FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT DRAMA THERAPY
1. What Is Drama Therapy?
Drama Therapy is the intentional use of drama and/or theater processes to achieve therapeutic goals. Drama Therapy is active and experiential. This approach can provide the context for participants to tell their stories, set goals, and solve problems, express feelings, or achieve catharsis. Through drama, the depth and breadth of inner experience can be actively explored and interpersonal relationship skills can be enhanced. Participants can expand their repertoire of dramatic roles to find that their own life roles have been strengthened. Behavior change, skill-building, emotional and physical integration, and personal growth can be achieved through drama therapy in prevention, intervention, and treatment settings. No previous experience or dramatic training is needed for a client to participate. A Registered Drama Therapist (RDT) facilitates this specialized type of therapy.
Drama Therapy is the intentional use of drama and/or theater processes to achieve therapeutic goals. Drama Therapy is active and experiential. This approach can provide the context for participants to tell their stories, set goals, and solve problems, express feelings, or achieve catharsis. Through drama, the depth and breadth of inner experience can be actively explored and interpersonal relationship skills can be enhanced. Participants can expand their repertoire of dramatic roles to find that their own life roles have been strengthened. Behavior change, skill-building, emotional and physical integration, and personal growth can be achieved through drama therapy in prevention, intervention, and treatment settings. No previous experience or dramatic training is needed for a client to participate. A Registered Drama Therapist (RDT) facilitates this specialized type of therapy.
2. How can drama therapy help children?
Drama therapy integrates stories, role play, playwriting, improvisation and other techniques taken from the theatre with the theories and methods of therapy. The process of dramatic play is an experiential and active process that draws on a child’s capacity for play. Focusing on play as a central means of accessing and expressing feelings and gaining insight drama therapy actively engages the client to explore multi-level stories that can be used to practice successful approaches to difficult situations. Drama therapists also assess children who need additional services and can make appropriate referrals. Drama therapy provides a developmentally appropriate means of processing events with children and adolescents for whom verbal methods alone may be insufficient. It taps into their natural propensity toward action and utilizes it to engage children in play as a means of safely exploring issues and painful feelings. Because the drama therapist is willing to meet the child at whatever space they are in-angry, frustrated refusing to talk, etc.,- through accessing the imagination drama therapy is a safer and familiar method
Drama therapy integrates stories, role play, playwriting, improvisation and other techniques taken from the theatre with the theories and methods of therapy. The process of dramatic play is an experiential and active process that draws on a child’s capacity for play. Focusing on play as a central means of accessing and expressing feelings and gaining insight drama therapy actively engages the client to explore multi-level stories that can be used to practice successful approaches to difficult situations. Drama therapists also assess children who need additional services and can make appropriate referrals. Drama therapy provides a developmentally appropriate means of processing events with children and adolescents for whom verbal methods alone may be insufficient. It taps into their natural propensity toward action and utilizes it to engage children in play as a means of safely exploring issues and painful feelings. Because the drama therapist is willing to meet the child at whatever space they are in-angry, frustrated refusing to talk, etc.,- through accessing the imagination drama therapy is a safer and familiar method
3. How are stories expressed?
Stories in the drama therapy process can range from reality to fantasy. It can include many genres such as comedy, tragedy, musical, opera, silent movie, narrative storytelling, soap-opera, mystery, sit-com, and much more. Clients will naturally gravitate to many forms of play that can activate their stories. Simulating a story can come from a theatre game, a drawing, lyrics, fairy tales, a scene from a movie, a newspaper headline, a dance, talk, or pure stillness. Sometimes stories are told by clients in role, sometimes not. Stories are played using objects, action figures, puppets, dolls, or other toys, props, fabric, masks, expressing through physical narratives, voice work, playwriting, or free-form improvisation. With all clients, dramatic techniques ,story work, and emerging metaphors becomes the framework and container that can help clarify, communicate, and define a client’s feelings.
Stories in the drama therapy process can range from reality to fantasy. It can include many genres such as comedy, tragedy, musical, opera, silent movie, narrative storytelling, soap-opera, mystery, sit-com, and much more. Clients will naturally gravitate to many forms of play that can activate their stories. Simulating a story can come from a theatre game, a drawing, lyrics, fairy tales, a scene from a movie, a newspaper headline, a dance, talk, or pure stillness. Sometimes stories are told by clients in role, sometimes not. Stories are played using objects, action figures, puppets, dolls, or other toys, props, fabric, masks, expressing through physical narratives, voice work, playwriting, or free-form improvisation. With all clients, dramatic techniques ,story work, and emerging metaphors becomes the framework and container that can help clarify, communicate, and define a client’s feelings.
4. How can drama therapy help teens and adults?
Drama therapy appeals to older clients such as teens, young adults, and adults because it encourages active participation to:
Drama therapy appeals to older clients such as teens, young adults, and adults because it encourages active participation to:
- Rehearse new ways of being or acting
- A chance to tell their story to other group members and to collaborate ways of re-scripting behavior or new endings.
- Acting out is encouraged as a creative tool.
- Expressing in all forms is encouraged and validated.
- Looking at and examining problems from a different perspective that stimulates strong physical and emotional responses that can initiate change.
- Role playing relationship difficulties and reflecting on the behavior of both parties through the lens of dramatic play and the emotional impact of making changes in communication styles while validating authentic feelings.
5. How does drama therapy make a difference?
Benefits from drama therapy can include reducing feelings of isolation, developing new coping skills and patterns, broadening the range of expression of feelings, experiencing improved self esteem and self worth, increasing sense of play and spontaneity, and developing relationships. It has been a long held belief among theorists that play allows people of all ages to gain mastery over conflicts and anxieties. Drama therapists work with:
Benefits from drama therapy can include reducing feelings of isolation, developing new coping skills and patterns, broadening the range of expression of feelings, experiencing improved self esteem and self worth, increasing sense of play and spontaneity, and developing relationships. It has been a long held belief among theorists that play allows people of all ages to gain mastery over conflicts and anxieties. Drama therapists work with:
- Trauma
- Depression and withdrawal
- Anxiety
- Tantrums, Anger and aggression
- Self-regulation problems
- ADHD/ADD
- Bi-polar disorder
- Disorganization
- Abuse and neglect, Domestic Violence
- Self-harm behavior
- Dating abuse
- Separation and divorce
- Child/Teen behavior problems
- Communication and socialization skills (bullying, conflict resolution, cyber addiction)
- Self-soothing practices
- Social Skills
- Coping Skills
- Special groups for Children and Adolescents on the Autism Spectrum
6. How are drama therapists trained?
Drama therapists are trained in theatre arts, psychology, psychotherapy and drama therapy. Areas of study include improvisation, puppetry, role-playing, mask work, pantomine, theatrical production, psychodrama, developmental psychology, theories of personality, and group process. All students of drama therapy must complete a Master’s level program at specific universities that specialize in this modality and complete supervised clinical internships with a broad range of populations.
Drama therapists are trained in theatre arts, psychology, psychotherapy and drama therapy. Areas of study include improvisation, puppetry, role-playing, mask work, pantomine, theatrical production, psychodrama, developmental psychology, theories of personality, and group process. All students of drama therapy must complete a Master’s level program at specific universities that specialize in this modality and complete supervised clinical internships with a broad range of populations.
7. Where do drama therapists practice?
Drama therapists practice in a variety of settings: Clinics, agency settings, after-school programs, drug and alcohol treatment programs, in-patient psychiatric settings, prisons, shelters, geriatric residential settings, on-site children services programs, bereavement groups, corporate seminars, teen centers, private practice, and more. Drama therapists serve a range of populations from special needs children, at-risk youth, LGBT & Q, adults in transition, homeless, clients recovering from drug and alcohol addictions, senior citizens and more.
Drama therapy differs from theater in education in it's greater emphasis on the emotional and personally therapeutic side of the work. Drama therapy and Psychodrama share many techniques and theories, but have somewhat different theoretical frameworks - psychodrama tending to a more psychoanalytic emphasis and drama therapy coming from a more creative drama realm. However, many are trained and work in both fields and there is a great deal of overlap in practices.
More information can be found at the website of the National Association for Drama Therapy at www.nadta.org.