Cinematic Witnessing as Queer-Affirmative Expressive Arts Practice: A Phenomenological Study of Vicarious Healing Among LGBTQIA+ Elders in India

This study examines the therapeutic and expressive potential of queer-themed Indian cinema as an arts-based intervention for LGBTQIA+ elders with trauma histories, positioning film-viewing as a structured modality of reflective witnessing and vicarious healing. Using a hermeneutic phenomenological design, the research engaged 12 LGBTQIA+-identified elders (six trans women and six cisgender gay men), aged 60-73 years in India to explore how "mirror scenes" in cinema activate emotional resonance, memory retrieval, and identity integration. Narrative data from two rounds of in-depth interviews revealed four cross-cutting thematic clusters, Quiet Survival, Reclaiming Worth, Healing Mirrors, and Chosen Kinship, demonstrating how film functions as a psychologically containing, aesthetically mediated space for meaning-making. Grounded in intersectionality, affect theory, queer-affirmative trauma frameworks, and expressive arts therapy, the findings illustrate how cinematic encounters support affect regulation, narrative re-authoring, and embodied self-recognition. The study also highlights how caste, class, gender identity, and historical criminalization under Section 377 shape viewers' readiness for and access to media-based healing, with trans Dalit elders articulating cinema as both an emotional refuge and a site of political affirmation. Overall, the research contributes an empirically anchored model for integrating film into creative arts therapies, offering a culturally responsive conceptual pathway for trauma-informed elder mental health practice within similar socio-cultural contexts.