1449 – A Novel Approach Of Watching Movies And Conducting Therapy For Psychiatric Inpatients

Abstract

Objective

Using movies in psychiatric group therapy & rehabilitation classes provides ‘Entertainment, Education, Empowerment’ for the participants. We have provided such a setting where severely ill psychiatric inpatients. We aimed to describe the “Watching Cinema- Group Therapy” implementation for 500 inpatients in one year.

Method

Selected movie clips were watched in the morning and group therapy session took place in the afternoon. The patients were instructed to watch the film closely, and if required, ask for certain scenes to be replayed for a better understanding. It was followed by review of the film.

Results

We observed that these activities have encouraged the patients to talk about their beliefs, thoughts and feelings while discussing the characters and stories. We have also used as a reward for the patients who have therapeutic alliance. It motivated them to do something instead of being stayed in the room. Short movie scenes were more useful to follow up the films for the patients who have been administrated high doses of drugs.

Conclusions

It is the ingenuity and creative approaches of the educators and healers using movies in favor of behavioral health improvement. Movies are strong and important tools to be used for positive as well as productive means in treatment and teaching.