When a TV Show Feels Like Therapy: The Power of Corrective Emotional Experiences
Have you ever watched a TV show or movie that affected you more deeply than you expected?
I’ve had that experience more times than I can count—Heated Rivalry, Heartstopper, and This Is Us, just to name a few. What starts as “just a show” somehow turns into tears on the couch, a lump in your throat, or a quiet realization that stays with you long after the credits roll.
There’s something incredibly powerful about storytelling. Certain shows and films connect with us in ways that feel surprisingly healing—sometimes even reaching places that have taken years to explore in therapy. I’ve had moments of emotional clarity arrive in just a few episodes that took much longer to uncover elsewhere.
In therapy, we have a name for experiences like this: Corrective Emotional Experiences (CEEs). A CEE is “a therapeutic process that allows someone to re‑experience past emotional pain in a safe environment, with a different—often more supportive—outcome.” In simpler terms, it’s when something familiar plays out in a new, healing way.
While CEEs are often associated with the therapy room, they don’t only happen there. More and more, clients share how meaningful moments in popular media have served as corrective experiences for them. Shows like This Is Us, Heated Rivalry, Heartstopper, and Parenthood have been deeply transformative for many people.
Most of us have “comfort shows”—the ones we return to again and again. But we don’t always stop to ask why.
Sometimes, it’s because those stories give us something we didn’t receive when we needed it most.
Relationship expert Esther Perel touches on this beautifully while discussing Heated Rivalry. She describes watching the show with a friend who had already seen it multiple times. As she watched, she noticed something striking: just when she braced herself for something painful or disappointing to happen, the characters responded with care, understanding, or love instead.
That unexpected shift—that moment when harm doesn’t occur—is the heart of a corrective emotional experience.
We see this in powerful ways across popular shows:
In both Heated Rivalry and Heartstopper, when a main character comes out to their mom, the anticipated rejection never comes. Instead of being shut down or pushed away, they are met with unconditional love and acceptance.
In This Is Us, when Rebecca grieves the loss of Jack, she isn’t left alone in her pain. She is surrounded by support, community, and care. The same is true for her children—Kate, Randall, and Kevin—who repeatedly encounter compassion in moments where they might have expected disconnection or misunderstanding.
These moments matter because they mirror real emotional experiences—grief, fear, vulnerability. When we see our own stories reflected on screen, it can feel both exposing and comforting. And when those stories unfold differently than our own—when they end in connection instead of hurt—it can slowly reshape what we expect from others and even what we believe we deserve.
This may be one reason we rewatch certain shows again and again. It isn’t just about familiarity. Rewatching can be regulating. It can be healing. It can be a way of giving ourselves access to the responses we needed but didn’t receive at the time.
Of course, meaningful media doesn’t replace real, relational healing. In therapy, corrective emotional experiences happen in real time—in a space where your story is known, held, and responded to with care.
Still, if you’ve ever noticed yourself having a strong emotional reaction to a show or movie, it might be worth getting curious about that. There may be something important there—something your mind and body are trying to process or heal.
And you don’t have to do that work alone.
So I’m curious—what shows or movies have offered you a corrective emotional experience?
As for me, I’ll be over here rewatching Gilmore Girls.
Resources
Hartman, D., & Zimberoff, D. (2004). Corrective Emotional Experience in the Therapeutic Process.
