Angels

I saw this angel overlooking George Square in Glasgow…….got me thinking about angels and one of my favourite films of all time – Wim Wender’s “Wings of Desire”. If you haven’t seen it, you might have seen the US re-make which was called “City of Angels”.
What I love about this movie is how it is [...]

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Movies to teach the importance of story

The TV News each evening doesn’t carry many uplifting stories but tonight on channel 4 news they had a piece that grabbed me and fed my optimistic nature. It was about Filmclub. This is a project started by Director, Beeban Kidron, which introduces movies into schools throughout England. She’s had a trial [...]

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Mind-bending Movies

I love movies. I’m an addict. I think it’s my insatiable thirst for stories which hooks me. I’m not a fan of the blockbuster kind of movie that’s all special effects though. I like a movie which draws me in and absorbs me in the characters and the story. Of course, that fits with my [...]

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Happy-go-lucky

I’m a big fan of Mike Leigh, but although there is a lot of humour in many of his movies, they’re generally pretty dark. His latest movie, Happy-go-lucky, is quite different, yet it retains those essential characteristics of Mike Leigh films – I can’t quite explain it but he manages to make you both care [...]

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Out of Control

I use movie clips a lot when teaching. I’ve posted a bit about some of the movies I use before (put “how we cope – learning from the movies” into the search box at the top right of this blog to see some examples). People now often suggest movies I might want to see because [...]

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Not just what you say, but the way you say it

We construct our sense of self, and we experience our own very unique lives through the tool of narrative. Narrative means the story and the way its told. This is something I look for all the time during my consultations. I’m interested to notice not just the words people use but the tone of voice, [...]

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The Water Experience

A big part of the debate about homeopathy centres on the issue of ultra-high dilutions of medicines. One of the explanations wheeled out is something called ‘the memory of water’ – it’s a catchy phrase but very problematic. Does water have a memory and if so, how does that work? The anti-homeopathy campaigners say it [...]

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How we cope – learning from the movies. Part 5

This series is about using the movies to help us understand how we are all different, how we experience the world differently and how we all try to cope with challenges and change in our own ways. One of the commonest responses to challenge, is to withdraw – to hide, retreat, shut down. It’s an [...]

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How we cope – learning from the movies. Part 4

We all cope in different ways. In this series we’re looking at ways of coping in parts 3, 4 and 5. In part 3 we looked at the activist way of coping.
Now let’s consider control as a strategy. The world can be a very scary place. For many people the events that occur in their [...]

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How we cope – learning from the movies. Part 3

One aspect of understanding someone is listen to their story and hear what they talk about – material, physical, practical issues? emotional and relationship issues? or spiritual issues of meaning and purpose? Another aspect is to find out what kind of ideas they have about themselves in relation to others – in particular to explore [...]

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