Chloe Rankin
WP4 Final Paper
4/17/23
Cinematherapy: A New Door to Addressing
Mental Health Within The Prison System
Prisons are among the least creative and most punitive spaces in the world: they were built to punish people who have caused harm or done wrong to society. This punishment is mainly psychological, where prisoners are confined, stigmatized, segregated, and deprived of many healthy forms of social interaction. In addition to the lack of healthy social interaction, they are also deprived of many forms of physical, emotional, creative, and intellectual forms of stimulation. When a human being’s world is reduced to the walls of a cell, they can lose touch with society, lose forms of community, and become traumatized. Without a healthy sense of community or support, over time their social skills become rusty, their ability to fluidly connect with a variety of people diminishes, and their perception of their own self-worth can become distorted. Many incarcerated people are in prison for decades or for life, meaning they endure such detrimental environments for the majority of their existence. Prison’s negative impacts on an inmate’s mental health can increase their likelihood of recidivating, which perpetuates the cycle of incarceration, thus impacting society as a whole. How can we improve the social, emotional, psychological, intellectual, and creative deprivation that negatively impact inmates’ mental health during and after incarceration? Through research, I found that the damage done to mental health in prison can be mitigated through the implementation of arts-based programs. Still, no existing research specifically addresses the strong potential of film as a rehabilitative tool that could be implemented in prisons to improve inmates’ mental health. I will show that film has unique potential, either through cinematherapy (where inmates are the audience) or through filmmaking itself (where inmates are the artists), to enhance prisoners’ lives during and after incarceration. However, before I discuss my proposed solution, I want to prove that prison environments, especially those that contribute to isolation and the deprivation of resources, negatively impact inmates’ mental health in profound ways.
First, research establishes that prison negatively impacts inmates’ mental health during and after incarceration. Approximately 90% of prisoners suffer from mental health issues. (Armour, 887). Some mental health challenges might actually lead to someone being incarcerated in the first place. Pre-existing trauma not only makes people more vulnerable to mental health problems in prison, but also the experience of incarceration itself can exacerbate these problems. Prison environments are inherently traumatic. Common features like overcrowding, violence, and limited access to mental health services actually contribute to mental health problems in inmates. The lack of mental health support and inhumane living conditions can worsen one’s depression, anxiety, and overall world view. These determinants not only impact inmates during incarceration, but they continue to affect their lives after release. A person’s level of in-prison mental health follows them after release, and poor mental health can increase the likelihood of recidivating, which perpetuates the cycle of incarceration, thus impacting society as a whole (Wallace, 1).
However, simply fixing prison overcrowding and other physical conditions alone will not adequately address prisoners’ mental health needs. Their mental health also declines from incarceration because of the social, emotional, and intellectual deprivation they experience. Mental health encompasses not only freedom from depression or anxiety, but also one’s sense of self-worth, purpose, connection to others, and general sense of well-being. (Nurse, et al ___). For example, one prisoner describes the most debilitating impact of prison as one of isolation and and lack of stimulation: “[T]he end of the day you’ve got nothing to focus your mind on, with no books to stimulate your mind, no papers to stimulate your mind . . . papers and TV are your link to the outside world. You’ve got nothing to stimulate your mind, you’re just left staring at four blank walls” ( Nurse, et al, 2 ). Another prisoner agrees, highlighting the social, emotional, and intellectual damage of incarceration because it is “not letting me get to education, not giving me a chance to work, not giving me a chance to do anything . . . you build up anger, you know what I mean . . . It’s going to release one day, it’s just building up inside you and you got to hold it down, hold it down, hold it down.” (Nurse, et al, 2). Thus, conditions like social isolation, lack of stimulation, and lack of opportunities for positive interactions contribute to stress, anxiety, and depression among prisoners. Some inmates report even turning to drugs to relieve “long hours of tedium.” (Nurse, et al, 1). Therefore, the lack of intellectual, emotional, and creative stimulation are significant contributors to inmates’ poor mental health.
However, the isolation and the lack of positive community and healthy interactions are also significant problems. For example, negative interactions between prisoners and staff, especially due to staffing shortages, contribute to poorer mental health of prisoners and staff. Thus, the institution of prison creates a “cycle of stress” exchanged between and among prisoners and staff, creating a “dysfunctional system.” (Nurse, et al, 3). Because of the self perpetuating cycle of stress, prison staff and other institutional authorities are unable to address or provide support for the mental health of the entire prison system.
Art therapy programs have been shown to help break such cycles of stress, by providing mental, emotional, and creative outlets to prisoners. Art can provide a creative outlet for incarcerated people and help them develop new skills, express themselves, and engage in therapeutic activities (Johnson, 100). Thus, art can help to improve mental health outcomes, reduce recidivism rates, and promote positive behavior within prisons (Meekums, 1). In fact, over the last 40 years traditional art programs — like visual arts, music, theater, dance and creative writing — have been shown to help rehabilitate prisoners and help with reentry (Meekums, ____). Art therapy in particular shows several specific benefits, including, 1) being a supplemental form of communication for those who struggle with verbal communication. 2) It has the potential to serve as a link between the therapist and the client in order to collaboratively address topics that may cause discomfort for the client. “3) It is a means of self-expression and self-exploration. 4) It provides a safe and acceptable way to express, release, and deal with potentially destructive feelings like anger and aggression. 5) It yields concrete products that can be used to initiate discussion and note developments over time. 6) It gets the client actively involved. 7) It lets clients be creative and perhaps enjoy themselves.” (Johnson, 102 ). Such programs often significantly improve the mental health and well-being of inmates, which then improves their overall functioning and reduces recidivism rates. Overall, the evidence supports “the possibility that creative activities such as art can perform an effective role in offender rehabilitation.” (Johnson, 101). However, despite these positive indications for art programs in prison, funding is often cut entirely or severely decreased. Staffing for limited programs is also a persistent issue in bringing art programs to scale within prisons. Some critics attribute the sharp decline of art programs in prisons to “ broad political and perceived public demands for prisons to cease providing prisoners with what were thought to be unwarranted privileges and amenities” (Johnson, 103).
The first challenge– society’s belief that prison should prioritize punishing impacts — is beyond the scope of this paper. The real solution to the punishing impact of prison on inmates’ mental health might only come from getting rid of incarceration altogether or from fundamentally changing the function of prison from punishment to rehabilitation. Since this fundamental shift is a systemic one, it’s not likely to happen, at least anytime soon. However, in the interim, we should point to the literature proving that, even if we cannot change current prison conditions such as overcrowding or violence, art programs are still shown to positively impact the mental health of inmates and reduce the likelihood of recidivism after release. The second challenge, where art programs lack staffing and funds, might be able to be addressed by partnering with universities, as I explain in my film-related proposal below.
While art programs are demonstrating progress in prisoners’ mental health, one gap in the literature is the unique promise of film. Film is an artistic endeavor that not only requires creativity and self-reflection from filmmakers, but also from audiences. I argue that film needs to be examined as a critical therapeutic and rehabilitative tool in the prison context.
These benefits can come from cinematherapy, which is a guided process where prisoners are the audience: they watch a film and then discuss it with a therapeutic facilitator to examine what it means for them and their lives. The practice of cinematherapy reveals that film can generate positive emotional and psychological benefits. In this context, cinematic films can be understood to provide a “series of cues” that lead the audience through a meditation on the self. (Voss et al., 142). Such therapy begins when a professional suggests a client watch a film and use the film’s characters, plot, and themes to facilitate the client’s self-exploration and reflection. Watching films then provides a visual and sensory focus that shares some benefits with mindfulness, such as reducing stress, allowing people to better perceive and appreciate others’ perspectives and increase empathy, but also to improve their own self-awareness and strive toward inner peace. Carefully selected films can illustrate and encourage “core concepts of mindfulness and mind-body healing, including slowing down, paying attention, acceptance, self-compassion, and the impact of toxic emotions on health and well-being.” (Robertson). Some cinematherapy practitioners even report explicitly “integrat[ing] mindfulness-oriented exercises before and/or after viewing cinematic selections, followed by in-depth processing of the cinematic experience.” (Robertson).
Cinematherapy has been shown to have goals and benefits of focusing one’s attention to achieve personal, cognitive, emotional, and even spiritual reflection, healing, and growth. (Woltz). All of these measures are similar to those valued in prior studies on the effectiveness of art programs in prison, so we could expect similar positive effects on mental health from cinematherapy. Moreover, cinematherapy would allow prisoners to build community by watching and discussing films together. While cinematherapy is on the same branch as other art programs that have been attempted to be implemented, cinematherapy brings its ability to flesh out individual thoughts and feelings and also address those thoughts and feelings in more of a group setting, making there be connections with oneself and community.
However, cinematherapy would likely face similar challenges to those described for art programs generally, especially challenges in lack of funding and staffing, especially because a cinema therapist or facilitator is required. However, perhaps universities with social work programs could partner with prisons to create new student-staffed cinematherapy programs. The social work students would receive the pedagogical benefits of practicing their therapeutic skills in a community service environment, and the prisoners would benefit from their efforts.
While cinematherapy would position inmates as the audience, a completely new intervention might be to position inmates as filmmaking artists. This opportunity would empower inmates to make and produce films themselves so their stories and voices are elevated and better understood by broader audiences. Compared to writing or drawing intensive arts, film may be more accessible for both audiences and artists, because it does not rely on the same sort of technical skills that writing or drawing might. Also, unlike other arts, film allows audiences to see and hear, engaging more dimensions of our senses, emotions, and thoughts. Actually hearing and seeing inmates’ stories through film could have a greater impact on audiences on the outside of prison walls, allowing inmates to reach more people in more impactful ways. Finally, in today’s digital age where consumers often prefer visual motion pictures over other art forms, films made by prisoners can be shared widely with broader audiences, increasing the potential impact of their stories on the outside world. To make such programs happen, I imagine that film schools could partner with neighboring prisons and build community service programs where film students work with inmates to assist them in creating films to tell their own stories and to elevate their own voices.
Mass incarceration is one of the most critical issues facing contemporary America. We imprison more people than any other civilized nation and our rates of recidivism are high. The literature clearly supports the argument that prison can make one’s mental health worse, and that poor or worsening mental health during prison is correlated to higher rates of recidivism after release. Therefore, if prison cannot improve someone’s mental health, it is actually contributing to the perpetuation of a cycle of incarceration. If we want to break the cycle of recidivism and re-incarceration, we must ensure that prisons do not negatively affect someone’s mental health. Art programs are shown to help address inmate rehabilitation and recidivism, but we underinvest in these programs and need to bring them to scale. As a specific art form, film would likely offer similar benefits to those proven for fine art programs, but film offers several unique benefits that should be further explored. Cinematherapy is an effective form of art therapy, but we would need to look at partnerships with university social work programs to enable cinematherapy to be offered as a free community service by students. Although there appears to be no evidence of existing filmmaking partnerships between film schools and prisons, this type of community service program could further empower inmates to express themselves and to be heard and seen in ways that other art programs do not offer. To address the likely challenges with staffing and funding of such film programs, I propose that more film schools engage film students to build and staff such programs through community service in neighboring prisons. The students will find pedagogical benefits and community service benefits, while the prisoners can benefit from the programs the film students provide for free. Despite these potential limitations and challenges, film should be further explored as another way to help break the cycle of mass incarceration.
Prisons should implement more artistic, expressive, and social programs within the prison, specifically cinematherapy or filmmaking programs, to create a space for inmates to connect and build a sense of community and have an outlet for self expression. The impact of isolation on mental health can be addressed through socialization and creating a space for self expression and processing of trauma. While neither cinematherapy nor prison-based filmmaking programs will fix the many negative impacts of poor prison conditions, they offer unique benefits that could help to mitigate the negative impacts of prison on inmates’ mental health. While prison creates an environment of isolation and deprivation — cinematherapy and filmmaking programs could provide a space for prisoners to creatively express themselves and have a sense of community. While film’s potential to disrupt mass incarceration may be small, it promises to have a positive impact on inmates’ mental health and quality of life.
Works Cited
Armour, Cherie. “Mental Health in Prison: A Trauma Perspective on Importation and Deprivation.” International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory, vol. 5, no. 2, 2012, pp. 866–894, https://ijcst.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/ijcst/article/view/35703
Johnson, Lee Michael. “A Place for Art in Prison: Art as A Tool for Rehabilitation and Management.” The Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice, vol.5, no.2, 2008, pp. 100–120, https://www.swacj.org/_files/ugd/4d13c6_ddf185230f354e119fe1b89a761df0f0.pdf
Meekums, Bonnie, and Jennifer Daniel. “Arts with Offenders: A Literature Synthesis.” The Arts in Psychotherapy, vol. 38, no. 4, 2011, pp. 229–238, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aip.2011.06.003.
Nurse, Jo, et.al. “Influence of Environmental Factors on Mental Health within Prisons: Focus Group Study.” British Medical Journal, vol. 327, no. 7413, 2003, pp. 1–5, https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.327.7413.480.
“Program Directory — Justice Arts Coalition.” Justice Arts Coalition — A National Network and Resource for Those Creating Art in and around the Criminal Legal System., 28 Feb. 2023, https://thejusticeartscoalition.org/programs.
Robertson, Bronwyn. “All Things Connect: The Integration of Mindfulness, Cinema and Psychotherapy.” Counseling Today, 29 Mar. 2016, ct.counseling.org/2016/03/all-things-connect-the-integration-of-mindfulness-cinema-and-psychotherapy/.
Voss, Christiane, et al. ““Film Experience and the Formation of Illusion: The Spectator as ‘Surrogate Body’ for the Cinema,” by Christiane Voss.” Cinema Journal, vol. 50 no. 4, 2011, pp. 136–150. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/cj.2011.0052.
Wallace, Danielle, and Xia Wang. “Does In-Prison Physical and Mental Health Impact Recidivism?” SSM — Population Health, vol. 11, Aug. 2020, pp. 1–16, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2020.100569.
Wolz, Birgit. “cinematherapy.com: Using Movies for Healing and Growth.” cinematherapy.com: Using Movies for Healing and Growth, https://www.cinematherapy.com/.
