K-drama for mental health? Binge on, one expert says

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

High production values, top-notch acting, and attractive stars have helped propel South Korean TV shows to the top of global viewership charts, but therapist Jeanie Chang says there are deeper reasons so many people are hooked.

She says watching K-dramas, with soap-like plotlines that tackle everything from earth-shattering grief to the joy of new love, can help people reconnect with their emotions or process trauma, giving the shows a healing power that transcends their cultural context.

"We all have family pressures and expectations, conflict, trauma, hope," she said, adding that watching heavy topics successfully managed on screen can change people's ability to navigate real-world challenges.

For Chang, who was born in Seoul but raised in the United States, K-drama was particularly helpful in allowing her to reconnect with her roots -- which she rejected as a child desperate to assimilate.

But "the messages in Korean dramas are universal," Chang said.

"Mental health is how you feel, relate to others psychologically, and how things have impacted your brain. That's mental health. We see that in a Korean drama."

'Soften my heart'

Industry data shows that global K-drama viewership has exploded in the last few years, with many overseas viewers, especially in major markets like the United States, turning to Korean content during the pandemic.

Netflix data showed that viewership of Korean television and movies increased sixfold between 2019 and 2022, and Korean series are now the most watched non-English content on the platform.

American schoolteacher Jeanie Barry discovered K-drama via a family funeral when a friend recommended a series -- 2020's "It's Okay Not to Be Okay" -- she thought could help her after a difficult time.

"There was something about it, the way that this culture deals with trauma, mental depression, just really struck a chord for me," Barry, who had traveled to South Korea as part of a K-drama tour organized by therapist Chang, told AFP.

"I started to grieve when I had not been. There were a lot of tears during that drama, but it also made me see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel," she said.

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

"They let me soften my heart," she said.

Fellow tour member and American Erin McCoy said she had struggled with depression since she was a teenager, but K-drama helped her manage her symptoms.

With depression, "when you live with it that long, you're just numb, and so you don't really feel bad necessarily, but you don't ever feel good either," she said.

"You just don't feel anything," she said, adding that K-drama allowed her to experience emotions again.

"There're so many highs and lows in every one of them, and as I felt the characters' emotions, it just helped me relate to my own more," she said.

"I feel like I was able to express and experience emotion again."

'Art therapy'?

The idea that a K-drama binge can help with mental health may seem far-fetched, but it chimes with decades-old psychotherapy ideas, one expert said.

"Watching Korean dramas can be beneficial for anxiety and depression from the viewpoint of art therapy," Im Su-geun, head of a psychiatry clinic in Seoul, told AFP.

First used in the 1940s, art therapy initially involved patients' drawing but evolved to incorporate other artistic activities.

"Visual media like Korean dramas have significant strengths that align well with psychotherapy," he said.

K-drama—or television and cinema generally—can help viewers "gain insights into situations from a new perspective, fostering healthy values and providing solutions to their issues," he said.

He said it is unlikely to be prescribed by a doctor, but it could be helpful if a therapist recommended a specific drama related to the patient's case.

He said it can provide a roadmap for patients "facing specific situations, such as breakups or loss. "