A free workshop offered by the College of Marin to encourage dialogue and discussion about mental health.

1. Movies for
Mental Health
College of Marin
October 22, 2019
@artwithimpact
#Movies4MentalHealth

2. About Your Facilitator
Cary McQueen
Founder, Executive Director
Art With Impact

3. Brought to you by…
• Mental Health Services Act (2004)
• 1% tax on people earning >$1m/year
• 20% to prevention and early intervention
#Movies4MentalHealth
• Jennifer Bull, AMFT
• Adam Cohen, LMFT
• Suzanna de Sanz, MS, AMFT
• Pamela Kohll, MS, LMHC,
CSAT-S, CCPS, CHFP
• Kendra Gilberd, LMFT
• Lisa Lund, CRC, MFT
• Family Recovery Institute /
Kenneth Perlmutter, PhD
• Roberta Seifert, Ph.D.
http://bit.ly/MarinMH

4. Here’s the Plan
• Quick Introduction
• Setting the scene together
• Mental Health
• Stigma
• Watch and discuss films
• Panel of students and resources
#Movies4MentalHealth

5. Where were you right before
coming to the workshop?
#Movies4MentalHealth

6. Heads Up
• Mental health is personal – YOU are the expert on
your own experience
• Public space – no confidentiality
• It’s okay to feel!
• Films and conversations might be triggering
• Please take care of yourself however you need,
including asking for help
• If you don’t want your photo taken, please let us know
#Movies4MentalHealth

7. Mental Health
#Movies4MentalHealth

8. Mental Health
• Mental illness
• Mental wellness
#Movies4MentalHealth

9. MH Across Languages and
Cultures
If English is not your first language, does your
language have words for mental health, mental
illness and mental wellness?
Do these concepts exist in your home culture?

10. Some movies and tv shows that
show mental illness…
‘ Crazy ex’girlfriend
- psychological thrillers – horrors )genre=
- How to get away with murder
- The Dark Knight – The Joker
- Ted Bundy Tapes
- Unbelievable
- Split
- Glass
- To The Bone
- Euphoria
- Forensic Files
- Awakenings
- Thirteen Reasons Why#Movies4MentalHealth

11. Characters with mental illness
are portrayed as…
}- Unstable
- Depends on your perception of the movie
- Very dramatic
- Very offensive toward personality disorders
- Romanticize mental illness
- Comic relief
- Irrational – -crazy-
- Violent
- Don{t show the interrelational aspects of MI
- Burdened – problems for other characters
- Related to trama
- Quick cures – resolutions
- Generalized #Movies4MentalHealth

12. Stigma vs.
Stereotype
#Movies4MentalHealth

13. Stigma
•A judgment or stereotype that is:
• Always negative
• Always untrue
• Can be internalized
#Movies4MentalHealth

14. How does stigma feel?
- Isolated
- Rejected, unhuman
- Lonely
- Different
- Useless
- People don{t understand what{s going on
with you
- Responsible – like it{s your own fault
- Disempowering – paralyzing
- Scared
#Movies4MentalHealth

15. The Hurt that Binds Us
By Victoria Anderson-Gardner
AWI Winner, August 2019
Content heads up: cultural stigma, physical abuse
#Movies4MentalHealth

16. Discuss in groups of three…
• What did you think?
• What did you feel?
#Movies4MentalHealth

17. What did you think? What did you feel?
Thoughts
- Lucky to be self in own
culture and identity
- Didn{t realize this was
abuse
- Definition of love was so
different for this generation
- Curious about the daughter
and if she has children and
pattern with next generation,
continuous cycle of abuse
- Opens door for healing
process i.e. calling her
strong
- When have tools to
understand our behavior,
we can start to heal
Feelings
- Lucky to have supportive
parents
- Upset that their culture and
identity was taken away
- Sadness for loss of
connection between
generations

18. How did the filmmaking
techniques help tell the story?
#Movies4MentalHealth

19. Me Too
By Maya Bastian
AWI Winner, August 2019
Content heads up: sexual assault
#Movies4MentalHealth

20. Discuss in groups of three…
• What did you think?
• What did you feel?
#Movies4MentalHealth

21. What did you think? What did you feel?
Thoughts
- Brutal honesty behind how people
respond do it
- The film captured it so well
- Very powerful
- Less talked about with boys and men
- The impacts can be far reaching and
long lasting
- Lack of communication )like with the
Dad=
- Can go untalked about for along time,
and lead to dark places
- She was pulling away from the people in
her life
- [Just because I wasn{t doing drugs, then
i{m not a slut, but because she was
doing drugs, she{s a slut[
- Impressed that she used her own inner
strength to tell her story, without any
shown intervention or treatment
- It{s hard to talk about it because they
feel like they{re being judged and
criticized
- Prevalence of sexual violence is so high.
Every woman in my life.
Feelings
- Lots of anger
- Lots of sadness
- Sadness… was really afraid
the main carácter would end
her own life at the end of the
film
- Anxiety – espcially because
of the focus on the time

22. Why don’t people get help?
- don{t have a supportive family or friend group
- The consequences of saying something outweigh the potential of
getting justice
- Ex – the military does not support survivors
- [you have a voice, but you struggle with power
- No one ever named the fact that this carácter was clearly in crisis
- So worried about what other peole think
- Manifestations of shame
- You don{t expect something like this to happen, especially if you{re a
child ‘ you might think you deserve what happens to you
- If you are someone who isn{t known to have these issues people
might not believe you )example ‘ men [can{t be raped[
#Movies4MentalHealth

23. Little Elizabeth
By Elizabeth Ayiku
AWI Winner, February 2018
Content heads up: discussion of trauma
and childhood sexual assault
#Movies4MentalHealth

24. Responses and Reactions?
#Movies4MentalHealth
- She had to be the adult that she didn{t have as a Little girl
- Really easy to relate to becasue when you find that peace within
yourself it{s not until you look in the mirror. The one person who can
help you is you.
- She accepted what happened to her. The first step for healing is to
accept the pain
- When she said [I love you[ at the end, i really felt her pain. Everyone
can relate to not loving themselves
- Accepting what happened to her took the power away from the
perpetrator and highlighted her resiliance
- Writing letters to your Little self is a good tool to use from a counseling
perspective

25. What can we do?
- I encourage you to try, to say hi, and ask one new person in your day
how they{re doing )advise from a dad
- That one kind Word can go a really long way
- Sexual assault and harrassments contribute to mental unwellness.
There is a lot of progress in laws and rights
- Feel and live with compassion for everyone, everyone needs help
- These films addressed both societal ills as well as personal
experiences. Practice self’care, with groups. Isolation leads to mental
health issues. Doing what you can do, accepting what you can{t
change
- Being mindful that everyone has their own healing process and time,
and we can{t fix things for other people
- Ensuring that th epeople around you know about the resources
available on your campus
#Movies4MentalHealth

26. Panel
#Movies4MentalHealth

27. Meet the Panel
Joshua Adan
College of Marin Student
Mark Parker
Peer Counselor, Marin County Behavioral Health And Recovery Services
Dr. Jesse Wade
Clinical Psychologist, San Francisco Vet Center / Marin County Satellite Office
Dr. Danila Musante
Psychologist, College of Marin
Kelli Finley
Executive Director, NAMI Marin
Laurel Freeman
Prevention Specialist, Center for Domestic Peace
#Movies4MentalHealth

28. Stay in touch!
Don’t forget to leave your name
and email on the sign-up sheet!
@artwithimpact
info@artwithimpact.org
#Movies4MentalHealth