Journey Into Self

1968 Documentary 47 minutes Directed by Bill McGaw

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About Journey Into Self

Stanley Kramer introduces a record of one 16-hour encounter group. Eight people who have not met before — a cashier, a theology student, a teacher, a principal, a housewife, and three businessmen — sit with psychologists Carl Rogers and Richard Farson. The film is the session cut down to 47 minutes, not a story built around them.

Cast & crew

More about Journey Into Self

Bill McGaw produced and directed. The Western Behavioral Sciences Institute also distributed it. Rogers and Farson led the group. Kramer’s voice opens the reel. The session itself ran 16 hours; the film is 47.

Themes

  • Sixteen hours cut to one reel
  • Strangers in a therapy circle
  • Rogers and Farson leading
  • encounter group
  • Carl Rogers
  • Richard Farson
  • Stanley Kramer
  • documentary
  • group therapy

Making

McGaw’s cut keeps a slice of a closed meeting. Nothing in the credits suggests the participants were actors or that the 16 hours were restaged.

Preservation

A 47-minute print survives.

Notes

  • The eight are identified by job, not by name, in the published description.
  • Rogers was already known for client-centered therapy. Farson co-led this session.
  • Kramer, a feature director, is the on-screen introducer, not the therapist.
  • The Academy Award was for Best Documentary Feature.

Awards

  • Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature (1968)

Scenes

  • Kramer introduces the session.
  • The eight, strangers to one another, stay in the circle with Rogers and Farson.

Also available

  • Wikimedia Commons (Journey into Self (1968).webm)