Part I. Introduction
Film/Video-Based TherapyTM and Virtual Reality
Joshua L. Cohen
Abstract
Film/Video-Based TherapyTM and Trauma: Research and Practice involves technology but, in essence, the book’s focus is still about highlighting psychological trauma. As human beings we all face overwhelming situations and events in today’s world that cause distressing triggers. Because people are fragile, Film/Video-Based Therapy™ should involve a licensed therapist. The use of technology should be driven by human potential, empathy, and compassion. The Dalai Lama once said, “If we as human beings become slaves of the technology, this is of course wrong. Human value always remains above.” This chapter will also focus on human potential and not the negative aspects of trauma but rather posttraumatic growth.

So in the Avengers, as in the other Marvel groups, it is the collective forces, rather than the ego-driven solo hero, that provides the redeeming energy for humankind.
(Anslow, 2012, p. 242)
This book uses film/video-based therapy™ to help build resilience in facing personal, communal, national, and global trauma triggers. Reducing trauma can be a challenge in any circumstance and may involve collaboration. Filmmaking is a collaborative process, and similar to the movie, The Avengers, no single person can address global trauma alone. This is an edited book that focuses on collaboration in addressing trauma. We address issues in one’s home, community, country, and the world using integrative medicine and advocacy using film/video-based therapy™ and digital storytelling to address trauma in one’s home, community, government, and the world. This book is designed to be used by the audience of practitioners inthe field and educators in higher education institutions. The previous book, Video and Filmmaking as Psychotherapy: Research and Practice (Cohen, Johnson, & Orr, 2015), introduced film/video-based therapy™ as a new approach to psychotherapy and explored various theoretical backgrounds and approaches as well as ethical dilemmas that might be inherent to its practice in an interdisciplinary way of thinking contrary to more independent thought. The concept of synergy and focus is not unfamiliar to the filmmaker who works with many different art forms. (Cohen, 2022). This second book expands on the topic of the first book; it is about how therapy using film and video can heal both individuals and communities by helping people find their place in a community for both purpose and life energy that motivates and inspires despite the traumatic events one might face.
The world has suffered—and continues to suffer—collective trauma, terrorism, and violence. As a result, mental health professionals, creative art therapists, filmmakers, and activists working as researchers and practitioners are faced with daunting challenges. This book demonstrates how we can use the language of film to watch, process, and discuss images of trauma in therapy, in the home, in the community, and in the world (Cohen et al., 2015).
PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA
Trauma is not just about the experience, not only at the time of the event. It is about one’s subsequent response to triggers, as described by pioneer trauma researchers and practitioners such as Bessel van der Kolk, Peter Levine, and other depth psychologists, and in qualitative and quantitative research. In this book on the topic of digital storytelling as therapy (Film/Video-Based Therapy™) (Cohen, 2022), we build on the work of the first book, Video and Filmmaking as Psychotherapy: Research and Practice (Cohen et al., 2015), which examined film/video-based theory across issues and populations in a general sense.
This book demonstrates those theories in a new way by focusing on posttraumatic growth through media psychology, depth psychology, neuroscience, medicine, and advocacy’s role in using film/video-based therapy™. A psychotherapy client needs to have become aware of all triggers of trauma to help build resilience in the face of overwhelming experiences for the sake of regulating the autonomic nervous system (Cohen et al., 2015).
Film/video-based therapy™ can help a client not only to become aware of those triggers and learn how they can be processed personally, but to become an advocate for change using digital storytelling and by learning how to process triggers in the home, local community, state, country, and the world that may otherwise leave one vulnerable to trauma.
DEFINITION OF FILM/VIDEO-BASED THERAPY™
Film/Video-Based Therapy™ involves making movies with clients. It also draws from several disciplines, including cinema therapy, expressive therapy, narrative therapy, art therapy, digital storytelling, and phototherapy. The making of any film involves a community that requires collaboration to integrate the many dynamic aspects of art and medicine. A collaborative effort was formed around film/video-based therapy™ to demonstrate health in community settings. Film/Video-Based Therapy™ is about making films with clients, in contrast to cinema therapy,™ which involves watching films. I have utilized watching movies and mindfulness in my work. I have also been cited in Tuval-Mashiach and Patton’s clinical trial and participated in peer-reviewed research on the use of video narratives in cancer research. Film/Video-Based TherapyTM is not trademarked for advertising or financial purposes; rather, it is intended to protect the sanctity of the license for mental health professionals and the word “therapy” when used in conjunction with film/video in the United States (Cohen et al., 2015).
SOMATIC EXPERIENCING AND TRAUMA
Somatic Experiencing, in its simplest terms, is more of a mind-body practice than a psychological practice. Somatic Experiencing practitioner Paul Petcheck demonstrated this in an interview in which I allowed him to draw from his cinematic experience editing with directors like Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker to explain whether Levine’s idea of SIBAM would work perfectly with film editing. (SIBAM stands for Sensation, Image, Behavior, Affect, and Meaning and will be expanded on throughout the book).
SE is a body-oriented therapeutic model applied in multiple professions and professional settings—psychotherapy, medicine, coaching, teaching, and physical therapy. Trauma impacts physical health, mental health, learning, education, and multiple aspects of an individual’s life. (About – Somatic Experiencing® International [2021, November 9]).
BESSEL VAN DER KOLK AND TRAUMA: THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE
Bessel van der Kolk’s work, The Body Keeps the Score, was on the number one list of the New York Times’s bestsellers. He is one of the world’s leading experts on traumatic stress. In his book, he explains how psychological trauma influences people as well as how to move beyond it (van der Kolk, 2015).
DR. ALBERT “SKIP” RIZZO: EXPOSURE THERAPY AND VR
In his interview with Brett Leonard about the movie Lawnmower Man, Skip Rizzo explored how VR looked in the future from a 1990s perspective. New films like The Matrix series use the Unreal Engine, not for virtual reality, but the gaming engine. It helps provide for cinematic form in movies (Rizzo, 2021; Wachowski, 2022).
Psychologist Skip Rizzo researches the design, development, and evaluation of virtual reality (VR) systems targeting the areas of clinical assessment, treatment rehabilitation, and resilience. This work spans psychological, cognitive, and motor functioning domains in both healthy and clinical populations. Rizzo, whose work uses virtual reality-based exposure therapy to treat PTSD, holds research professor appointments with the USC Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the USC Davis School of Gerontology (Cognitive Technology; Journal of Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds; Media Psychology) and is the creator of the Virtual Reality Mental Health Email Listserv (VRPSYCH).
THE MANDALORIAN, VIRTUAL FILMMAKING, AND THE UNREAL ENGINE
The unreal engine and Disney and Lucasfilm have designed a gaming engine perfect for film/video-based therapyTM and Patton’s “I Was There” Films workshops (Cohen et al., 2015; Rizzo, 2021).
Disney’s incredible series The Mandalorian used the Unreal Engine for sets. We are also working with Unreal Engine with authors in Canada and Egypt for the second volume of Film/Video-Based Therapy™ and Trauma. The Mandalorian used Unreal for most of the reasons that help with constricting costs and the ability to mix physical props with virtual sets (Gartenberg, 2020). It helps in therapy because of HIPAA and other restrictions for filmmaking in the therapy room.
FILM/VIDEO-BASED THERAPY,™ TRAUMA BACKSTORY, AND CHAPTER SUMMARIES
When I started work on this book, it was 2016, and I was looking at trauma through the lens of psychological problems. At that time, people had survived 9/11, the war in Iraq, and the U.S.’s extended conflict in Afghanistan. All the traumas at that time had to do with terrorism and the military. We didn’t expect a medical crisis. The global coronavirus pandemic forced us to confront the medical issues in our communities as people focused on the health of their families while relatives, friends, and strangers died slowly, and the world shut down. But nothing could prepare us for what happened to mental health in the aftermath of the pandemic. From a mental health perspective, trying to jump-start a system that was already broken was horrifying, challenging, and almost impossible.
While it is a continuation of Video and Filmmaking as Psychotherapy: Research and Practice, this book is centered on the concept of psychological trauma. I chose this topic because of the possibility for inspiration it can foster when associated with post-traumatic growth. Unlike physical trauma, psychological trauma has particular qualities. Whereas physical trauma is about the incident, psychological trauma is unique to the response. Psychological trauma is less about what happened and more about one’s reaction to that. Hence, it leaves room for post-traumatic growth. If you have psychological trauma, you can neither fight nor retreat from a situation. To use an automotive analogy, it’s like simultaneously flooring the gas pedal and slamming on the brakes.
For years I studied Peter Levine’s methods, taking his classes on Somatic Experiencing, but became ill before I could obtain the final credential. COVID-19 interfered with much of the progress I had made. Levine’s work coincided with that of Bessel van der Kolk, who published a New York Times bestselling paperback titled The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2015). Levine and van der Kolk had collaborated before and supported each other’s work in the past. Although different in method and theory, each upholds the tenet that trauma resides in the body and requires techniques designed to stabilize a person who has undergone a horrendous, life-changing experience.
This book, while it is about technology, is focused on using technology to better explain—in my interpretation through the author’s lens—the concept of the body, its role in processing trauma, and how we deal with trauma to make things better. I originally intended the book’s subtitle to include the words “post-traumatic growth.” As you explore the different chapters, you’ll see that they all overtly or covertly incorporate Peter Levine’s principle of somatic experiencing as well as those of similar theorists. https://yourdigitalstorytellingproject.com/backstory/