88 Sally Chivers 4. Hilfiker, D. (2013). ‘Now it Begins’, Watching the Lights Go Out: A Memoir of an Uncertain Mind, 30 January. Available at: http://davidhilfiker.blog- spot.ca. Accessed 16 October 2014. 5. Hilfiker, D. (2014). ‘The Last Post ... (?)’, Watching the Lights Go Out: A Memoir of an Uncertain Mind. Available at: http://davidhilfiker.blogspot. ca. Accessed 16 October 2014. 6. Fukushima, C. (2012). ‘Preparing for the “Silver Tsunami” across the Globe’, Long-Term Living Magazine, 24 September. Available at: http:// www.ltlmagazine.com/blog/cfukushima. Accessed 16 October 2014. 7. ‘The “Silver Tsunami” of Alzheimer’s and Dementia’. Health Watch. WPEC-TV CBS 12. Available at: http://www.cbs12.com/community/ features/health-watch/features/comforcare/stories/3-the – silver-tsuna- mi-of – alzheimers-and-dementia.shtml. Accessed 16 October 2014. 8. Long, C. (2010) ‘Martin Amis and the Sex War’, Sunday Times, 14 January. Available at: http://www.accessinterviews.com/interviews/author/camil- la-long/768/popular. Accessed 16 October 2014. 9. McNicoll, T. (2013) ‘Oscar’s 85-Year-Old Darling: A Talk with Emmanuelle Riva of Amour’, Academy Awards. The Daily Beast, 15 February. Available at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/15/oscar-s-85-year- old-darling-a-talk-with-emmanuelle-riva-of-amour.html. Accessed 31 October 2014. 10. This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada as part of their Major Collaborative Research Initiative. Pat Armstrong, York University, Principal Investigator [file#412–2010–1004]. The paper benefited from the research assistance of Anne Showalter.
6 Re-enacting Trauma in Film and Television: Restaging History, Revisiting Pain Stella Bruzzi My aim in this chapter is to examine the restaging and revisiting of historical events through re-enactment in documentary film as a very contemporary form of therapy, a way of enabling viewers to identify with the emotions and pain of events with which they are most likely not personally involved. The traumas and the pain of the past haunt the present, and by re-enacting a painful memory, filmmakers, program makers or artists bring that pain to life – pull it into the present. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the USA on 11 September 2001, collectively known as ‘9/11’, Susan Sontag uttered her famous and influential imperative: ‘let the atrocious images haunt us’ (2003: 102). After arguing earlier that, after the attacks of ‘9/11’, ... we encountered in the media graphic pictures of those who died, along with their names, their stories, the reactions of their families. Public grieving was dedicated to making these images iconic for the nation (Butler, 2010: 38). Judith Butler, in Frames of War responded directly to Sontag by saying: Her imperative suggests that there are conditions in which we can refuse to be haunted, or where haunting cannot reach us. If we 89
90 Stella Bruzzi are not haunted, there is no loss, there has been no life that was lost (2010: 97). Butler is specifically referring to – as was Sontag – the still photo- graphic image, whereas I will be discussing largely moving images. Potentially, the two are distinct: whereas the photograph takes us back to a past emotion, trauma or event, its stillness leaves more space for the thoughts and contemplations of those looking at it, space that ensures the possibility of a certain distance from the image. On the other hand, the moving image grants its viewer less breathing space, less distance and is, as a result, potentially more overwhelming than its photographic counterpart. Butler, after Sontag, argues that the arrested ‘presentness’ of a photograph both perpetually re-evokes the loss it captured, at the same time as it preserves its subject’s ‘presentness’; that, in other words, it is specifically tied to the subject it depicts while nevertheless being able to outlive, transcend and go beyond it. I would like to suggest here that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, not to feel and relive the emotions and pain of a past trauma if what we are watching is a re-enactment, for as an event is being re-enacted, it appears to us as if in the present, as if incomplete and ongoing. We, its spectators, assume the place of the trauma’s original audience. Re-enactments offer an especially emotionally charged form of déjà vu, an uncanny repetition or restaging of a historical action; even if it is not already familiar to those watching, it is summoning up events from the past into the present – and it is this temporal duality, this co-existence of past and present that renders it powerful. Thinking along similar lines, Elizabeth Cowie argues in Recording Reality, Desiring the Real, that ‘Two kinds of time are thus figured in documentary: a “now” time of the present speaking and acting’ and a ‘past time’ (2011: 155). The cycle in standard docu- mentaries is repeated as Cowie suggests, for the ‘now’ time will become the ‘past remembered’ for future audiences. Conversely for documentary re-enactments, the ‘now time’ never straightforwardly becomes the ‘past remembered’, because the very act of re-enacting is to perpetually re-evoke the action’s presentness, to position it in the permanent now. So what is a re-enactment in a documentary context and why is it emotional and painful? As rehearsed by Jonathan Kahana, official
Re-enacting Trauma in Film and Television 91 definitions of the term ‘re-enactment’ often blur somewhat impre- cisely into its sister term ‘enactment’. The distinction between ‘enact- ment’ and ‘re-enactment’, though, is only meaningful if it indicates degrees of historical distance from the original act and levels of performative re-configuration of it. In the Oxford English Dictionary, which Kahana cites, to enact – for example an item of legislation or a proposed law – is ‘to effect a permanent change’ and to ‘render a judg- ment, make a decision, or establish a fundamental principle’ (2009: 52). The OED then identifies two other ways ‘to enact’: to act out or perform a play or similar and, as in ‘to be enacted’, to take place. Although Kahana expresses disappointment upon discovering that the OED ‘has relatively little to say about “reenactment” as distinct from ‘enactment’ (2009: 53), this is to downplay the marked sense offered by these dictionary definitions that a re-enactment’s relation to time is quite different – that to ‘re-enact’ is, for instance, to ‘act out (a past event), or to ‘bring (a law) into effect again when the original statute has been repealed or expired’ and that a ‘re-enactment’ is the re-performance of a historical event (my italics).1 Crucially, it seems to me, the imaginative (that is, the coupling of the intellectual with the emotional) time-space occupied by docu- mentary re-enactments is divided into three stages: the act or action; the enactment (an initial documentary representation in, for instance, the form of an interview or an archival fragment); and its subse- quent re-enactment, involving a performative rendition if not always a dramatization of the enacted event. Layers of enactment can be compressed or overlaid; an especially poignant example would be the sequence in Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah that shows the direct- or’s interview with Abraham Bomba – whose role in Treblinka had been to cut women’s hair immediately prior to their entry into the gas chamber – whilst he is cutting the hair of a male client in an Israeli barber’s shop, which the director had rented expressly for the purposes of filming Bomba’s interview. As the barber recounts in the present his past traumatic role as a gas chamber barber, he repeatedly becomes visibly upset, but Lanzmann compels him to continue telling his story. Bomba’s fresh tears, coupled with, expressly for the purposes of the documentary, the action of trimming the hair of his male clients, summons in a disquietingly direct manner the past into the present. Shoah expli- citly advocates the ‘talking cure’ as a means of not forgetting the
92 Stella Bruzzi Figure 6.1 Screen capture from Abraham, Bomba, Shoah, (1985) directed by Claude Lanzmann holocaust; we see Sontag’s imperative at work in the interview with Bomba, but also later on with Jan Karski, a Polish resistance fighter who, until his interview with Lanzmann, had not talked publicly about his wartime experiences in Warsaw. To return to Susan Sontag’s notion of the social necessity of letting ‘the atrocious images haunt us’, haunting is a key feature of re-enact- ment’s emotive resonance. As Bill Nichols argues when considering the documentary re-enactment, ‘a specter haunts the text’ (2008: 74). I am especially intrigued by the conjunction between haunting and a modern version of catharsis – the psychically intense but psychologically satisfying working through of a past trauma or pain via its re-enactment. The re-enactment of an excessive, violent or traumatic past action provokes an equivocal and complex response precisely because it is rooted in an impossible fantasy: that the trauma being restaged, being summoned into the present may – by its renewed presentness – be averted. Although only in the imagin- ation, the temporary effect of the re-enactment’s concretization as
Re-enacting Trauma in Film and Television 93 presentness is to raise the possibility that the events portrayed will not happen, so a different specter arguably ‘haunts the text’, as the original act shadows its re-enactment, thereby reversing Nichols’ formulation by momentarily destabilizing the past event while lending (false) stability to its ostensibly less secure or ephemeral re-enactment. An exemplary inversion of this sort is provided by the assassin- ation of President Kennedy on 22 November 1963 in Dallas, Texas. An overwhelming amount has been written about this violent act, and to many viewers, even now, both film and photographic images of the event are intensely familiar. The JFK assassination, though, provides an archetypal example of the ambivalent fantasy of firstly revisiting and then re-enacting – of finding oneself, when confronted with the brutality of the image, repressing certainty that the action occurred and Kennedy died and instead elevating or prioritizing the fleeting fantasy that it did not and his death was averted. The specter Figure 6.2 Screen capture from Abraham Zapruder (1963) frame 312
94 Stella Bruzzi Figure 6.3 Screen capture from Abraham Zapruder (1963) frame 313 of this awkward ambivalence most conspicuously haunts the frames immediately before the ‘head shot’ capturing the moment when the fatal bullet hit Kennedy’s head. However, a twenty-fourth of a second later, this fantasy is annihi- lated with the livid brutality of Frame 313, when the reversal fantasy finds itself once more submerged under the shocking violence it fleetingly masked. Though the permanent now of the documentary re-enactment only temporarily alleviates the pain of recollecting violence, it remains an emotive form of revisiting history, especially because it muddies the documentary waters by incorporating drama, fantasy and personal- ization. In this sense, it becomes a logical extension of the psycho- therapeutic ‘talking cure’. Enacting – or walking through, not merely talking through – pain or trauma, renders it even more immediate and palpable, as the audience is invited to identify and empathize with the re-evoked past event, to become engrossed with it.
Re-enacting Trauma in Film and Television 95 This increased proximity is neatly illustrated in a film such as Paul Greengrass’ United 93 (2006), in which is re-enacted the story of the fourth and final flight hijacked during the terrorist attacks on the USA on 11 September 2001. United 93 is not a documentary, but rather a feature film manifesting many documentary-esque tendencies in its visual style and in the fact that it casts several of the actual people involved on the ground in the 9/11 tragedy. Through features such as the frenetic camerawork, the crash zooms and pans and the multiple points of view, audiences find themselves sucked into reliving the violence of the flight’s final hour as the passengers and crew attempt to wrestle control of the aircraft from the hijackers. Having already engaged with one duality of painful historical re-enactment, United 93 confronts us with another, by compelling audience members – at the same time as immersing them in the claustrophobic inten- sity of the in-flight reconstruction – to consciously recall not only what happened to flight United 93, but also the wider symbolic value and implication of what has come to be known as ‘9/11’. Alongside which, for many of us, also returns the anxious memory of watching the news on that day before we understood what was going on – as we now watch the fate unfold in a fictionalized, high budget re-en- actment of the one group of people that never had recourse to any of those images, nor (until late on) to the rolling news that carried the stories of the other planes. (Figure 6.4. See Figshare ‘Second plane hitting the World Trade Center, United 93’.) Through the deployment of his trademark visual style, Greengrass constructs an overtly visceral, physical viewing experience that conveys the trauma of the events being re-enacted in a literal way, a transference that makes our bodies feel the impact of the emotional impact of the film. The affective power on the viewer, the impact of the drama and style on their body is just one level, in this sequence, of the residual emotions and pain of memory being understood or interpreted through bodily re-enactment. Here, the on-screen char- acters living both inside and outside the ‘9/11’ story is graphically and uncomfortably exemplified, as the air traffic controllers – playing themselves – enact watching the second plane hit the World Trade Center not on a screen but rather directly. This enactment brings to the surface the unimaginable – and, beyond the realms of fiction, unrepresentable – physical trauma of being one of the passengers on that plane – and the others, such as United 93. For the real air traffic
96 Stella Bruzzi controllers performing in Greengrass’s film, this moment when the relative detachment of re-enactment is replaced by a more direct historical recall, becomes a multi-layered and painfully charged uncanny experience: reliving the original violent act of witnessing the second plane hit the tower, watching it on television and moni- tors, and reliving it for the purposes of Greengrass’s re-enactment. In Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog (1955), Jean Cayrol’s otherwise eloquent voice-over (narrated by Michel Bouquet) stops when the concentration camp archival imagery plumbs particularly horrific depths and says simply that sometimes ‘words fail’. In the confron- tation of violent and irreconcilable memory, sometimes images fail. Just as the plane’s impact into the second tower is represented using reaction shots and – for the only time in the film – authentic archive, so the spectators of United 93 are not made to witness the flight’s final point of impact with the ground. By this point, our identifica- tion with the passengers and crew on the plane would have rendered that unbearable, just as in a dream we wake before seeing our own death. Re-enactments bring potentially distant, even sterile histor- ical events into the present; they breathe life into them and make them come alive. In short, they bring them closer. But that proximity comes at a price: at moments of maximum pain, maximum violence, maximum recognition, the re-enactment usually has to avert its gaze as the trauma of bearing witness to such horror would be more than Sontag’s ‘haunting’ – it would be too painful. This is not merely a play on words: moving images have the ability to move. I now want to briefly mention two further examples of re-enact- ment that illustrate its visceral, subjective potential – its deployment as a means of opening up emotionally acts of historical violence. In these examples – both from documentary films – the present collides with historic ugliness, guilt and hurt through the physicality of re-enactment. In the first example, Errol Morris’s Standard Operating Procedure, some of the differences between photographs and moving images are discussed directly. Standard Operating Procedure is a hugely controversial documentary exploring the photographs taken in 2003 by US Military Police working in Abu Ghraib prison, Baghdad, which revealed the widespread torture and abuse of prisoners by US soldiers. The documentary’s controversy stemmed from Morris’s decision to film stylized re-enactments of the torture scenes captured in simpler form by the photographs – and in the interviews he obtains with
Re-enacting Trauma in Film and Television 97 Figure 6.4 Screen capture from The Act Of Killing (2012) by Joshua Oppenheimer several key members of the military and which take up the bulk of the movie. Here is a fairly representative sequence. (Figure 6.5. See Figshare Standard Operating Procedure (2008)) The widespread abuse of power revealed in the photographs taken in Abu Ghraib gave voice to a silenced, deeply troubling truth about US military operations in Iraq. In keeping this time with Sontag’s arguments, while the photographs of the abuse were stark and powerful in their clarity, the overblown, grandiose re-stagings of the same scenes were not. Their cinematic richness and stylization blur the clarity of the acts and dissipate the pain. Maybe, by retaining some beauty, the re-enactments in Standard Operating Procedure func- tion as eloquent dialectical reminders of the obscene brutality of the torture being perpetrated, but this is not how many scholars viewed the film. Emotions and painful memory are dealt with in an equally stylized way in Joshua Oppenheimer’s recent award-winning documentary about unrepentant former members of the Indonesian death squads of 1965–6. Oppenheimer came up with the idea of inviting Anwar and his former co-murderers – the film’s official website argues that they ‘challenged’ them – to re-enact their past actions in the style
98 Stella Bruzzi of the Hollywood movies they loved. Whereas the problem with the re-enactments in Standard Operating Procedure arguably stemmed from the stylization and beautification of the image coming in the way of identification with the torture victims’ pain, the dynamics in and effects of the re-enactments in The Act of Killing are quite distinct. In the scene in which Anwar, in the second gangster reconstruc- tion, takes on the role of victim rather than torturer and murderer, the transference from being one of the perpetrators of violence and murder to being one of his own victims proves too much for him. But for all his audible remonstrations with Anwar that it was worse for his victims because they knew they were going to be killed, Oppenheimer nevertheless finds himself dictated to by Anwar by allowing him to elect to stop the simulation and the filming. In both these documentary examples, the potentially therapeutic value of re-enactment is replaced by an altogether more traumatic confronta- tion with violent memory; not only with an unresolved history but through an imposed identification with – or more accurately, prox- imity to – the perpetrators of violence as opposed to their victims. To conclude, revisiting the emotions and pain of the past via their re-enactment offers many different levels of therapy and therapeutic engagement with the moving image. The vast majority of viewers of all the films I have discussed have no first hand knowledge of the events depicted; however, the process of re-enacting them brings those events into not just the present, but also our present, they are repeatedly (that is, each time they are viewed) brought to life psycho- logically and emotionally. Frequently, the identification that ensues makes for a morally and imaginatively ambivalent viewing experi- ence, but it also still draws us closer to the emotions and pain of others. Note 1. Definition of ‘iteration’(2015). [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.oxford- dictionaries.com/definition/english/iteration?q=iteration. Accessed 21 February 2015.
7 The Relationships between Therapy Culture, Psychology, and Cinema: The Case of Woody Allen Miguel Ángel Huerta Floriano First of all, a little history: in the prehistoric caves of Altamira appears the painted image of a bison with eight legs (Gubern, 1993: 13). In a broad sense, the artist responsible for this detail, in what has been referred to as The Sistine Chapel of Quaternary Art, may be regarded as the very first filmmaker. In his pursuit to capture reality with a hunting scene, he tried to reproduce the movement that was char- acteristic of his subject, immortalizing his subject in an imitative document in a style to which he could aspire with the technologies at his disposal. It is interesting to speculate that this finding has a value that goes beyond being a simple reflection of reality. It is almost certain that the painter was not trying to accomplish a journalistic mission; rather, his role was closer to that of a magician or primitive priest invoking the success of the hunters of his tribe. If so, his message must have served to channel both the aspirations and dreams of the community to which he belonged, as well as his own. Many centuries later, the industrial development of the nineteenth century made the capturing and graphic reproduction of images in movement possible. The Lumière Brothers used these images exclu- sively for documentary purposes, while George Mélies – a magician, oddly enough – developed the potential of this new language to tell fantastic stories that sought to excite audiences. Thus, the cinema, understood in a strict sense, became a medium that effectively 99
100 Miguel Ángel Huerta Floriano stimulated the imagination and manipulated the emotions, arousing a powerful response. As industrial conditions led to mass production, emotions and feel- ings in the cinema quickly gave way to universality. Psychological mechanisms put the needs of the author at odds with the collective needs of the audience. It was only a matter of time before film theory, a multiform discipline that tends to be interdisciplinary, would become interested in the relationship between cinema and psychology from every point of view imaginable. From there, it was only a short step to the representation of the psychological sphere – especially in clinical terms – as a plot device, with texts populated by therapists, patients and methods displaying the concerns of the space and time in which they arose. Bringing order to all of this requires a challenging exercise in synthesis. The overall objective of this chapter is to clarify some of the relationships between the general field of psychology and film, with special emphasis on several points: the principal contributions of psychological knowledge to film, especially of psychoanalysis as a major current in the field of film theory; the description of some narrative strategies that play with the psychological mechanisms of participation by the viewer through the emotions; the summary of the principal ways of representing the therapist on film; and an analysis of the filmography of Woody Allen as a paradigmatic case study that allows us to link all the aspects mentioned above. The psychoanalytical theory of cinema The interests of psychology in the cinema date back to the first half of the first decade of the twentieth century, when film theory was taking its first systematic steps. Beginning with the contributions of Münsterberg (1916), the force of the inevitable encounter between a discipline in development and a medium of expression that brought into play numerous psychological factors within a complex system was evident. Casetti explains that ‘Hugo Munsterberg not only analyzed the mental processes by which a film positions the viewer, but insisted as well upon the activity that the viewer must undertake so that the film can function’ (1998: 2). Until the 70s, the majority of contributions focused on the mecha- nisms of perception and participation – questions to which we will
Therapy Culture, Psychology and Cinema 101 later return – as well as the understanding of film and its memoriza- tion. Beginning in this decade, the ‘filmological’ experience (i.e., the scientific experience of film-making) will be terminated, although intellectual curiosity for the psychological dimension of the cine- matographic experience will remain very much alive. However, a ‘filmological’ experience tends to move towards a less methodological field, though without a doubt one that remains suggestive of psychoanalysis. The background to the most important years of psychoanalytic interest in the cinema go back a long way, as Ferrari notes (1985). Somewhere between a discipline, a research method, and a therapeutic technique, the path opened up by Freud has the unconscious as the main object of study, and the similarities between films and the dreamlike productions of the unconscious became obvious from very early on, leading to some outstanding research in World War II. Worthy of mention, for example, is Lebovici’s work in 1949 on the relationship between cinema and dreams and the viewer and the dreamer. Nevertheless, the Freudian reinterpretations of Lacan, especially those associated with the relationship between the discursive nature of the unconscious and the individual and social character of human psychology, would be decisive for understanding the most influential contributions of psychoanalysis in cinema. Particularly recommend- able is the chapter written by Stam, Burgoyne, and Flitterman- Lewis (1999). These authors explain how psychoanalysis is related to the main concepts of film theory, and include a summary of the Freudian and Lacanian theories. They also explain the influence of those inquiries on cinematographic representation, the configur- ation of the subject/object (film identification, positioning), enunci- ation, gaze/desire, and feminism, etc. (Stam et al., 1999: 147–210). Among all these Freudian reinterpretations, there are two that really stand out: the first is a series of film analyses by Raymond Bellour, compiled into a fabulous book called L’analyse du film (1979). In this book, Bellour explains how underlying structures based on repetition, absences, symmetries, and dissymmetry, which in reality respond to the operations of oedipal compulsions, were developed in the narratives of classic films. The other is Le significant imaginaire (1977) by Christian Metz, probably the most important work of psychoanalysis in cinema. This French semiologist and sociologist established some important
102 Miguel Ángel Huerta Floriano clarifications as points of departure – such as the consciousness possessed by the viewer in relation to what he sees, as opposed to the unconscious nature of one who dreams – in order to focus on the creation of the film signifier through three psychoanalytic tools: first, the idea of the mirror (mirrored identification) as perception through a scopic regime (voyeurism), and a look at fetishes (fetishism), and all of this, as it relates to the process of exhibitionism, since from the point of view of the configuration of discourse it also provides some valuable contributions to film theory. The framework is as broad and difficult as it is invigorating. For our purposes, it is enough to point out the great territory of convergences and analogies in psychoanalysis and cinema; particularly by taking into consideration, the aesthetic characteristics of cinema and the historic conditions of representation. The dream material seems to match for the most part with the images projected in order to reveal desires, fears, and frustrations, as well as somehow configuring the identity of the subject. Cinematic narration and psychological mechanisms of participation and identification As we have seen above, the psychological mechanisms that the viewer activates are numerous, and they also obey certain complex processes. In order to explain them, many scholars have focused their attention not only on the visual and audio dimensions of film, but also on the so-called ‘cinematographic situation’. For instance, Darío Romano (1965) dealt with the ‘cinematographic experience’ and explained the way in which the image is captured: its movement, space, etc. However Lucia Lumbelli went a step further and carried out a series of experiments to try to corrob- orate the existence of a supposed psychological ‘passivity’ on the part of viewers (1974). It is this aspect in particular which is of interest to us, although in relation to a psychological aspect that deals with emotions and feel- ings. In order to achieve this, we need to turn our attention to the field of narratology and especially to the book Narration in the Fiction Film (1985) by the North American theorist David Bordwell. Far from what people used to think, the role of the viewer is never fully passive. Even in the classic narrative paradigm there is an active
Therapy Culture, Psychology and Cinema 103 viewer. Without a doubt this classic paradigm is the most hegemonic and conventional in the strategies that are involved in the construc- tion of a tale. That tale is usually continuous, transparent, casual, and closed. At the core of a tale, ‘the spectator performs particular cognitive operations which are no less active for being habitual and familiar’ (Bordwell, 1985: 164). Even in that impressive narrative factory that was Hollywood in its Golden Age (and in its subsequent extension, since it remained the dominant style of narrative to the present) the viewer observing the screen displayed a remarkable degree of psychological activity. Viewers tend to question what is going to happen next in a story. In fact, the viewer creates hypotheses based on the knowledge he has about the plot, and it falls to the narrators to confirm or reject those hypotheses in a constant game that makes for a balance between surprise and predictability. A viewer takes part in the story and lives it, feeling the character’s emotions as if they were his own, thanks to a powerful process of identification. In this process the viewer recognizes himself in some fictional creations. One of the key narrative tools for achieving this emotional effect is conflict. As script theorists since the time of Aristotle – whose Poetics is commonly recognized as the first and most complete manual for screenwriters – have explained, the dramatic interest of tales depends on the existence of problems, difficulties, and tests that the heroes have to overcome during their adventures. This interest was adapted into the twentieth century and related to the world of cinema: Deep within the characters and their conflicts we discover our own humanity. We go to the movies to enter a new, fascinating world, to inhabit vicariously another human being who at first seems so unlike us and yet at heart is like us, to live in a fictional reality that illuminates our daily reality. (McKee, 1997: 5) Considering the industrial nature of cinema, in order for identi- fication to be as intensive and massive as possible, the tales have to deal with universal and recognizable ideas. Terminology differs depending on the author, but we will follow McKee, who distin- guishes three levels of conflict: inner conflicts, personal conflicts, and extra-personal conflicts (1997: 146). In the first kind of conflict,
104 Miguel Ángel Huerta Floriano the main antagonism for the protagonist lies in the protagonist himself and in his own feelings; his physical and emotional qual- ities. In the second kind, the obstacles appear in intimate rela- tionships that go beyond what society establishes (for example: friendship, love, etc.). In the third, the opposition of the antagonist is found outside the private self and derives from the confronta- tion between institutions and the individual (government/citizen, Church/worshipper ... ), between people who have a particular role (cop/criminal/victim, boss/worker ... ) or between the individual and his surroundings (time, space ... ). Participation and identification are fundamental to clarify the powerful emotional component that films have. Obviously there are other kinds of films, but these are always worth considering when studying the mode in which a film deals with a particular theme (i.e., historical events, professions, disciplines, etc.). In fact, the determining conditions of the medium should never be omitted; conditions which force the filmmaker to summarize storylines with an extended narrative development in time – days, months, years or even centuries – in just a few seconds of story time (it is actually rare that this time surpasses 120 minutes) while at the same time concentrating higher doses of intensity in relation to conflict, as a way of awakening the emotional interest of the audience. Therapy and therapists on film The therapist, like any other kind of character, is subject to the same conflicting commandments which almost all cinematic stories obey. This is one of the keys to understanding the problematic nature of both the personality traits they display and the actions they carry out every time they are presented on film. It was like this from the very beginning. The type of psychoana- lyst played by Gustav Von Seyffertiz, in films such as The Front Page (Lewis Milestone, 1931) and Mr Deeds Goes to Town (Frank Capra, 1936) constitutes one of the first prototypical representations: the therapist of middle-European origin, characterized as a deceitful man in a satirical tone. In any case, the history of the cinematographic depiction of therapy and its associated practitioners is too dense to be developed in this study. For more details, we refer to the important contribution
Therapy Culture, Psychology and Cinema 105 on psychiatry and cinema by Gabbard and Gabbard (1999). These authors draw attention, in the first place, to the wide variety of films that develop this topic: Because of the opportunities they have provided for filmmakers, psychiatrists and psychiatry have played roles in almost every type of film, including silent farces like Plastered in Paris (1928), gangster films like Blind Alley (1939), classic tearjerkers like Now, Voyager (1942), teen exploitation horror flicks like I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), Doris Day sex farces like Lover Come Back (1961), low-budget art films like David and Lisa (1962), and contemporary Hollywood biopics like Frances (1982). In fact, considerably more than four hundred films across the spectrum of Hollywood genres make some use of psychiatry. (1999: 21–2) In addition, Gabbard and Gabbard propose a historical period- ization in which the ‘Golden Age’ stands out. This period of time started at the end of the 1950s and ended in the first years of the 60s, the years in which there was the idealization of psychiatry and psychiatrists on the big screen. It is advisable not to forget the heterogeneity of historical, creative, and industrial factors that influenced the representation of the subject. Thus, Xavier Pérez (2008) conceives cinematographic genres as another key to summarizing the evolution of the cinematographic therapist. In his opinion, comedy is characterized by the prevalence of eccen- tric psychoanalysts. Consequently, while the precedent established by Von Seyffertiz continues throughout the classic era (during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s), those therapists are usually secondary characters. Contemporary comedies offer some examples of greater prominence in films like Beyond Therapy (Robert Altman, 1987) or Analyze This (Harold Ramis, 1999). However, the most significant filmmaker who deals constantly with this matter from a comical point of view is Woody Allen, to whom we have dedicated an entire epigraph. Dramas, on the other hand, tend to give free rein to secondary characters who, in a mostly positive fashion, help one of the protag- onists in order to overcome some kind of trauma. One of the first examples appears in Now Voyager (Irving Rapper, 1942). Furthermore, there is the possibility that this character could be the protagonist
106 Miguel Ángel Huerta Floriano and will reveal a contradiction between the treatment that he gives to his patients and the way he manages his own emotions. The breakdown of a marriage between therapists in Anskite mot anskite (Ingmar Bergman, 1976), or in La stanza del figlio (Nani Moretti, 2001), in which a psychoanalyst loses his son in an accident, are good examples. In this fashion, some dramatic movies try to highlight the weak- nesses of this kind of character from a realistic point of view. Nonetheless, there are also more positive approaches, especially in those cases in which the psychoanalyst plays the role of initiator: this applies to Good Will Hunting (Gus Van Sant, 1997), a film that portrays an intense affective exchange between an exceptionally gifted young man and his therapist. Thanks to this exchange, the young man can overcome his trauma and the therapist is able to overcome his internal contradictions. The suspense of the film noir/thriller genre constitutes, without a doubt, one of the richest and most fertile genres of all. One movie that stands as a reference point in the portrayal of therapy in cinema is Spellbound (Alfred Hitchcock, 1945). The emergence of this film was favored by its context, since the United States of America was in the middle of a full-blown postwar trauma in which thousands of former combatants had returned home hurt, amnesiac, and suffering from every kind of trauma. There was also a feeling of guilt in relation to the incidents in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the outbreak of anticommunist paranoia, etc. It can be said that the entire society was threatened by a collective sense of trauma. On the other hand, the links between psychoanalytical activity and the genre go far beyond this example, especially as regards the consolidation of the different basic structures: This link between psychoanalytical and ‘detectivesque’ investi- gation has always been present in human mental activity since both types are retrospective in nature, based on interviews, clues and deductions drawn from a semiotic constellation that finally becomes coherent when the truth emerges. (Pérez, 2008: 13) It is not unusual that the creators of The Seven-per-Cent Solution (Herbert Ross, 1976), based on a novel by Nicholas Meyer, imagined
Therapy Culture, Psychology and Cinema 107 Figure 7.1 Spellbound (1945) directed by Alfred Hitchcock is a reference point in the portrayal of therapy in cinema (screen capture) a stimulating collaboration between Sherlock Holmes and Sigmund Freud in resolving a murder. In fact, Pérez points out that the Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, who is extremely important in Freudian theory, is ‘the first police investigation in history’ (2008: 13). In conclusion, the importance of psychoanalysis in film praxis goes beyond its explicit use in storylines. Film noir itself becomes an area of formal and discursive operations, which are encouraged by a psychoanalytic flow that enriches stories. From the oedipal characteristics of the gangster and the fatality of desire hanging over the heads of the victims of the femme fatale, through the ruptures with the past represented with flashbacks as an important rhet- orical figure, many cinematographic resources can be explained by focusing on the unconscious mind and the mechanisms that lead to the development of traumas.
108 Miguel Ángel Huerta Floriano Woody Allen: film as therapy Right at the start of Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977), Alvy Singer looks at the screen and speaks the following lines of dialogue to his viewers: ALVY: That’s essentially how I feel about life. Full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness ... And it’s all over much too quickly. Soon after, he is aware of his huge failure to connect in his relation- ships with women, and he offers as an example the recent case of Annie. Suddenly, he tries to describe himself and then goes back to his ‘reasonably happy’ childhood in Brooklyn, in the years of World War II. Afterwards, we see the boy Alvy as a kid at the doctor’s office, accom- panied by his mother, depressed after having read that the universe is expanding, from which he concludes that the end of the world must soon come. Alvy’s voice in the present peppers other segments of the flashbacks, which continue to unfold on the screen. ‘My analyst says I exaggerate my childhood memories’, says Alvy before describing himself as a hyperactive kid who had a lot of difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality, while some comical images of the amusement park in which his family had their house appear on screen. School, on the other hand, is presented as a lugubrious place full of scary teachers. Classmates were described as ‘idiots’ before Alvy accepts that by this time, as a six year old, ‘I had discovered women’. The protagonist gets up from his seat and kisses a female classmate, who reacts with disgust. The teacher scolds the boy in a scene that is interrupted by the grown-up Alvy explaining that he was just ‘expressing a healthy sexual curiosity’. The little girl he kissed reproaches the adult Alvy: GIRL: For God’s sakes, Alvy! Even Freud speaks of a latency period. ALVY(adult): Well, I never had a latency period. I can’t help it. The first few minutes of Annie Hall’s running time contain a significant number of the formal and content strategies Woody Allen typically employs to deal with psychoanalysis. Without a doubt, psycho- analysis is one of the most recurrent topics in his entire filmography.
Therapy Culture, Psychology and Cinema 109 Besides, those few minutes are a goldmine for the analyst when he wants to exemplify the linguistic potential of cinema in the explor- ation of human psyche and its similarities with the discursive side of psychoanalysis. On the one hand, the sequence shows that cinematographic codes are perfect for representing dreams, and for the visual representa- tion of mental states and the natural coexistence between reality and fiction, or at least, between the experience and memories that one has about them. These are all elements that possess some relation- ship to psychoanalytic practice, to the extent that in Allen’s work there exists ‘an awareness of psychoanalysis that operates as a kind of master narrative to provide some tentative means for organizing the chaos of modern experience’ (Girgus, 2002: 28). On the other hand, the opening of the film includes other aesthetic and narrative resources such as an open staring into the camera from Alvy, which in combination with a posterior voice over, allows the protagonist to construct a kind of confession that opens his soul to the viewer. This confession starts as a general declaration of the char- acter’s pessimism and vitality (life is miserable but too short), which is linked to the emotional (his problems with women), and ends up investigating his childhood as the likely origin of his vital frustra- tion as an individual. Figure 7.2 The opening sequence of Annie Hall (1977) directed by Woody Allen is a kind of confession (screen capture)
110 Miguel Ángel Huerta Floriano From a formal point of view, Allen organizes complex material through the participation of the viewer (who becomes the confidant for whom Allen breaks the fourth wall to speak directly) and his identification, by means of the character’s conflicts. However, the language of film-making allows for the simplification of complicated operations within a scene through techniques such as staging and editing, and so on.. Flashbacks, or shifting the story’s time into the past, are particularly useful, since these help to create a declaration in which memory and experience from the past are essential for understanding the present and its consequences. Thanks to Woody Allen’s skill as a filmmaker, the cinema becomes a way of bringing order to chaos, as well as a kind of therapeutic exer- cise in itself. As Lax explains (2000), the comedian went to see an analyst for the first time in 1959, and from that time forward psychi- atric consultations became a regular feature in his life. To further the parallelism, both the regularity of his treatments and the frequency of the cinematographic projects he undertakes are striking, with an average of one feature film per year right up to the present – Allen is currently 78 years old – two habits which he appears to need to ease his chronic dissatisfaction. In reality, the seventh art consists in creating stories that serve as a synthesis of the meaning of previous materials such as imagin- ation, inspiration, memory, etc., which need to be formalized. In his conversation with the French critic Jean-Michel Frodon (2002), the filmmaker reveals his desire to shoot a work based on the uncon- scious mind, making this element the main setting. In any case, traumas, fortuitous encounters, and chance as a configuring element of destiny are some of his favorite themes. Consequently, many of his movies end up looking like therapy sessions that help to under- stand processes, which in Allen’s opinion have a tendency towards chaos. Despite these fertile combinations, Allen adopts a very critical position in his filmography with regards to therapy and therapists. The number of patients, analysts, and satirical references to psycho- analytical activity is as impressive as it is harsh. The dominant tone has been satirical since Take the Money and Run in 1969 – in a strict sense, his first film as a director1 – in which a penitentiary analyst is obsessed with the oedipal sexuality of a thief in the film’s leading role.
Therapy Culture, Psychology and Cinema 111 To summarize, the treatment that therapy culture receives in Woody Allen’s filmography is characterized by: a) A paradoxical attitude, based on therapy as an unproductive activity, but in which the characters feel like slaves. In this way, patients cannot live without going regularly to their sessions with analysts, even though they do not experience the slightest progress in the resolution of their problems. Therefore, as Miles, the lead character in Sleeper, complains in an eloquent verbal gag: MILES MONROE: I haven’t seen my analyst in 200 years. He was a strict Freudian. If I’d been going all this time, I’d probably almost be cured now. In general terms, then, these consultations are only useful for those who go to them in order to find some kind of emotional relief or comfort. b) A conflictive point of view, in which consultations work as the setting in which the protagonists of his films attempt to resolve their personal – and mostly emotional – problems. The famous scene in Annie Hall, in which Allen uses a split screen technique to show Alvy and Annie narrating the crisis they are dealing with to their respective therapists instead of tackling the issue together stands out as a prime example.2 However, there is an explanation for all of this: in Woody Allen’s films, personal problems are used to demonstrate the deepest and most internal conflicts torturing his protagonists. In fact, as an American filmmaker he is quite exceptional, since he is genuinely concerned with exploring the internal conflicts of his characters, something atypical of the film industry in his country. Actually, Allen also works with personal and extra-personal conflicts, but these always evolve around internal conflicts; the reason for this lies in the investigation of minds that are always in crisis. This tendency to cultivate internal conflicts is, in part, the result of a European influence on his work, particularly the work of two filmmakers whom he has admitted to having as influences: Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini. In a general sense, Allen’s pessimism is surprising; in the field of film fiction, internal conflicts often result in a transformative arc in the
112 Miguel Ángel Huerta Floriano Figure 7.3 Woody Allen uses a split screen technique to confront therapy sessions, screen capture from Annie Hall (1977) character’s development, for example, to an evolution in the char- acter that allows him to learn something relevant and provides an opportunity to change. By contrast, Woody Allen’s films are full of subjects who end up at the same point from which they started, and are thus nothing more than prisoners of their own troubles. c) Reiteration in the construction of his urban characters, who possess a number of common features: charlatans, introverts, and extro- verts who all need help in order to maintain personal relationships that inevitably end up in failure. They also suffer tremendous pres- sure from their environments, families, and partners. Moreover, therapeutic supervision works as a life raft to cling to in order to make decisions with more confidence. In Hannah and Her Sisters, for example, a married couple discusses a proposal offered by a couple that is having difficulty conceiving a child. When the husband is asked to donate sperm so that they can attempt to arti- ficially inseminate their friend, the following dialogue ensues: HUSBAND: I gave blood before… and clothing to the poor. WIFE: OK, Norman, listen. I really wanna talk about this at home. I think it’s a matter for your analyst, and mine. HUSBAND: And maybe my lawyer.
Therapy Culture, Psychology and Cinema 113 d) The tendency to caricature analysts, who usually play secondary roles, assisting the main characters without the slightest success, thus helping to characterize them. Two main possibilities exist in the portrayal of these characters: on the one hand, strict and castrating figures (for instance in Stardust Memories, 1980); on the other, passive professionals who do nothing except listen and create helplessness in their patients (as, for example, in Anything Else, 1980). In some movies they assume greater prominence, such as in Deconstructing Harry (1997), a film that clearly shows a psychoanalyst’s own hysterical crisis. e) The use of comedy as a disguise for drama. The gag of the ther- apist devouring pills in Deconstructing Harry as one of her patients tries to tell her about his problem with his brother-in-law is a good example of this humorous and acid tone with which Allen treats the psychoanalytical profession. Husbands and Wives (1992) contains the following line of dialogue that sheds light on this attitude: ‘You make suffering funny’, a young student says to her professor about a novel manuscript she had given him so that he could give her his opinion of it. Given the obvious autobiograph- ical aspects in most of Woody Allen’s films, this attitude can be understood as his own creative attitude: ‘funny suffering’ is one of his own traits as an author, determined as he is to draw some- thing vital, and even playful, from life, which he seems to regard as being both a well of misery and something extremely short. Conclusions The work of Woody Allen is an excellent compendium of the multiple relationships between psychology, psychoanalysis, and cinema. On the one hand, his aesthetic approaches are based on a visual and narrative simplification. This interpretation helps the comprehen- sion of the viewer, who carries out complex psychological operations, such as his participation in rewriting a text, his own identification with fictional conflicts, and the establishment of hypotheses during the narration, etc. On the other hand, his work uses structures similar to the discursive fundamentals of psychotherapy, giving remarkable emphasis to dreamlike features, the journey to the past, memory, trauma, etc. In addition, analysts and patients become frequent char- acters in a filmography that uses paradox as a comical and critical
114 Miguel Ángel Huerta Floriano resource. Consequently, therapy is perceived not only as a poor and ridiculous exercise, but also as an essential element without which none of the characters can live. In another vein, we have set forth some of the connections between the seventh art, psychological processes, and therapeutic culture. As a colophon to the synthesis outlined in the preceding pages can be added the increasingly widespread use of film as a tool for therapy. The bibliography is extensive, and the number of successful examples described in books and articles striking, as for example, those described by Hesley and Hesley (2001). Nonetheless, these investigations hardly enter into the aesthetic and narrative fundamentals that explain the usefulness of cinema, something that we have tried to explain in this chapter. In any case, perhaps the most important discovery consists of veri- fying that artistic activity is often a form of therapy for the artist and, in some way, for their intended audience. Thus, from that prehis- toric man who painted that wild boar with eight legs in The Cave of Altamira through the films of Woody Allen, there is an impulse that survives despite the passage of time: the liberation of fears and the search for personal harmony through art. Notes 1. A few years earlier Allen had bought the rights to a derivative Oriental martial arts film, which he dubbed in order to transform into a crazy parody with the title What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966). 2. Being aware of the symbolic importance of this scene, Allen ordered to build a stage with a false wall to shoot it with a single take and with the actors very close to each other. The result was one of the most inspired moments of his filmography and without a doubt, one of the most powerful moments in his vision of therapy culture.
8 Therapy Cultures in Society: A Polycontextual Approach Robin Kurilla ‘What we know about society, even about the world we live in, we know from the mass media. This not only holds true for our knowledge of society and history but also for our knowledge of nature.’1 According to German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, not even scien- tists or mass media producers constitute an exception to this rule. For Luhmann (2009: 10), however, books also belong to the category of mass media, which renders his thesis more comprehensible. It follows that there is no manipulating force that informs but is itself not informed by the mass media. Although the mass media might provoke suspicion regarding their reliability, even critical voices feed on and influence mass media content. The mass media proceed through their own internal dynamics. Vilém Flusser (2000) offers a quite illustrative depiction of the nexus between everyday life and mass media. Flusser regards the mass media producing ‘elites’ as such only as long as they fulfill their function, for instance, as long as they act in their professional roles. As participants in everyday life, these elites become subject to the same mass media discourses as poten- tially everyone else (Flusser, 2000: 64). When creating an adver- tising campaign, the creative team of an advertising agency relies on the specialist knowledge its participants acquired during their education and professional practice and also on the participants’ everyday life knowledge. Since both of these sources are informed by the mass media, the mass media inform themselves rather than being controlled by independent and perhaps manipulating agents. 115
116 Robin Kurilla Returning to Luhmann (1998: 1102), we find the claim that the mass media have the function to orientate society. As the mass media are a part of society, we can say that society orientates itself via the mass media. This can be modeled as a cybernetic circle, a feedback loop between both sides of the analytical distinction between society and mass media. This model can be applied not only to advertising but also to news, novels, scholarly literature, reality shows, feature films, and so on. Relations among mass media and society Focusing on narratives on psychotherapy and psychiatry in film, I will trace the paradoxical relatedness among society and mass media the outlined model suggests. For that purpose, I start with distilling recurring themes out of narratives on psychotherapy and psychiatry in film. It follows an exemplary reconstruction of the most salient of these themes in contexts of scholarly and public discourses in order to explore their socio-historical preconditions and repercussions from various angles. Having thus shown that the fictional narratives on psychotherapy and psychiatry are not independent from real social discourses but interconnected with them, we will move on to discuss whether these themes are able to orientate emotion, cognition, and social practice in everyday life settings, underlining the importance of face-to-face interaction in this regard. The discussion leads to the thesis that stances towards different practices of therapy are co-con- structed in micro-interactions rather than on a purely discursive or macro level. I will conclude with an ethnologically inspired defin- ition of therapy as a specific type of rite of passage that may comprise a number of emotionally connected interaction ritual chains. This definition sheds light on functional equivalents of therapy and, at the same time, serves as the base for examining possible transla- tions and transitions among traditional belief systems, institutional- ized psychotherapy, and the self-help market on the one hand and everyday life encounters in local and global contexts on the other. Fifty-seven films have been reviewed. Forty of these films, that included significant narratives on psychotherapy and psychiatry, received closer examination.2 In an iterative process that identi- fied and subsumed individual themes under more general ones, the 12 following broader themes were distilled from the narratives: (1)
Therapy Cultures in Society 117 ‘Love and Admiration in Therapy’, (2) ‘The Therapist’s own Mental Issues’, (3) ‘Role Change’, (4) ‘Rejecting Therapy and Embracing the Symptom’, (5) ‘Alternative Forms of Therapy’, (6) ‘Religion’, (7) ‘Social Control’, (8) ‘Deprivation, Mistreatment, and Violation (breaking the patient)’, (9) ‘Breaking the Ice’, (10) ‘Everyday Medication’, (11) ‘Emancipation, Autonomy, and Freedom’, and (12) ‘Stigma’. For an overview see Table 8.1. Narratives on psychotherapy and psychiatry in film The theme ‘Love and Admiration’ (1) is rather trivial. Therapist and patient engage in a romantic relationship or prepare to do so in films such as Deconstructing Harry, Shrink, The Prince of Tides, A Dangerous Method, and When Nietzsche Wept. If the narrative is more concerned with admiration, it is mostly the therapist who admires the patient like in Equus and Don Juan DeMarco. The theme of ‘The Therapist’s own Mental Issues’ (2) is sometimes related to the theme ‘Love and Admiration’ (1) like in Deconstructing Harry, What about Bob?, Equus, and When Nietzsche Wept. Sometimes, however, theme 2 is treated independently of theme 1 such as in Die Physiker, Analyze This, and Antwone Fisher. ‘Role Change’ (3) in the sense that the therapist acts as the client and the client as the therapist take place in films such as Analyze This, Good Will Hunting, Shrink, and When Nietzsche Wept. Some films present storylines in which people ‘reject therapy and embrace the symptom’ (4) instead. In Equus, the psychiatrist starts to see himself as the servant of normality whose mission is to eradi- cate his patient’s ‘adorable passion’. In Lágrimas Negras, the protag- onist prefers death to a life in therapeutic institutions. Likewise, the protagonist of The Secretary finds a substitute for her self-injuring behavior in a sadomasochistic sexual relationship with her boss rather than in therapy. Convicted ex-therapist Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs rejects therapeutic means and prefers canni- balism instead. The theme portrays therapy as a normalizing force not able to provide viable alternatives to variations of the symptom. Correspondingly, some films present ‘Alternative Forms of Therapy’ (5). In It’s Kind of a Funny Story, the patients rather then the psychia- trists help each other to get better by practicing a sort of situated therapy. In Silver Linings Playbook, the therapist is not successful in treating the protagonist’s issues with aggression and violence.
Table 8.1 Film themes Rejecting Deprivation, Therapy, The Embracing Mistreatment, Therapist’s Love & the Alternative Violation Emancipation, Admiration Mental Symptom Forms of Autonomy, in Therapy Issues Role Therapy Social (breaking the Breaking Everyday Freedom Change Control Medication Film/Themes Religion patient) the Ice Stigma X 1984 X XXX ? (1984, 20th Century Fox) X A Beautiful Mind X X X? X (2001, Universal Pictures) X? XX A Clockwork Orange (1971, Warner Bros.) A Dangerous Method X X X X (2011, Sony Pictures) X Agnes of God (1985, Columbia Pictures) Analyze This XX (1999, Warner Bros.) Annie Hall X (1977, United Artists) X X Antwone Fisher XX ?X X ? (2002, Fox Searchlight Pictures) X XX Blue Jasmine XX XX (2013, Sony Pictures) X Changeling X? (2008, Universal Pictures) Chattahoochee XX ? X (1989, Hemdale Film Corporation) Deconstructing Harry X X X (1997, Fine Line Features) Die Physiker (1964, Süddeutscher Rundfunk) Don Juan DeMarco X X (1995, New Line X X? X Cinema) Equus (1977, United Artists)
Rejecting Deprivation, Therapy, The Embracing Mistreatment, Therapist’s Love & the Alternative Violation Emancipation, Admiration Mental Symptom Forms of Autonomy, in Therapy Issues Role Therapy Social (breaking the Breaking Everyday Freedom Change Control Medication Film/Themes Religion patient) the Ice Stigma X Final Analysis X X (1992, Warner Bros.) X Frances ? XX X (1982, Universal Pictures) XXX Girl, Interrupted (1999, Columbia Pictures) Good Will Hunting ? X X (1997, Miramax Films) I Never Promised You a Rose Garden XXX XX (1977, New World Pictures) It’s Kind of a Funny Story X (2010, Focus Features) Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains X X Indian (2013, IFC Films) X ? Lágrimas Negras X ? X (1998, Alta Films) X Man Facing Southeast X X XX (1986, FilmDallas Pictures) Manic X XX (2001, IFC Films) XX One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest XXX (1975, United Artists) X Ordinary People XX (1980, Paramount Pictures) Prozac Nation (2001, Miramax Films) Shrink X XX (2009, RoadsideAttractions)
Rejecting Deprivation, Therapy, The Embracing Mistreatment, Therapist’s Love & the Alternative Violation Emancipation, Admiration Mental Symptom Forms of Autonomy, in Therapy Issues Role Therapy Social (breaking the Breaking Everyday Freedom Change Control Medication Film/Themes Religion patient) the Ice Stigma X Side Effects X X X? X (2013, Open Road X Films) X Silver Linings Playbook XX X (2012, The Weinstein Company) X The Dream Team ? (1989, Universal Pictures) X XX X The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind X (2004, Focus Features) X The Ninth Configuration (1980, Warner Bros.) ? The Prince of Tides X (1991, Columbia Pictures) X XX The Secretary X XX (2002, Lionsgate) XX The Silence of the Lambs X (1991, Orion Pictures) Veronika Decides to Die (2009, First Look International) What about Bob? X X (1991, Buena Vista Pictures) When Nietzsche Wept X XX X ? X? X (2007, First Look International) Source: Author’s Compilation
Therapy Cultures in Society 121 Receiving faked letters that supposedly come from his wife brings him to address his issues more thoroughly than his therapy sessions would permit. The preparation for a dance contest and the related social interactions provide him with an additional source of improve- ment. The psychiatrist of The Dream Team takes his patients out of the institution to visit a baseball game. This and the plot’s complica- tions that enable the patients to solve problems by their own means act as alternative forms of therapy. The Ninth Configuration presents an extremely violent soldier who has erased his atrocities from memory and replaced them with a psychiatrist’s identity. Instead of being hospitalized, the soldier becomes the director of a mental institution, his delusions being taken seriously. This arrangement eventually assists him to recover his real memory and, at the same time, to overcome his feelings of guilt by selflessly helping someone else. ‘Religion’ (6) is often addressed as a specimen of a realm, which is alternative to the enlightened reality of therapy. Therapy appears as a catalyst for antagonisms of religious and secular belief systems as well as practices in films like Agnes of God, Deconstructing Harry, Equus, and The Ninth Configuration. ‘Social Control’ (7) belongs to the most prominent themes in narratives on psychotherapy and psychiatry. ‘Therapy’, espe- cially in psychiatric institutions, is depicted as performing social control in films like 1984, A Clockwork Orange, A Dangerous Method, Changeling, Chattahoochee, Equus, Frances, Girl, Interrupted, Manic, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and so on. In most narratives, social control serves to protect either the public or the patient in cases of violent behavior or suicide attempts. Targets of social control are behavior, cognition, and/or emotion. In some cases, patients do not agree with the means applied to them or do not fully under- stand their impact when agreeing with them, which leads us to the theme of ‘Deprivation, Mistreatment, and Violation’ (8). In 1984, Winston Smith is brainwashed by means of psychological and physiological torture such as connecting a cage of rats to his face and opening its door. In A Clockwork Orange, Alex DeLarge receives drugs and undergoes a process of conditioning that emotionally and behaviorally prevents him not only from acting violently and entertaining sexual relationships but also from enjoying Beethoven. The protagonist of Changeling becomes a victim of mistreatments like being hosed down without any clothes on.
122 Robin Kurilla The biographical film Frances shows how the protagonist has to undergo insulin shock therapy, electroconvulsive therapy, and lobotomy and is frequently raped. In addition to lobotomy and electroconvulsive therapy, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Girl, Interrupted touch upon forced medication in psychiatry. In 1984, the ‘psychiatrist’ is not only interested in forcefully breaking his ‘patient’ – he also attempts to break the ice between him and the patient in the sense that he tries to overcome his defenses to estab- lish a therapeutic relationship. The theme of ‘Breaking the Ice’ (9) has been combined with theme 8 in this case, but it generally appears independently in other narratives such as in A Dangerous Method, Antwone Fisher, Equus, and Manic. Psychotherapy and psychiatry also meet more favorable conditions in film. In the context of ‘Everyday Medication’ (10), therapy becomes integrated into the day-to-day routines as a chemical substance instead of being a torturous procedure in psychiatric institutions or an endless endeavor on uneasy couches. To different degrees and with different connotations, films such as A Beautiful Mind, Blue Jasmine, Prozak Nation, Shrink, and Side Effects portray psychopharmaceutical drugs as everyday companions, sometimes combined with alcohol or illegal drugs. In all these examples, medication has a ‘sedating’ effect that enables to, at least partly, live a normal life but does not cure the ‘disease’. In some films, however, psychotherapy and psychiatric medication even receive the status of symbolic resources in certain social circles, as they promise ‘Emancipation, Autonomy, and Freedom’ (11). In Annie Hall, Annie leaves her partner, who paid for her therapy sessions, after discussing her relationship to him with her therapist.3 In Antwone Fisher, Antwone and Cheryl embark on a more intimate relationship after Antwone shares with her that he is in therapy. ‘Jasmine’ from Blue Jasmine uses the fact that she has mental health issues and thus needs her medication to work as a source of communicative domination. ‘Could you please not fight in here. I don’t think I can take it. For some reason my Xanax isn’t kicking in.’ Shrink depicts therapy as an indispensable feature of Hollywood’s creative scene of actors, writers, and super talented chil- dren and thus adds ‘face value’ to the benefits of therapy. Despite these positive depictions, the theme of ‘Stigma’ (12) remains. In Girl, Interrupted, a taxi driver remarks that his client looks quite normal although her destination is a psychiatric hospital,
Therapy Cultures in Society 123 whereas Lágrimas Negras depicts the life of mental illness as an incur- able suffering in the dark premises of psychiatric institutions. In Ordinary People, the protagonist’s father, mother, and grandmother reproduce the stigma of psychotherapy on different occasions. Film themes in contexts of scholarly and public discourses The first three themes may evoke the bizarre impression that psycho- therapists frequently entertain romantic relationships with their patients, suffer from mental illness themselves, and, changing the roles with their patients, are not even in control of the therapy sessions. Those themes occupy, however, a prominent site in psycho- analytical discourses since Freud’s ‘discovery’ of transference as well as countertransference and their implementation in therapy (Freud, 2000a: 126–7, 2000b: 424–30; Heigl-Evers, Heigl, & Ott, 1997: 138–43). In Germany, sexual relationships between therapist and patient are prohibited by law;4 the BPtK5 recommends that therapists stay ‘abstinent’ for a year after the therapy has ended.6 In everyday life discourses as well as in professional education, however, the theme is rather tabooed and will not be examined any further. We will also leave aside Alternative Forms of Therapy (5) in the following discussion of the other film themes in the context of scholarly and public discourses. The theme ‘Religion’ can be traced back to the prehistory of psychi- atric institutions. From the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period, both communal and clerical asylums accommodated the rudimental archetypes of institutionalized mental health care (Blasius, 1980: 20–1; Porter, 1987: 13–14). The clerical notion of ‘[ ... ] mental disorder as a mark of the war for the possession of the soul ... between God and Satan ... ’ (Porter, 1987: 13) faced serious competition through Johann Weyer’s book De Praestigiis Daemonum (first published in 1563) that disenchanted phenomena like witchcraft and possession with reason- able explanations, which led to protests in clerical circles (Roback, 1970: 186–91). This might be one of the first belief system-related antagonisms between the rudiments of modern psychiatry and the religious view on mental illness. Ironically, the first modern mental health institution in Westphalia was founded in a former monas- tery, and almost all hospitals in Westphalia chose their personnel according to religious confessions until 1933 (Koster & Tigges, 1867:
124 Robin Kurilla 4; Kersting, 1996: 159–69). Throughout the nineteenth and twen- tieth century, psychiatry and church occupied antagonistic positions in the fight for institutional control. In the early 1890s, the ‘Verband deutscher Irrenärzte’7 tried vehemently to disqualify the recently founded ‘Verband deutscher evangelischer Irrenseelsorger’8 in the struggle for influence in Prussian mental health institutions. The discussion, however, centered on differences in belief systems and practices. Psychiatrists attributed bizarre methods such as exorcism to the clerical health care, whereas the clerics stated that psychiatry followed the path of a cold scientific materialism (Engstrom, 2011: 4–5; Kocherscheidt, 2010: 122–3, 135–6). Maybe also as an ‘inher- ited’ result of this antagonism, psychiatrists of the twentieth century consider religious experience as a pathological concern in the first place (Kaiser, 2007: 47). Recently, however, there are more and more efforts to overcome the antagonism. A respective example is the Austrian ‘Institut für Religiösität in Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie’9 that aims at stimulating dialogue and mutual comprehension between church and psychiatry. Nevertheless, the antagonism also occurs in terms of functional aspects. From a sociological point of view, therapy as well as the sacrament of penance can assist in social processes of sensemaking and thereby create biographies adaptable to the corresponding levels of societal complexity (Hahn, Willems, & Winter, 1991). These phenomena can only partly be explained by referring to societal and social changes like the eventual seculariza- tion of institutions and the empowerment of the bourgeoisie on the way to industrialization. The history of ideas provides additional insights. From the sixteenth century, empiricism eventually gave rise to the naturalization of mind and emotion. To psychiatry, even though it harbors a psychosocial countercurrent, mental illness is a natural phenomenon (Shorter, 1999: 54–5). We will come back to that. It shall suffice here to mention that the ethnographical litera- ture covers sufficient examples of how religiously influenced social practices still provide an alternative to psychotherapy and psych- iatry (Richards, 1935; Suryani & Jensen, 1993; Burnard, Naiyapatana, & Lloyd, 2006; Ypinazar et al., 2007). Like religion, the theme of ‘Social Control’ is genetically connected to psychiatry and psychotherapy. The most popular account of social control stems from Foucault’s anti-psychiatric approach. Foucault depicts madness as a viable alternative to normality in the Middle
Therapy Cultures in Society 125 Ages. According to Foucault (1972), the classical age of reason banned the insane from public life by empowering its institutions to do so. To Foucault (2005), psychiatry overtakes this power and goes on exercising social control in different forms until his days. Foucault’s viewpoint, however, does not remain undisputed. Shorter maintains that even medieval and early modern ‘institutions’ locked up mental illness rather than leaving it alone (Shorter, 1999: 13–23). Although Blasius (1980: 20) underlines the religious connotations of madness in the Middle Ages, he comes to a similar conclusion as Shorter. Shorter (1999: 60) goes on to use some of Foucault’s examples for social control in the earlier psychiatric institutions to elaborate his point that psychiatry is the first systematic endeavor to cure mental illness. The sociology of knowledge discusses the theme of social control in psychiatry in a far more prosaic way. Berger and Luckmann (1989: 112) describe therapy as a re-socializing process that corrects individual deviations from social reality and, as a legitimating force, helps to maintain the overarching fabric of social knowledge. All too obviously, discourses of anti-psychiatry movements are the natural environment for the theme ‘Deprivation, Mistreatment, and Violation’. It shall suffice to briefly mention that the church gained pivotal importance for the public crystallization of anti-psychiatry movements at the end of the nineteenth century (Kocherscheidt, 2010: 122–3). It comes with no surprise that Scientology capitalizes on the theme, mobilizing historic conflict lines between religion and science (Kenta & Mancaa, 2014). Instead of following the corre- sponding critical and jurisdictive aspects of the discussion, I will examine, from an idea historical viewpoint, some of the psychiatric practices that critics often deem a violation of the patient per se in conjunction with the theme of ‘Everyday Medication’. Compared to the practices of bloodletting, purging, insulin shock therapy, electroconvulsive therapy, lobotomy, and so on, psychopharmaceutical medication seems to be quite harmless. All these forms of therapy are based on the same medical paradigm. This paradigm has accompanied psychiatric practice from the start although it did not remain unchallenged. With Wundt’s strictly empiricist approach to psychology and especially its behaviorist export versions of Russia and the USA, the natural sciences were soon the unquestioned providers of an epistemological base for psycho- therapy and psychiatry. With cognition, emotion, and behavior
126 Robin Kurilla understood as natural processes originating in the brain and the nervous system, mental illness becomes a physiological phenom- enon and physical intervention a legitimate if not promising means to reduce suffering. Moniz received a Nobel Prize in medicine for the procedure of lobotomy, and more than 40,000 people in the US were lobotomized before it fell out of fashion (Pinel, 2001: 18–20). Pharmaceutical medication might have helped to reduce mental suffering as well as violence in a seemingly humane manner, as well as reducing the number of orderlies working in psychiatric institutions. The early MAO inhibitors, however, show that irre- versibly inhibiting neural proteins can lead to severe side effects, although the inhibitors were not even able to selectively target the desired type of enzymes (Fowler et al., 2014: 1–2). Surprisingly, even psychoanalysis claims to employ a scientific approach to mental illness (Freud, 2000c: 586–608, 2000d: 125–30). Freud was convinced that the mind was determined by natural laws and his psychoanalytic method delivered an unbiased access to the nature of mind, although his behaviorist competitors would not accept his notion of science and its methods. Disregarding their own critique of Freud, behaviorists spent a lot of their time translating Freud’s insights into the new paradigm. This is particularly obvious in the classical publication on the Frustration–Aggression Hypothesis by Dollard, Miller, and their colleagues (Dollard et al., 1971; Miller et al., 1941; Kurilla, 2013: 209–16). Translations like these may occur within the discourses that inform psychotherapy and psych- iatry, but it remains questionable whether the naturalist premises are thoroughly conclusive in everyday life. The same is true for the reality of therapy and the adherence to normality as a potential result of therapy. In psychoanalyt- ical terms, the theme of ‘Embracing the Symptom and Rejecting Therapy’ is described as ‘resistance’ (Heigl-Evers et al., 1997: 43–4). Moreover, Freudian psychoanalysis takes into account that it can only provide patients with alternatives to prior settlements of inner conflicts, which implies that the perfect solution might not be available in a given social environment. Although psychoanalysis and other forms of therapy do consider this, critics maintain with different degrees of emphasis that mental illness is a social inven- tion or a myth to ‘ ... disguise and thus render more palatable the bitter pill of moral conflicts in human relations ... ’ (Szasz, 1973: 24),
Therapy Cultures in Society 127 rather than a category independent of the observer (Scull, 1989: 8–9; Rérez-Álvarez & García-Montes, 2007; Freshwater, 2003). As indicated earlier, the ethnographical literature shows that psych- iatry treats some phenomena as symptoms of mental illness that would not be treated as such in all cultural environments. Since the criteria of normality and mental illness are created in social intercourse, they remain vulnerable to critique not only from patients but also from anti-psychiatric discourses (Laing, 1973). A preferred target of these discourses is the normality of psychiatric institutions as an indicator for the patients’ progress. Although the strict regulation in those institutions differs from everyday life scenarios, the patient is expected to behave ‘normally’. Otherwise sanctions arise or the patient is declared less ‘stable’ (Goffman, 1973: 37–9). The theme ‘Emancipation, Autonomy, and Freedom’ promises a more inviting picture of psychotherapy. Psychoanalysis since Freud suffers from a blind spot in this regard. As discussed, Freud relies on the natural sciences’ determinism. He nevertheless promotes more freedom in the resolution of inner conflicts as the result of his therapy (Freud, 2000e: 411–12). Despite this basic contradiction, psycho- analysis again is open to translation into other paradigms. Whether in David Rapaport’s ‘Ego Psychology’ in the USA or in Lacan’s French structuralism, Freud’s promise of freedom and autonomy survives the times of psychoanalysis and inspires the minds of intellectuals in New York and Paris (Lacan, 1977; Rapaport, 1960). Foucault’s history of madness in modern societies is a history of stigmata that modernity forces upon madness. Equally critical, but in sociological terms, Goffman (1986: 4, 13, 30, 42 and 1973: 31–2) describes the stigmatization of patients in relation to their treatment in ‘asylums’. Following the US sociologist discourse back to Cooley (1967: 184, 242–3), stigma can be described as an accepted negative evaluation of the own person from the standpoint of others, which results in shame, an agent of social control. Conversely, Cooley regards pride as the result of approval from the standpoint of others. Perhaps a ‘therapy pride’ movement would form a more constructive supplement to anti-psychiatry movements. We have seen that the film themes are not creations of a fictional vacuum but traceable in real social discourses. It is now time to turn their potential for orienting society.
128 Robin Kurilla Orientation and symbolic resources in society We have heard that the mass media orient society. This might be more obvious for news in television and newspapers, documen- taries, biographies, interviews, and scientific publications, but it also holds true for fictional narratives in film. At first sight, the orientation value of the examined films might appear rather disap- pointingly low, as the films do not provide viewers with descrip- tive details on different forms of psychotherapy and the parameters necessary to identify appropriate ways of action regarding mental health disorders.10 Closer examination, however, reveals that the films do introduce into some of the issues broader social discourses are concerned with. Single films or even the whole landscape of narratives on psychotherapy and psychiatry in film might not contribute to creating a balanced opinion regarding psychothera- peutic practices in society, but they offer a more personal, narra- tive access to social discourses than most nonfictional accounts are able to. This might be the reason why some of the examined films are potential sources of symbolic resources although they might not always faithfully portray the reality of psychotherapy and psychiatry.11 Bursting with negative connotations, the themes of ‘Social Control’ and ‘Deprivation, Mistreatment, and Violation’ may still offer symbolic resources to individually and socially devaluate psycho- therapy and psychiatry in general. In other words, they may help to understand and convince others that psychotherapy and psychiatry are not appropriate options to cure mental illness. The same is true for the theme of ‘Rejecting Therapy and Embracing the Symptom’, as it sheds light on the arbitrariness of normality. The films also bear potential symbolic resources to individually and socially reframe therapy and mental illness. The themes of ‘Admiration in Therapy’ and ‘Emancipation, Autonomy, and Freedom’ as well as the classic relation of madness and genius as present in A Beautiful Mind might help to convert the stigma of mental illness and psychotherapy into a positive asset. These themes might not only be employed as resources to annihilate the negative connotations of therapy; they can also facilitate the dispositions necessary to receive and appre- ciate psychotherapy, which is also true for the theme of ‘Breaking the Ice’, as it models the attitude necessary for the success of therapy.
Therapy Cultures in Society 129 The theme of faking sanity, that appears in A Beautiful Mind and Girl, Interrupted but has been excluded from the discussion so far, might assist in understanding how one can escape psychiatric institutions even though one’s symptoms have not vanished. As a symbolic resource, the theme of ‘Emancipation, Autonomy, and Freedom’ may also serve to turn therapy into cultural capital with the value of social distinction. All of these possible uses of film elements as symbolic resources, of course, depend on individual circumstances, otherwise the social- ization of psychiatrists and psychotherapists would be univocally informed by anti-psychiatric movements, provided that students have watched the corresponding films. ‘Objective’ variables like income, religion, ethnicity, etc. do indicate a tendency of how different addresses of society create meaning out of film elements related to psychotherapy and psychiatry. But the question of whether and how these elements are employable as symbolic resources in everyday life settings cannot be satisfactorily addressed on this level of analysis alone. Stances toward psychiatry and psychotherapy do not come attached to class or cultural belief systems, neither are they created by social discourses as present in films. A closer examination of social interactions is indispensable to gain insight into how film themes are communicatively processed in everyday life. In general, ethnology, ethnomethodology, social constructionism, and micro-sociology provide the theoretical and methodical means for such an examin- ation (Geertz, 1987; Garfinkel, 1988, 1996; Goffman, 1971, 1999; Berger & Luckmann, 1989; Goodwin, 2007; Goodwin & Goodwin, 2000). It could, however, be a promising approach to employ these micro studies in the framework of social milieus in order to investi- gate the similarities and differences in different collectives and face- to-face as well as electronically mediated social networks regarding the orientation value of film themes. This approach also bears the potential of pragmatically bridging the gap between micro and macro studies. In the first place, however, it serves to identify the collec- tives within individual milieus that adopt particular stances towards therapies in general and different forms of therapy in particular.12 It can be expected that clusters of similar stances also host a distinctive climate of emotional experience and expression, for instance, create an emotional community in the sense of Rosenwein (2006). More important for the stance toward different therapies, however, are
130 Robin Kurilla the notions of emotion and mental illness those communities share. Whether they consider them natural facts, social constructs, or divine phenomena might have consequences for their stances towards medi- cation therapy as compared to psychoanalysis or the many alterna- tives to therapy depicted in film. Comparisons in the context of globalization: therapy as rite of passage Despite their short history, psychotherapy and psychiatry have under- gone numerous modifications. As products of modern societies, they have been subject to fast paced developments. In Germany, psych- iatry suffered the most perverted modification during its imple- mentation into the race politics of the Third Reich (Meyer, 1991). Psychotherapy and psychiatry have, however, survived plenty of controversies driven by organizations and social movements, proving themselves more adaptable to fluctuating everyday life discourses than their mostly religious predecessors. In addition, shifts in academic discourses triggered an internal momentum of develop- ment with various translations between theories and joint projects like cognitive-behavioral therapy in practice. The patient leaves the couch to face a coach, so that the former therapist can satisfy the needs of a new target group. Lacan was even able to translate Freud for French intellectuals under the influence of structuralism. Similar efforts regarding religion would have been hopeless. But religion is not dead. And global interconnectedness draws the attention to additional players on the therapy market. Oriental philosophies and religiously influenced practices are highly demanded. Psychotherapy reacts to these tendencies by adopting more holistic approaches but is still limited by its scientific perspective. The self-help literature possesses more liberty in combining elements from distinct belief systems, but pays for this higher degree of changeability with the lack of institutionalization and thus tradition. Forced to constantly renew itself, it translates rigid scientific theory and its cultural equiv- alents into volatile everyday life discourses. Considering their roots in Western societies and their presence in global media content like narratives in film, psychotherapy and psychiatry might provoke the reproach of cultural imperialism. As we have witnessed, however, films do not contain communicative value but gain this value in
Therapy Cultures in Society 131 the process of reception and in interactions embedded in social collectives and networks.13 If a Balinese person seeks psychotherapy after watching, for instance, Annie Hall, it was most probably not the film that manipulated her or him into therapy. The lifeworld must rather have been prepared for that in advance in the sense that the person belongs not only to traditional Balinese but also to ‘west- erly’ influenced ‘social circles’ in the sense of Simmel (1990). Given the importance of face-to-face communication for the generation of meaning, psychotherapy itself should have more impact than films as an agent for cultural imperialism in general. This assumption is also not unproblematic as best indicated by the missionaries eaten by cannibalistic tribes in Indonesia (Means, 1947: 242). Both therapy and mission require shared knowledge. Taking into account that people indeed substitute psychotherapy through religious, oriental, or spiritually influenced practices which are not labeled ‘therapy’, a broader definition of therapy as a re-so- cializing rite of passage renders these practices comparable. It also takes away the ethnocentric nature of the concept of therapy by hinting at functional equivalents from different cultural contexts and individualized patterns of conduct. Disregarding the degree of suffering before, during and after the rite, it makes almost no diffe- rence in principle if someone undergoes a Balinese tooth filing cere- mony (matatah)14 to dispose of his or her aggressiveness or visits Dr. Freeman’s ‘lobotomobile’15 instead. Both methods are even similar in that they have come out of fashion. There is only one feature that fundamentally distinguishes matatah from therapy: the former does not act re-socializing but rather socializing. Unlike lobotomies, matatah does not readapt or at least try to readapt indi- viduals to social normality. According to Van Gennep (2010), three stages characterize rites of passage: 1) rites of separation, 2) rites of transition, and 3) rites of incorporation. Participants leave their reality in stage 1 to enter a phase of insecure liminality in stage 2, and to arrive at a new reality in stage 3. Depending on the import- ance of each stage for a given rite of passage, individual stages may be subdivided into more types of rites and thus to different degrees elaborated (2010: 10–11). The definition of therapy as a rite of passage serves as a metaphoric model. The entire rite may comprise emotion- ally interconnected ritual chains that eventually lead to a final act of incorporation or that need to be regularly renewed, such as some
132 Robin Kurilla forms of medication or skydiving.16 A social function of therapy lies in readapting the individual to social normality. On the individual level, the counterpart of this social function can be found in the adjustment of cognition, emotion, and behavior to socially expected standards. Social and individual aspects meet at the re-evaluation of identities and the modification of biographies in the context of therapy. The rite of passage model addresses both sides of the coin, for instance, individual as well as social repercussions of ‘therapy’. With the concept of re-socializing rites of passage at hand, a whole spectrum of social practices and their reifications becomes empir- ically tangible as equivalents for therapy. Some collectives and networks could be compared by describing which ‘therapy cultures’ they cultivate. ‘Objective’ categories like gender, ethnicity, income, type of health insurance, and so on, might render certain choices between, for instance, everyday medication, stationary therapy, silence ‘therapy’ in Buddhist or Christian monasteries, and coun- seling, more or less likely than others. Depending on her or his therapy culture, a patient could be either ashamed or proud when undergoing traditional psychotherapy. Apart from this emotional consonance while evaluating different forms of therapy, it is likely that collectives with similar therapy cultures also cultivate an emotional climate in general and can thus be described as emotional communities. This is, however, an empirical question. Notes 1. My translation of Luhmann (2009: 9): ‘Was wir über unsere Gesellschaft, ja über die Welt, in der wir leben, wissen, wissen wir durch die Massenmedien. Das gilt nicht nur für unsere Kenntnis der Gesellschaft und der Geschichte, sondern auch für unsere Kenntnis der Natur.’ 2. See the table on pp. 119–22 for an overview of the films and themes. A product of work in progress, the included question marks indicate that the identification of a theme in a film has not yet been verified. Although further examination was not necessary concerning the iterative analysis in the context of this chapter, it might matter in other contexts, which should be taken into account by everyone who entertains the thought of working with this table. 3. In his contribution to this book, Miguel Ángel Huerta Floriano comes to a slightly different conclusion regarding the depiction of therapy by Annie Hall, as he focuses on the lack of character transformation in the
Therapy Cultures in Society 133 case of Alvy Singer. Here, in contrast, the focus lies on the role of therapy for Annie. 4. §174 c, Strafgesetzbuch. 5. The BPtK (Bundespsychotherapeutenkammer) is a German professional association of psychotherapists. 6. §6 (5, 7), Musterberufsordnung der Bundespsychotherapeutenkammer. 7. Society of German Alienists. 8. Society of German Protestant Alienists. 9. http://rpp-institut.org. 10. A basic notion of what therapy is and how it works, however, can be obtained from the narratives. Most films seem to focus on or even prefer a rather psychoanalytical version of psychotherapy. 11. For a working definition of ‘symbolic resources’, see Zittoun (2006: 61, 2007: 206–7). 12. For the underlying concept of ‘collective’, see Hansen (2009). 13. See Hanich (2010) for a micro-phenomenological study on collectively shared or dividing emotions in cinematic film reception. 14. For the procedure of matatah, see Eiseman (2009, p. 108–14). 15. Walter Freeman toured the USA in a Winnebago camper, conducting lobotomies on demand (Bjarkam & Sørensen, 2009: 2874). 16. For the concept of ‘interaction ritual chains’ and an unfortunately physiological concept of ‘emotional energy’, see Collins (2004).
9 The Emotional Framing of Terrorism in Online Media: The Case of Charlie Hebdo Omar V. Rosas On the morning of 7 January 2015, Paris was in shock. Two masked gunmen broke into the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo killing twelve people – including four well-known cartoonists of the magazine – and injuring eleven others in the raid. Soon after the attack, the French President François Hollande stated that ‘this is an act of exceptional barbarism that has just happened here in Paris against a newspaper’ (BBC, 2015).1 In doing so, he set the official tone of the event and, by the same token, the way the French government was handling it. A national manhunt for the gunmen was launched. According to government officials, the gunmen were two brothers linked to al-Qaeda. Struggling to understand what had happened, television broad- casters and online media2 started to replay repeatedly some amateur videos recorded during the attack, particularly a short shocking footage in which one of the gunmen runs towards a wounded police officer lying on a sidewalk and shoots him in the head at point blank range. The videos were quickly uploaded on YouTube and many international news media started to replay them as well. Within minutes, the events of that black Wednesday ricocheted around the world. Besides the online platforms of French and international news media, Twitter helped spread the first images of the attack. With an impressive rate of nearly 6,500 tweets per minute (CNN, 2015) the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie3 gathered five million tweets in two days. 134
Online Media, ‘Therapy News’ and Fear Management 135 Many prominent politicians and Hollywood celebrities used the hashtag, which resulted in hundreds of re-tweets. Within hours, and thanks to real time coverage coupled with intense hashtag activism, a city’s trauma was known to the world. Black Wednesday The coverage of the Charlie Hebdo attack is a good illustration of the extent to which our social and cultural life is highly media- tized (Hepp, 2013; Hjarvard, 2013). According to Stig Hjarvard, the mediatization of culture and society can be understood as ‘the process whereby culture and society to an increasing degree become dependent on the media and their logic’ (2013: 17). Mediatization refers not only to how the media have become embedded into society and culture, but also how they have become a social insti- tution their own right. Television, movies, newspapers, cartoons, video games, and social media, all have particular modus operandi characterized by specific patterns of production, communication, and distribution of material and symbolic resources. These patterns are, in turn, underpinned by political, aesthetic, economic, and technological factors, which are typical of highly industrialized societies (Hepp, 2013). Online media exemplifies the power of mediatization to shape society and culture. As political, social, or disaster events happen in different corners of the world, we almost instantaneously watch and read about them on our tablets and smartphones, talk about and share them with friends and colleagues, or post them on Twitter and Facebook. This logic of mediatization reflects the impressive acceler- ation of the production, distribution, and consumption of informa- tion in our societies. Furthermore, online media also convey cultural representations of emotions, of their social and political benefits and pitfalls, of how we are expected to manage them. Against this background, and by focusing on the online coverage of the Charlie Hebdo attack, my aim in this chapter is to analyze the emotional framing of terrorism in online media and the thera- peutic potential of such media representations for the management of fear. In addition, I explore the extent to which online media (re) produce emotional regimes and influence how fear is perceived and managed. Besides examining the Charlie Hebdo attack, I will provide
136 Omar V. Rosas a reflection on the role played by movies like American Sniper in shaping the management of fear in contemporary societies. Terrorism and terror management: the primitive fear of death Terrorism is a multifaceted concept and neither political nor academic consensus on its definition has been reached so far. Although many conceptualizations of ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’ have been provided by different security departments and governments across the world, terrorism remains an epistemologically opaque concept. As Pippa Norris et al. (2003) have argued, the concept of terrorism ‘is essen- tially contested, value-laden, and open to multiple meanings located within broader cultural frames, so that, to some extent, terrorism is in the eye of the beholder’ (Norris, Kern, & Just, 2003: 6). However, despite there being no universally accepted characteriza- tion of terrorism, a core feature of it is globally recognized. Terrorism is a powerful trigger for fear. In fact, as Charles Townshend (2002) has pointed out, ... the special quality of terrorist acts – attacking the defenseless – dramatically amplifies the anxiety about security which is never far from the surface of society. Some writers have argued that fear as such is not a crucial factor – the mere excitement or fascination of violence may generate sufficient impact – and this may be true. But certainly without some sense of disturbance, of abnormality if not enormity, attention would not be seized. (Townshend, 2002: 8) The power of terrorism lies in its capacity to instill fear in a target population, to infuse their minds and lives with anxiety and despair thereby shaking their existential grounds and exposing their intrinsic vulnerability. Although fear also underpins harrowing events such as natural disasters, nuclear catastrophes or pandemics, terrorist attacks stand out from other traumatic events as clear signs of the dramatic potential for violence and inhumanity inherent to our species. In short, terrorism is an efficient way to highlight our primitive terror of death. The terror of death was a topic brilliantly addressed by the Pulitzer Prize winner Ernest Becker. In his The Denial of Death, Becker (1973)
Online Media, ‘Therapy News’ and Fear Management 137 combined biological, anthropological, philosophical, and psychoana- lytical ideas in order to explore the effects of the thought of death on the human psyche. As creatures that share with all animals a basic impulse to survive and thrive, Becker argues, humans develop phys- ical and psychological structures in an attempt to foster self-pres- ervation. However, unlike other animals, human beings are aware of the inevitability of their own death, and this fear prompts them to develop defense mechanisms throughout their lives. Among the mechanisms identified by Becker are holding on strongly to cultural worldviews, forming enduring affiliations with those who share the same worldview, opposing those who favor different worldviews and engaging in ‘heroic acts’ that imbue meaning in our lives. Inspired by Becker’s insights into the psychosocial mechanisms underlying the terror of death, Jeff Greenberg and colleagues (Greenberg & Arndt, 2012; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1999) introduced the Terror Management Theory, a social psych- ology theory that has been tested by more than 300 studies over the past 25 years. This theory basically states that when mortality is made salient, subjects tend to respond positively to those who uphold the same cultural values, and negatively to those who violate their cultural values. Individuals facing potential life-threatening situ- ations or death thoughts resort to their cultural worldviews to seek comfort and to reinforce their self-esteem. As Terror Management Theory assumes that mortality salience is an automatic psycho- logical defense mechanism, two implications of this theory are worth mentioning. First, mortality salience can prompt people to more closely affiliate with members of their ingroup (family, friends, nation, or religion) in order to restore control and self-esteem. Second, mortality salience can also increase people’s negative reactions – in the form of stereotypes, prejudice, and hostility – towards those who threaten their worldviews (countries, religions, ethnic groups). These implications are significant for the management of fear in the coverage of terrorism. Given their complex political and/or religious underpinnings and aims, terrorist attacks pose significant challenges to the journalistic standards of objectivity, balance, and truth. Journalists covering terrorist attacks have to make sense of the events by drawing on fragmented evidence. Each piece of new infor- mation about victims, perpetrators, or governmental measures has to be carefully verified, updated, and integrated into a story in much
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