E-Motion Picture Magic

Rating:
Summary: Excellent for professionals and general public
Review: I am a psychotherapist and use movies with individual clients as well as groups. E-Motion Picture Magic is well written and user friendly. Ms. Wolz does a nice job of offering both theory and practical information. I particularly like her sections on using movies to release negative beliefs and her exercises that help the reader increase self-awareness by noticing reactions to film characters. Last, but certainly not least, I really appreciate, and have already used, her thorough film index. I will refer to this book often.

Rating:
Summary: Movies are much more than entertainment
Review: Self-help and pop psychology books have been around for a long time. Most of them that I have read help neither myself nor my understanding of human behavior. But Birgit Wolz's E- Motion Picture Magic is not your everyday self-help guide , nor is it pop psychology. It is a fantastic guide to solving emotional problems by interacting with the stories and characters portrayed on the silver screen. We know that movies are entertaining. But now we know they can also be therapeutic.


Doctor Wolz helps us to understand the reality of our own lives and to discern the path to happier lives by showing us how to use the reel of film that is projected onto the big white screen (or the little screen on our DVD/VCR/TV) to more effectively comprehend the reel in our heads that is often hidden from what we we perceive as reality. By interacting with movies and using what Wolz calls "conscious awareness" we place ourselves right into the story. By watching the behavior and attitude of the characters we can get inside their skin . It is in this way that without taking the risks of real world experimentation (or even the real world expense of psychotherapy) we can use the movie story to discern the meaning of our own story. We can use the problems of the characters to bring our own problems into the light of day. We can use the plot's solution to problems to guide us to a path more satisfying to our own needs.


Most useful are the straight forward exercises the author suggests by asking us, for example , to remember a time in our lives that we faced problems and dilemmas similar to those portrayed on the screen, to focus on the ways that the story enlightens the actors concerning particular problems, and to ask ourselves how the characters master challenges successfully. As we connect with what is going on in the movie, we can also connect with what is going on in our own lives. Also of great use and interest are the film index and film lists which catalogue subjects that are part of the human condition (bereavement,ethics, children, romance, love, addiction,illness etc. etc.) and link these topics to specific movies.


When I watched City Slickers I did so passively and was amused and entertained. But I am going to watch it again soon and do so with an eye to conscious awareness of what is going on . Dr. Wolz tells us that this is a movie that can help with regard to "men's issues". For me, the words "men's" and "issues" are redundant. I really don't know what the difference is between being me and being an issue. Maybe with the help of this wonderful book I can take one step toward separating what it means to be a "man" and what it means to be an "issue".