Educating to helping relationships: An innovative approach with the use of movies

Movies stir people’s psyches through emotion and their unsettling power (Izod, 2000). The act of watching a movie, casts the viewer into a state of mind which allows people to identify with movie characters, and “touches” people on an emotional level as well as an intellectual one (Wedding and Boyd, 1997; Mangin, 1999). Moreover, since the emotions aroused by cinema refer to a virtual world, they may help the individual grow in self-awareness while feeling relatively “safe” (Izod, 2000). The theory and practice of cinematherapy describe how the features of cinema may be helpful from a therapeutic point of view. We believe that movies can be a useful tool, as far as education and training for helping relationships are concerned. The specificity of training and education to helping relationships require specific teaching/learning approaches. Wilfred Bion stated that we have limited methods to communicate emotional experiences, while technical issues are easy to share and teach. Moreover, he believed that in the field of emotional experience a mimetic approach to learning may be dangerous because it might give ‘a spurious appearance of growth’ (Bion, 1948). Therefore, in the field of emotional experience, training and education should follow a pathway which is different from the one typical for communication and acquisition of technical skills. Eugenio Torre (one of the authors) developed an innovative method which proposes a pathway for teaching and educating about psychotherapy and helping relationships through art. The theoretical framework is rooted in Carl Gustav Jung’s analytical psychology and in existentialism (with sparks from Heidegger and Sartre). This theoretical framework is integrated with technical questions and the experience of working in a group. It uses dynamic images (full length movies or scenes) from cinematic fiction as educational incitements. Participants’ reflection on movie characters and on the images emerging from the group is stimulated, while the group leader supports and facilitates the integration of content into emotional experience.