Common Thread Coaching

I just watched an interview and panel discussion on which Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz from UCLA spoke about Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder and how he had coached Leonard DiCapprio in the movie ‘The Aviator.’

Wanting to truthfully portray the character of Howard Hughes, DiCapprio was coached by Dr. Schwartz in mindful awareness techniques that allowed him to actually become obsessive/compulsive while playing the part of Howard Hughes. In the interview Dr. Schwartz stated that recent studies of brain scans of actors showed that their brains adapted to whatever condition they were portraying ‘in character.’ This phenomenon, says Schwartz, is aided by the brain’s ability to access similar conditions in the actor’s experience, such as DiCapprio’s childhood compulsion to step on all the cracks in the sidewalk, walking back to the beginning of a block if he thought he’d missed one, a habit that made him late to school many times.

Dr. Schwartz also added that when our thoughts are actively in the past, our brain chemistry switches to the very chemistry that was present at the moment of that past thought. Have you ever wondered, as I have, how ‘real’ a reaction to a past event can feel? Now it’s clear: the brain doesn’t know if it’s then, or now…the chemistry and the thought are linked, until, as Dr. Schwartz emphasizes, mindful awareness changes the chemistry and therefore the reaction.

You can view these interviews on the DVD “The Aviator: Bonus Material” available on Netflix.