Becoming Herself: Using Lady Bird in Cinema Therapy with Adolescents

Abstract

This cinema therapy paper uses narrative inquiry to analyze how the film Lady Bird depicts key developmental processes relevant to adolescence, including autonomy seeking, peer and family negotiation, and self-definition. The analysis identifies belonging, class-based tension, and adolescent-parent conflict as key thematic patterns, situating them within established frameworks of emerging identity processes. By integrating these themes with a narrative therapy framework, the paper illustrates how Lady Bird can function as a clinically useful media text for helping adolescents externalize struggles, explore their experiences and identities, and reframe relational meanings. The discussion offers developmentally grounded and culturally responsive applications for practitioners integrating cinema into therapeutic work with adolescents.