Cinema Therapy: Taking Parkinson’s Back to the Future
On Monday, Jan. 27th we’ll begin our new Cinema Therapy course featuring Back to the Future. Sign up here: https://www.yesandexercise.org/backtofuture
It’s the film that launched Michael J. Fox backward then way, way forward. Huge congratulations on the Medal of Freedom! We know the hero Michael is for the PD community, but what can Marty McFly’s heroic journey teach us about how to live better with PD? This is heavy.
As we are on the precipice of rebranding PD from "Movement Disorder" to a "Multidimensional Disease" that includes and values the emotional and psychosocial challenges of PD just as much as the physical elements, we must explore, discover and share our stories.
This new, evidence-based, clinically-tested writing program is open to people with PD, their care partners, family members, and friends. We meet online for 90 minutes, once per week over the course of 16 weeks. Participants will write one page per week about their experience and share it on a password-protected Google Drive with classmates. Each participant is also expected to read and leave feedback on two of their fellow classmates pages as this is an ensemble-based program. We will start each session by moving to music that is themed to the stage of the Hero’s Journey, then play improvisation games that support our Growth, understanding and connection to one another. We will also watch clips from Back to the Future that demonstrate the Hero’s Journey. All sessions will be recorded so that students who have to miss a session at its scheduled time can catch up at their convenience.
