context of cinematherapy, but it is in the cinematic action itself that the essence of cinema-drama-therapy is expressed (E. Gioacchini, 2007); whether we use it in clinical contexts or just for playful and training purposes.
The syncretism of the dramatherapeutic and cinematherapeutic statute working in cinema-drama-therapy does not refer to the juxtaposition of these two techniques: 1) the dramatherapeutic operation has taken place and, once it’s been filmed with a camera, 2) it can be used for a therapeutic revision and elaboration by the group involved in the therapeutic context. It is definitely not this. To signify the intimate and deep way in which the two techniques are entwined it would be enough to notice how, in the supposed first phase, in which the dramatherapeutic process takes place, the very ‘eye’ of the camera recording the event has not only the unquestionable role of interfering element – if considered to be just a ‘recorder’ – but actually plays its own specific role in the whole operation. In the development of the dramatherapeutic process, there isn’t just a subject/object group to represent the other, the ‘active’ audience, in relation to the game played by the actors; but the whole group is subject to an ‘alien’ observation of the box-into-box type, introducing in the process a constant meta-categorisation and understanding no longer entrusted only to action. Shooting has, therefore, not only the function of recording –useful for re-elaborating– but it has its own function and operating rules. The group, the actors, the director in a dramatherapeutic context, know they are being recorded and this awareness creates continuous reactions of control and self-control in which, paradoxically, there’s a constant search for authenticity/spontaneity.
An example can help here: let’s consider the factor ‘resilience’ in the stress context of the drama that is taking place. It will no longer measure itself only with what the actors and the group are experimenting in the dramatherapeutic process, but it will have its own working time for the group as well as for the individual, even in the following phase of re-processing during the screening. In such a situation, one understands how cine-drama-therapy connects elements of theatre with those of cinema: the subject, while they play their part, are apparently ‘distracted’ by their ‘external narration’ and, almost always, offer a massive projection of themselves on stage. This happens thanks to the dramatherapeutic work that happened previously, while learning and interpreting the character (see dramatherapy). The recorded final scene can then be re-analysed and elaborated inside the group, just as it happens in cinematherapy, and here the actor becomes audience responsible of their own ‘action’.
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