Academic fieldwork typically debuts in wordy scientific journals that hold little appeal for most, but Portland State Professor Jan Haaken, a clinical psychologist, has found a way to engage a broader audience through.
Academic fieldwork typically debuts in wordy scientific journals that hold little appeal for most, but Portland State Professor Jan Haaken, a clinical psychologist, has found a way to engage a broader audience through.
Haaken, an accomplished filmmaker, began screening her films during her time as a Fulbright scholar at Durham University. What she found was a medium much more conducive to discourse, discussion and debate.
“A lot of reading is a solitary act, but when you watch a film, it becomes a community event,” Haaken said.
For her latest film, Mind Zone: Therapists Behind the Front Lines, Haaken turned the lens toward the hidden casualties of war in the human consciousness.
Haaken was granted special access to the 113th Army Combat Stress Control Detachment, a unit sent to treat soldiers for psychological stress in the field of battle rather than at home after they’ve been deployed. The goal is to address post-traumatic stress disorder at its source, and perhaps deal with it as it arises.
Dr. Johanna Brenner, a colleague of Haaken’s and an advisor on Mind Zone, explained the distinction of Haaken’s work: “What makes her films different from the mainstream documentary are that she complicates rather than simplifies.”
In addition to Mind Zone, Haaken’s body of work includes Guilty Except for Insanity, a film that explores the implications of the insanity plea, and Queens of Heart, a profile of the owner of the longest-surviving drag club in the United States, located here in Portland.
Because Haaken’s films directly involve her professional work, she distances herself from the typically exclusive filmmaking techniques used by other filmmakers. In addition to contributions from colleagues like Brenner, Haaken enlists PSU students to help bring her films to fruition.
But for Haaken, who views her filmmaking less as an artistic endeavor and more as a different tool in her professional career, it always comes back to her first role, as a psychologist.
“I don’t think it’s realistic or even desirable to aspire to commercially distributed documentaries, where only a small amount of films are even completed and, from those, only a small percentage make their way into distribution,” Haaken said.
