FILM 287 - Filming Therapy

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

What happens when a camera is brought into the protected, private space of the therapy session? This course investigates how the camera’s presence affects the therapeutic encounter, the relationship between therapist and client, and the role of the viewer. It considers how filmed therapy oftens troubles notions of an authentic stable self. Close study of the first filmed therapy sessions—Three Approaches to Psychotherapy (1964)—will launch the course. We then explore connections between the documentary interview and psychoanalysis, analyzing works featuring the traditional psychoanalytic setting, the confessional testimonial, psychodrama, and reenactments. Therapy scenes in fiction films and television series are also discussed. Screenings likely include: Chronicle of a Summer, Couples Therapy, Capturing the Friedmans, Foucault Against Himself, In Treatment, Procession, Asylum, and Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask. We read writings by: Sigmund Freud, D.W. Winnicott, Michel Foucault, Frantz Fanon, R. D. Laing, E. T. A. Goffman, and Fritz Perls. Katherine Model.

Corequisite(s): FILM 209.

Two 75-minute periods accompanied by film screenings.

Course Format: CLS