Filming psychotherapy from the viewpoint of a research cinematographer

Abstract

The study of psychotherapeutic processes has developed a new approach to an understanding of human behavior. Studies based on the repeated evaluation of recorded behavior have led to an examination of the role of the motion picture camera as a scientific instrument. New needs challenge the professional film maker to reexamine established media of the educational, documentary, and entertainment films. For a quarter of a century interpretive films have abstracted and communicated aspects of psychotherapy, but recent developments indicate that there is a new role emerging for the motion picture which may come to be of even greater significance both for psychotherapy and for the film maker. This new role sees cinematography as a basic tool in the study of psychotherapy, with the motion picture acting as an unprecedentedly clear and complete, technically controlled abstraction of an ephemeral event. Such a tool provides a record which with limitless replication permits the observer unparalleled objectivity in the examination of nuances of psychotherapeutic interaction.