Loosening the Grip : An Exploration of Women’s Lived Experiences of Psychological Distress Through Filmmaking

Le résumé fourni par la source

This study explores the first-person experience of women’s psychological distress and interactions with the mental healthcare system through the lens of exploratory filmmaking. Six artists who identified as women participated in a multi-phase study, creating short films that engaged with their emotional and psychological journeys. Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA) was applied to semi-structured interviews conducted across three stages: pre-production, production, and post-production. Key themes were developed to reflect participants’ histories of distress, their creative processes, engagement in dialogue with an imagined audience, and the ways in which filmmaking produced therapeutic outcomes. The study highlights the value of filmmaking as a tool for externalizing distress and fostering agency and closure, or in the words of one of our participants, “loosening the grip” of past trauma on current experience. Our study suggests that creative methods like filmmaking may bridge gaps in mental healthcare approaches, promoting clinical empathy and patient empowerment.

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