Image Healing: From Abbas and Miyazaki’s Films to the Realization Path of Art Therapy in Film Creation

Lan Bai
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Lan Bai: Hangzhou Lanting Film and Television Culture Media Co., Ltd., Hangzhou, China

Art and Society, 2026, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: This study employs an interdisciplinary theoretical framework integrating art therapy, psychoanalysis, object relations, trauma psychology, and film semiotics to propose a core model of cinema as a “transitional space” and “non-verbal therapeutic medium.” It demonstrates that the act of viewing films constitutes a complete psychological process encompassing trauma accommodation, emotional catharsis, cognitive restructuring, and self-integration. Using Abbas Kiarostami’s minimalist realism and Hayao Miyazaki’s fantastical animation aesthetics as dual case studies, the research employs film psychology textual analysis, audiovisual language interpretation, psychodynamic explanations, and role relationship dynamics to reveal how visual imagery influences viewers’ unconscious structures, emotional regulation systems, self-object representations, and collective subconscious, thereby achieving therapeutic integration of individual trauma repair and contemporary spiritual symptoms. Building on this foundation, the study develops an operational and theoretically grounded therapeutic film creation grammar, providing an internationally visionary interdisciplinary approach for the clinical psychological application of cinematic art and the construction of therapeutic aesthetics.

Keywords: art therapy; film therapy; trauma integration; psychoanalysis; transitional space; autopsychology; film psychology; audiovisual language; role dynamics; therapeutic creation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bdz:arasoc:v:5:y:2026:i:1:p:1-10

DOI: 10.63593/AS.2709-9830.2026.03.001

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