Three challenges for drama therapy research: Keynote NADTA conference, Montreal 2013

The article reviews the current state of drama therapy research and argues that changes are needed. It firstly uses a discourse analysis of published research to identify the ways in which the field is in danger of creating segregated ways of knowing and encountering clients. A case is made for more dialogue between the qualitative and quantitative, between creativity and spirituality and for the field to refer to the existing knowledge presented in drama therapy published research. The article considers the need to challenge the ways in which power dynamics within research can mean that certain approaches are validated or foregrounded rather than others. Interviews with arts therapists in different countries are used to identify the need to build published accounts of good quality practitioner research. It examines how individual accounts can grow into field knowledge and contribute to meta- or systematic reviews.