I was born in Lappeenranta, Southeast Finland in 1954. I was very shy, lonely
and sheltered in my youth. Going movies shown in the city where I was raised
therefore has been my only hobby expected of a soul that has not found much
chance to share everything with everybody. The movies were the mediums making
me feel like sharing the world, with the characters on the silver screen as
well as the ones behind it.
Once I saw the James Bond movie when I was quite younger. I was trying to be
as least noticeable as possible no thanks to my shyness. After the movie a hero,
however, came out of the movie, head up and murmuring,
"My name is Lehto... Pekka Lehto!"
Sad to say, however, this magnificent effect was not to be lasting longer than
a few days.
1976 was the year when I started working for a mental hospital. It has been
my professional stomping ground for more than twenty-eight years.
In the end of seventies I was using
motion pictures and making 8 mm home movies relevant to the therapeutic sessions.
Although it has been fun and the patients liked the project very much, its
application to therapy has yet to be clarified and guided.
My thoughts at that
time have been centralized around the notion that the therapeutic movies were
supposed to be those in which we would be able to observe troubled people, their
finding solutions relevant to their problems and bringing the story to the happy
ending. This however, proved itself to be debatable.
Once I thought On Golden
Pond would be good one for the mentally troubled youngsters whose treatment
I participated. However, the votes taken on On Golden Pond and Indiana
Jones, Part II have been 3:1 in favor of the latter one! And believe me or
not: Indiana Jones was very therapeutic experience.
I started to think that maybe there really could be much different kind of
therapeutic films.
Later I have found that all movies can be therapeutic for someone.
That is the way the movies and years have passed by...
I remember one of my nurse associates asking me whether there was any good
book, written in Finnish, relevant to the Art Therapy and its applications back
in 1990. There wasn't. Although I started writing with the collaboration of my other associates,
realized that there was not any credible publication reflective of the clinical
applications of the movie therapy. It was my decision to take the bull by the
horns; doing it by myself! Some basic theories along with their many versions
formed and maintained the project. I asked the Finnish Languages Office
regarding the title or denomination of such a therapy in 1991. Their response
was, "Elokuvaterapia" meaning "the Movie Therapy."
Years passed and the said book about the Art Therapy has never been published.
However, I was able to come up with "About Movie Therapy" published by
Kulttuuriyhdistys KuuMaa in 1996 following three long years of hard work.
Kuu means Moon, Maa means Earth and kuumaa means hot in Finnish. It was quite a
hot stuff all right!
I have given many Movie Therapy lectures in Finland since 1996.
One of them was three-day symposium presented at Reykjavik University, Iceland.
Three booklets about Movie Therapy have also been published during that period.
I can say I have been moved by "moving pictures" experiencing professional as
well as personal achievements and satisfactions throughout those years.
Nowadays I have better relationship with my emotions;
I usually cry over watching a sentimental movies and I am not ashamed of my
aggressive feelings while I am watching moralistic films. It is exciting to
observe the domestic human reactions; feeling like one is alive and kicking.
Watching movies is like sweeping the chimneys. The chimneys provide us a fresh
and healthy air once the operation is completed. Here our emotional chimneys
clogged by anxiety, dysphoria, fear, anger and all other negative "substances"
are neutralized through the movies, the chimneysweepers! The whole thing may
also be likened to the acupuncture. It may hurt a little bit when it is applied,
watching a scene, but eliminates our pain generated and maintained by our
negative emotions in a long run. We think over and over again about that scene,
start feeling better and realize that we are no longer a stranger towards
ourselves.
Here we are after all of those years... Our travel goes on and a word relevant
to the healing effects of watching movies is spread out among the people on the
Earth.
The Moon is next...one day!
