Binge-watching Korean dramas may improve mental health

In this photo taken on September 26, 2024, a passenger passes a stuffed toy to another person, used as a prompt to recount personal drama-watching experiences, during a drama tour en route between Seoul and Suwon. . — If you’ve ever binge-watched an entire season of K-dramas like Game of Squids or Crash Landing on You, one Korean-American expert has good news: It’s likely improved your mental health. | Photo credit: AFP

If you’ve ever binge-watched an entire season of a drama like The Squid Game or Crash Landing On You, one Korean-American expert has good news: It’s likely improved your mental health.

Strong production values, top-notch acting and attractive stars have helped South Korean TV shows rise to the top of the global viewership charts, but therapist Jeanie Chung says there are deeper reasons why so many people are hooked on them.

With soap-like storylines that cover everything from stunning heartbreak to the joy of new love, watching dramas can help people reconnect with their emotions or process trauma, giving the series a healing power that transcends their cultural context, she says. .

“We all have family pressures and expectations, conflicts, traumas, hopes,” she said, adding that watching difficult topics be successfully addressed on screen can change people’s ability to cope with real-world problems.

For Chung, who was born in Seoul but raised in the United States, Korean dramas have been especially helpful in allowing her to reconnect with her roots, which she rejected as a child desperate to assimilate.

But “the messages of Korean dramas are universal,” Chung said.

“Mental health is how you feel, how you relate to others, psychologically, how things affect your brain. This is mental health. We see this in Korean drama.”

“Soften My Heart”

Global viewership for Korean dramas has soared over the past few years, with many overseas viewers, especially in major markets like the United States, turning to Korean content during the pandemic, according to industry data.

According to the company, between 2019 and 2022, the viewership of Korean TV and films on Netflix increased sixfold, and Korean series are now the most-watched non-English content on the platform.

American schoolteacher Jeanie Barry discovered Korean drama during a family funeral when a friend recommended the 2020 series It’s Okay When It’s Not Okay, which she thought could help her through difficult times.

“There was something about it, the way this culture deals with trauma, mental depression, that just touched me,” said Barry, who was in South Korea as part of a K-drama tour organized by therapist Chang. AFP.

“I started grieving while I was gone. There were a lot of tears during this drama, but it also made me see that there is light at the end of the tunnel,” she said.

Immediately hooked, Barry said she has watched 114 dramas since discovering the genre and has essentially given up watching English-language television.

“They allowed me to soften my heart,” she said.

Another tour participant, American Erin McCoy, said she had struggled with depression since she was a teenager, but the drama helped her cope with her symptoms.

As for depression, “when you live with it for so long, you just become numb, and so you don’t necessarily feel bad, but you never feel good,” she said.

“You just don’t feel anything,” she said, adding that the drama allowed her to experience emotions again.

“There are so many pros and cons to each of them, and when I felt the characters’ emotions, it helped me understand my own better,” she said.

“I feel like I was able to express and experience emotions again.”

“Art therapy”?

The idea that binge-watching dramas can help with mental health may seem far-fetched, but it echoes ideas in psychotherapy a decade ago, one expert said.

“Watching Korean dramas can be beneficial for anxiety and depression in terms of art therapy,” Im Soo-geun, director of a psychiatric clinic in Seoul, told AFP.

Art therapy, first used in the 1940s, originally involved drawing patients but has since expanded to include other artistic activities.

“Visual media such as Korean dramas have significant benefits that pair well with psychotherapy,” he said.

Korean dramas – or television and cinema in general – can help viewers “gain understanding of situations from a new perspective, promoting healthy values ​​and offering solutions to their problems,” he said.

It’s unlikely to be prescribed by a doctor, he says, but if a therapist recommends a specific drama related to a patient’s case, it can be helpful.

For example, it can provide a “road map” for patients “facing specific situations such as a breakup or loss,” he said.