Using Cinema Narrative in therapy for Children & Young People

Cinema narrative therapy combines narrative therapy and cinematherapy, using films and stories to help individuals process their emotions. This approach is especially beneficial for children, allowing them to view their personal experiences through cinematic lenses, which fosters healing and growth.
Stories are vital in therapy, helping individuals understand complex feelings. Familiar narratives can teach important values, offering hope and clarity.
Children often create distorted self-narratives when distressed. Narrative therapy helps them distinguish their identities from their problems, promoting a healthier self-image. Films act as therapeutic tools, with relatable characters embarking on transformative journeys that resonate with young viewers.
In essence, narrative therapy empowers individuals to reframe their stories, emphasizing strengths and aspirations, which enhances personal growth and healing.

Using Narrative from Popular Cinema in Therapy for Children & Young People

How Storytelling Can Be Used to Encourage Positive Values and Growth

By Dr Minnie Joseph | January 2025

Cinema narrative therapy uses film to help people process their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. It’s a combination of narrative therapy and cinematherapy. It is a powerful and innovative tool used by mental health professionals to help people of all ages but especially children and young people. It helps them to understand and reshape their personal stories. Therapists engage with narratives found in films, books, and even YouTube clips. The young people are then able to view their lives from a new perspective, more objectively. This often leads to healing and personal growth.

When I ask my teenage patients to see latest Will Smith film, or check out whether younger children like Kung Fu Panda, I am not striking up small talk. I’m using narrative as a clever tool in a psychiatrist’s kit that can help people unravel issues that trouble them.

For centuries traditional folk and fairy tales have been used to do the very same thing. There is scientific evidence that they have a huge positive impact on positive psychology, helps promote resilience, self realisation, personal growth and meaning in life.

I have therefore explained the various ways in which films can be used in a productive way below: 

The Role of Stories in Therapy

Scientific research and evidence supports the media’s ability to promote resilience, self-realisation, personal growth and meaning in life. Stories offer a structured way to comprehend complex emotions and experiences, allowing individuals to see themselves and their situations more clearly in an objective way.

Understanding Through Stories

Narrative therapy operates on the principle that people understand the world around them—including themselves—better when they can contextualise it within a story. For children, nursery tales and Disney films often illustrate the triumph of virtues like honesty, loyalty, and courage over adversity. These narratives help young minds to grasp the workings of the wider world beyond their immediate family. This offers hope, courage and joy to these young people.

Addressing Distorted Personal Narratives

Children and adolescents who experience distress often develop distorted personal narratives. For instance, a child bullied at school might rewrite her story to view herself solely through the lens of victimhood. Narrative therapy aims to disentangle the individual from their problem, helping them to recognise and celebrate their unique qualities.

Through therapy, I separate the person from the problem. A teenage with a diagnosis of anorexia is just that, a teenager first, then someone with an eating order. This is the problem to tackle; it is separate from the unique and wonderful things that make her who she is.

Using familiar stories, therapists can quickly build rapport with young patients. Films and popular media often speak a language that resonates more with this age group than traditional psychological jargon.

Films as Therapeutic Tools

Incorporating films into therapy can be incredibly effective. Many movies depict characters undergoing transformative journeys that mirror the goals of narrative therapy. For example, in Kung Fu Panda, Po learns to embrace the present and appreciate his unique identity as a panda with a goose as a loving father. Similarly, Collateral Beauty features a father who, after the tragic loss of his child, learns to reframe his narrative to rediscover the beauty in life. It is only when he is able to embrace a fresh story, that respects but contains the past, that the can re-find the ‘beauty’ of life. 

Crafting Your Own Narrative

Ultimately, narrative therapy empowers individuals to become the storytellers of their own lives. By re-telling their stories in a way that centers their strengths and aspirations, rather than their problems, people can foster a sense of agency and purpose. How might you reframe your story to place yourself—not your challenges—at the heart of your narrative? Reflect on your qualities, experiences, and dreams to craft a story that truly represents who you are.

Therapy using narrative takes hold of the idea that we understand things in life – ourselves included – more easily when we wrap them around a story. So younger children can learn about how the world outside their family works from nursery tales.

You are the teller of your own story. How could you re-tell it to keep you, not any problems you are facing right now, at the centre?

Author: Dr Minnie Joseph
Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist

 

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By Dr Meetu Singh

Dr. Meetu Singh, the esteemed director and founder of our organization, is not only a visionary leader but also an accomplished clinician. Her leadership is characterized by a profound commitment to advancing mental health care, and her strategic vision has been instrumental in guiding the organization to new heights.