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Cinema, Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Mental Distress: General Bibliography

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In the General Bibliography there are works that are related in several ways to the wide field of studies devoted to the relationship between film, psychoanalysis and mental distress. This collection, even if substantial, is not intended to be either exhaustive or judgemental. Items are listed alphabetically; any thematic classification is left to the curiosity of the reader. There are works written not only by psychoanalysts, but also by philosophers, film critics, semiologists, men of letters. Indeed, after an initial period in which this topic has been developed mainly through psychoanalysts’ publications in specialized journals, by the end of the ‘60s many disciplines were dealing with the subject and a large number of journals, film ones as well, were publishing these works: let us mention the special monographic issue of the French Journal Communications – a French journal focused on semiology – , released in1975 with the title Psychanalyse et Cinéma, hosting articles by Barthes, Baudry, Guattari, Metz and others. Other items belongs to semiology and film theory, that use psychoanalytic concepts Read more

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Introduction, Psychoanalysis and Cinema: “Through a glass”

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Cinema and psychoanalysis, which shared simultaneous origins at the end of the 19th century, occupy a central place in contemporary culture. It is not surprising then that both film scholars and psychoanalysts should engage in what has increasingly become a stimulating interdisciplinary dialogue with each other. This has in recent years found its own regular space in psychoanalytic congresses, as well as in many dedicated publications. I shall indicate here the main directions such studies have taken. Some authors have identified important analogies in analytic and filmic structure, function and mode of expression (suffice to think of the concept of projection); “to a large extent, film speaks the language of the unconscious” (Gabbard 1997 [1]). Much reflection has addressed the creatively ambiguous space in both cinema and psychoanalysis located between reality and fantasy, documentary and fictional narrative, history and subjective experiences. More specifically the interest of several authors has focused on the oneiric world (Hollywood has always been described as a ‘dream factory’), for if dream interpretation constitutes the Royal Road to the unconscious, perhaps also the exploration of films may lead us in the same direction… Movies and dreams share a morphological equivalence insofar as both can be considered to express our latent unconscious wishes through their manifest contents, and both use, for the purpose of circumventing repression, similar mechanisms, such as condensation, Read more

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Some introductory notes for a psychoanalytic literature of “The Simpsons”

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Abstract

In an excursus on the psychoanalytic literature that has addressed the relationship between creativity and art, the authors want to highlight how the animated sitcom “The Simpsons” can now be configured as an artistic production of high symbolic value can provide significant explanatory models, suitable to “read” like a case or of a literary classic, precise dynamic unconscious. This reflection is emphasized as ways of expressing the popular series will serve as a record and a language more refined than those Read more

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“The Lunatics” (Le systeme du docteur Goudron et du professeur Plume): An Early Encounter Between Cinema, literature and Mental Distress

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Abstract

In this work, our main aim has been to catch the early moments when film, psychology, psychoanalysis and mental distress came in contact in filmmaking. We have identified Poe’s 1845 tale The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether as an interesting starting point of this connection, and the film adaptation by Maurice Tourneur as a fundamental crossing, upon which we have drawn the title of this article. These early films of the silent short-movie stage of film history, have been important as they already contained issues that would have fully resounded through the cinema of the following decades: the reversal of roles between “insane” patients and sound minded professionals; the association between horror and mental Read more

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Lansquenet from “tranquillité” to play. Based upon the film Chocolat by Lasse Hallström

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Abstract

New is amazing, it affects senses, like a cold winter wind striking one’s face, like a red cloak standing out in the dullness of late winter night, like a good hot chocolate delighting even the most suspicious palate with its aroma, like exotic music attracting even the most insensible ears; new smells of spring and reawakening. On arriving inside a group it upsets its existing balance, which in some cases has become stale and stinks of death. At first new generates suspicion or even open rebellion, however it can awaken both Read more

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The movie is about a special form of creative nostalgia

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Abstract

Midnight in Paris” by Woody Allen is a movie that deals with the concept of  remembrance of the past. I have used a some conceptual ideas proposed by the late analyst Pier Mario Masciangelo. In his work Masciangelo elucidated in a very creative manner the function of nostalgia as an important aspect of psychic functioning. The film moves from the past to the present to the future as a way to find, reshape and elaborate early objects in our mind in order to find a Read more

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Psychoanalytical considerations on Ingmar Bergman’s “Cries and Whispers”

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Abstract

The Author rereads Ingmar Bergman’s film “Cries and Whispers” not only as a representation of the process of emotions and thoughts revolving around dying, but also as a potentially transformational experience for the audience’s self that generates a profound change in how they interpret death. Psychoanalytical considerations on the film, juxtaposed with Heidegger’s concept of “being-toward- death”, comments from film critics, and reference to Ginette Raimbault’s experience of the clinical aspects of chronic and terminal Read more

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The father elsewhere. Commentary on the movie: “Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles”

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Abstract

The article offers the opportunity to consider the loss and recovery of the paternal function in a culture that is different from ours, as well as to reflect upon contrasting and similar aspects. As far as the latter are concerned, in the movie the paternal function meets the child’s need for a reference point outside of his relationship with his mother, someone who can understand and tolerate the negative feelings that build up at the moment of separation from her. The father appears in his new function if he manages to stay there without having a boomerang reaction. When this happens the child can then accept a group, after both the maternal and the paternal function have proved they are present. We cannot but agree, even from our “western” viewpoint. However, the movie also describes the recovery of the Japanese father’s paternal function through a course in which the father starts over from point zero, where he symbolically Read more

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Bus as therapy group setting metaphor: Lista de Espera, a journey inside the group

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Abstract

Bus as therapy group setting metaphor: Lista de Espera, a journey inside the group. Abstract-This work aims to analyze the film “Lista de espera”, from the perspective of group dynamics working among the passengers of a bus station. The interest is placed on the foundation of the group and the conflict that is generated over time between participants; going through the basic assumptions we can see how it comes to teamwork in the performing stage. The film is a metaphor for what happens in a group psychotherapy, where differences become Read more

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Of monsters, spirits, soldiers and the power of imagination. A psychoanalytic lens on Victor Erice’s “The spirit of the beehive” (El espíritu de la colmena)

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Abstract

My article on Victor Erice’s The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) looks at the ambivalent fantasies of two Spanish young girls, excited by the screening of the film Frankenstein in their village town-hall. I offer an interpretation of their fantasies in the context of those children’s psychological development, of their relationship with emotionally distant parents, and of Read more

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Group, psychoanalysis and cinema. Notes about a formative group and cinema experience

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Abstract

In this essay we are willing to bring out some remarks on the usage of movies within experiential groups. As it is already widely acknowledged, there exists a strong relationship between cinema and psychoanalysis, especially between Freud’s theory of dreams and the cinematographic language. It is indeed interesting to highlight that they both are born close to each other: the first projection of Lumière brothers’ La sortie de l’usine Lumière in 1895, and the publication of Freud’s The interpretation of dreams, in 1899. The connection between cinema and psychoanalysis can be analyzed under different perspectives: the way psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts are represented in movies (Gabbard, 1999), the psychoanalytic elements nested into movies and their narratives, the effects of movies on the spectator (Musatti, 1961, Elsaeser e Hagener, 2007 et al.), or, the usage of psychoanalysis in semiotic studies of the diegetic device (Metz, 1977). A further perspective is proposed in our work, that is the effect of a movie on a group of spectators, emphasizing the relationship between what is represented in the movie and the mental reality of group members who watched the movie altogether.  The rest of the essay is structured as follow: the next section preliminary introduces the meanings that a movie might have in a psychoanalytic model; the second section will focus on cinema and dreams; the third section, after a brief introduction on the relationship between cinema and group, describes the Read more

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Film References: Cinema, Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Mental Distress

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In the Film References we included interesting films under a psychological perspective and from a more general point of view of mental distress. The selection of films has followed different criteria: the explicit content; the multidimensional deepening of the psychology of characters or of an atmosphere; the possible usage of the film as a tool in a clinical or educational context; apparent group dynamics. As to the explicit content, it can refer to the presence of characters affected by a mental distress, to the presence of a professional of mental health, the setting in a mental health institution. Clearly, some of these categories overlap, but not always; in some cases the mental health professional is absent even when the film set is a mental asylum, as in The Escaped Lunatic. Often, both a patient and a mental health professional are present when the relationship matters in the film, but it can happen that only a mental distressed character plays a role, or that a mental health professional is portrayed in his private life. It can even happen that they are the same person, rather often indeed when the film is a thriller. Read more

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In Search of ‘Hyde’ Notes on some transformations in the analysis room

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Abstract

The authors suggest a reflection on the use of the film and the context of the film theatre in connection with certain aspects of the analytic dialogue. Through a re-consideration of “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson and of five different film versions of the story, the essay investigates how the cinema has described the different and contradictory emotions felt by analysts when faced with patients who transform themselves before their eyes during a session. These reactions always require a reply that is specific in that it is the result of the analyst’s work as he receives and shares the point of view of the patient, and thus becomes able to accede to the many potential areas of the mind, or multiple states of the self, that are expressed in different ways. Following these lines of thought, the authors suggest that these films can act as devices that perform the same Read more