Peske Nancy K. - Advanced cinematherapy: the girls guide to finding happiness one movie at a time

Introduction

If you're feeling invisible or unloved and in need of a little understanding or hope for the future, take heart! The inspiration and insight you're looking for is no further away than your own remote control.

We understand that women watch movies differently than guys do. For us, movies are more than just entertainment: they're self-medication that can help cure anything from an identity crisis to the codependent blues.

So whether you're on the verge of yet another major life change, recovering from a rough day at the office, or trying to unlock the mystery of the opposite sex, Cinematherapy can help you laugh at your troubles or confront your issues, and inspire you to grow. Most important, indulging in a movie gives us women two hours to cuddle up in a pair of fuzzy slippers, be in charge of our own remote controls, and nurture ourselves for a change. Really, Cinematherapy is like a bubble bath for the soul.

In our previous book, Cinematherapy: The Girl's Guide to Movies for Every Mood, we offered readers a panoply of movies to match their every emotional state. Now we've taken it a step further and written Advanced Cinematherapy: The Girl's Guide to Finding Happiness One Movie at a Time. This time around, we categorized movies according to some of the specific issues and dysfunctional dynamics that we all wrestle with in our day-to-day lives. For instance, we review films that address our trust issues, which can make us vacillate between gullible and hyperparanoid. We also look at Codependency Movies, which teach us that unless we hold to our boundaries we will find ourselves trying to balance on one foot in the whittled-down space that has become our turf. We've included movies that lift us up and help us find meaning in the mundane, as well as movies that reveal difficult truths, like the fact that the more we try to control our world, the more likely it is that fate will strand us on a deserted island hundreds of miles from Coast Guard search teams.

You say you're in the midst of a full-blown midlife, flapping-triceps crisis? Watch a Midlife Crisis Movie like Shirley Valentine, and be reassured that it ain't over 'til the fat lady goes to Greece and jumps feet first into oceans of sensuality. Feeling in need of a little wind beneath your wings? Watch a Role Model Movie, like Erin Brockovich, about heroines who find their place in the sun, and spring into full bloom. Or if you're feeling like a welcome mat on the doorstep of life, watch one of our Diva Movies and learn how to rule your realm with an iron fist without breaking a nail.

Advanced Cinematherapy includes reviews of both classic and modern movies that confront women's issues. We've also included just-for-fun sidebars, like quotes we'd like printed on a coffee mug, famous last words, Stupid Guy Quotes (and Stupid Girl Quotes too, because it takes two to tangle), and Hoopskirt Dreams movies that feature delicious outfits we wish we had in our closets and budgets.

Then again, we felt it was important to warn you against some of those well-hyped alleged chick flicks that on closer examination turned out to have some downright dysfunctional psychological messages about how to deal with life's conflicts. Throughout the book, you'll find reviews of these psychologically dubious flicks in our sidebar series Freudian Slipups. And our Reel to Real series points out the often yawning chasm between our real historical heroines and their depiction in the movies.

So whether you're ready to dive in and confront your demons or escape to a more perfect world where men really do change and chocolate never goes to your thighs, in Advanced Cinematherapy you'll find films that will match your mood and leave you feeling like you just emerged from the day spa, renewed, replenished, and fully exfoliated.

Nancy Peske and Beverly West
May 2001

You may write to the authors at or in care of Dell Trade Paperbacks.

Does it seem that having it all means doing it all, but no matter how much you do, it still isn't enough, and at the end of a very long day, you wind up with a whole lot of nothing for your effort but a cramp in your lower lumbar?