Pedro Almodóvar's films to be "treated" by Californian Psychologists

The "craziness" of Spanish filmaker Pedro Almódovar has provoked interested among psychiatrists from UCLA in southern California. The new psychoanalysis center announced on Monday that it would hold a conference to study and discuss Almodovar´s particular way of viewing the world. The session was inspired by the success of a similar conference last year about Charlie Kaufman films. The NCP is hosting the MIrrors of the Heart Event: "The Films of Pedro Almodovar, a symposium on farce, human relatedness and psychoanalysis."

Almódovar, a Hollywood Oscar winner, will protagonize the discussion which takes place on the 16th of April in Los Angeles. The movies of Spain's most international director will be shown at the end of the conference, after an open discussion in which psychiatrists, psychologists and the general public will participate.  Some of the organizers have compared the experience with that of other masters of the subconscious like Alfred Hitchock and Stanely Kubrick.

They will hold a conference to analyze tapes and study  "he gets into primordial processes: boundary crossing, jealousy, rage, possessiveness, revenge," said Peter Wolson, Ph.D. "It's like Marx Brothers comedy gone wild."

Why did they choose Pedro Almódovar? Take a look at some comments:

Doctor Thomas Bord, the program coordinator, said: "These films are like dreams. Theres anxiety in small measures, and you're always in identification with the characters, no matter what they're doing. It's open to all sorts of possibilities. The visual qualities are so exciting, and there's plenty to chew on psychoanalytically. So we like to have psychoanalysts from many different kinds of theoretical perspectives discussing it."

Doctor Peter Wolson, a psychologist, explained that Pedro Almódovar "gets into primordial processes: boundary crossing, jealousy, rage, possessiveness.. it's like Marx Brothers comedy gone wild." and we are interested in watching because "we're wrestling within our own psyche, even though we are quote normal and civilized, hopefully. He gets into issues we may want to avoid, but he has an authenticity....With Almodovar, you're emotionally gripped. He has psychological credibility, because he's not trying to 'therapize' these situations, he's just taking us into them."


Sandra E. Fenster, Ph.D and specialist in treating borderline, narcissistic and psychotic states commented that Almódovar's films really capture "voyeurism, blackmail, unconscious fantasy, early relationships that persist in an adult's mind".  The expert further intends to use Almodovar's Broken Embraces film (2009) to explain love triangles and jealous revenge.

Dr. Apurva Shah offered that "almost all Almodovar movies are material for clinical insights and psychological insights outside the clinical context... movies tell us more about ourselves than we can find out in a normal situation" She goes on to explain that the Almodovar film Bad Education is useful for understanding the defense mechanism used to recover from sexual trauma.

For instance, Bad Education is useful in understanding the "doppelganger" defense used to recover from sexual trauma.

Almodovar is one of Spain's most international directors and his work has propelled the careers of in influential Spanish actors like Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas.