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Excessive manufacturing values, top-notch appearing and enticing stars have helped propel South Korean TV reveals to the highest of world viewership charts, however therapist Jeanie Chang, says there are deeper causes so many individuals are hooked.
With soap-like plotlines that sort out every little thing from earth-shattering grief to the enjoyment of recent love, watching Ok-dramas can assist folks reconnect with their very own feelings or course of trauma, she says, giving the reveals a therapeutic energy that transcends their cultural context.
“We all have family pressures and expectations, conflict, trauma, hope,” she stated, including that watching heavy matters being efficiently managed on display screen can change folks’s capability to navigate real-world challenges.
For Chang, who was born in Seoul however raised in america, Ok-drama was significantly useful in permitting her to reconnect together with her roots—which she rejected as a toddler determined to assimilate.
However “the messages in Korean dramas are universal,” Chang stated.
“Mental health is how you’re feeling, how you relate to others, psychologically, how your brain has been impacted by things. That’s mental health. We see that in a Korean drama.”
‘Soften my coronary heart’
International Ok-drama viewership has exploded in the previous couple of years, trade information reveals, with many abroad viewers, particularly in main markets like america, turning to Korean content material in the course of the pandemic.
Between 2019 and 2022, viewership of Korean tv and films elevated six-fold on Netflix, its information confirmed, and Korean collection are actually probably the most watched non-English content material on the platform.
American schoolteacher Jeanie Barry found Ok-drama by way of a household funeral, when a buddy beneficial a collection—2020’s “It’s Okay to Not Be Okay”—she thought might assist her after a troublesome time.
“There was something about it, the way that this culture deal with trauma, mental depression, just really struck a chord for me,” Barry, who had traveled to South Korea as a part of a Ok-drama tour organized by therapist Chang, advised AFP.
“I started to grieve when I had not been. It was a lot of tears during that drama, but it also made me see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel,” she stated.
Instantly hooked, Barry stated she had watched 114 Ok-dramas since discovering the style, and successfully given up watching English-language tv.
“They let me soften my heart,” she stated.
Fellow tour member and American Erin McCoy stated she had struggled with despair since she was a youngster, however Ok-drama helped her handle her signs.
With despair, “when you live with it that long, you’re just numb and so you don’t really feel bad necessarily but you don’t ever feel good either,” she stated.
“You just don’t feel anything,” she stated, including that Ok-drama allowed her to expertise feelings once more.
“There’re so many highs and lows in every one of them, and as I felt the characters’ emotions, it just helped me relate to my own more,” she stated.
“I feel like I was able to express and experience emotion again.”
‘Artwork remedy’?
The concept that a Ok-drama binge can assist with psychological well being could seem far-fetched, nevertheless it chimes with decades-old psychotherapy concepts, one skilled stated.
“Watching Korean dramas can be beneficial for anxiety and depression from the viewpoint of art therapy,” Im Su-geun, head of a psychiatry clinic in Seoul, advised AFP.
First used within the Nineteen Forties, artwork remedy initially concerned sufferers drawing, however developed to include different creative actions.
“Visual media like Korean dramas have significant strengths that align well with psychotherapy,” he stated.
Ok-drama—or tv and cinema usually—can assist viewers “gain insights into situations from a new perspective, fostering healthy values and providing solutions to their issues,” he stated.
It’s unlikely to be prescribed by a physician, he stated, but when a therapist had been to suggest a selected drama that associated to the affected person’s case, it could possibly be useful.
For instance, it may present a roadmap for sufferers “facing specific situations, such as breakups or loss,” he stated.
© 2024 AFP
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Ok-drama for psychological well being? Binge on, one skilled says (2024, November 21)
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