Drama Therapy Review - Volume 1, Issue 1, 2015

Re-enacting an event that has triggered conflict from each partner’s perspective during couples therapy, while employing one’s actual partner as an auxiliary, is a distinctive, theatrical application of psychodrama that develops perspective, promotes empathy, lowers resistance to being invalidated by disagreement and points the way to novel resolutions. Each client’s enactment is followed by a role-reversed encounter between the auxiliary and the character assigned the auxiliary by the partner. Post-enactment processing of video feedback facilitates collaboration and reflection by the couple. A case example illustrates the application of this method.

This article reviews a year-long study at the Centre for the Arts in Human Development at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada). It analyses the results of a specialized adaptation of drama therapy for a group of preadolescent children with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders. The procedure aimed at improving social skills and problem behaviours. Statistical results of the study are promising in demonstrating the efficacy of drama therapy in this domain.

This article describes the use of Trauma-Centered Developmental Transformations therapy for imaginal exposure and desensitization of a young traumatized child. Case material is presented with detailed discussion of how the properties of developmental transformations can be successful in desensitizing a child to their traumatic past. The impact of gradual exposure, participation by the therapist and embodied play on establishing a safe space for exploring traumatic memories is described.

This article explores the potential of drama therapy, with its ability to engage cognitive and affective systems through embodiment, to promote neural integration with adults with eating disorders. Case material is presented along with a discussion of how role-based techniques in drama therapy might facilitate greater flexibility, responsiveness and emotional regulation. This study adds to a growing literature on the relationship between embodied therapeutic techniques and optimal neural integration.

Self-Revelatory performance is defined as a form in which a performer originates a theatre piece drawn from current life issues in need of healing. The author articulates the similarities and differences between ‘Self-Rev’ and autobiographical theatre as well as other related forms, and describes drama therapeutic methods of grappling with personal struggles, all the while focusing on creating a work of art worthy of presentation before an audience. The contention that Self-Rev is both a form of drama therapy – offering healing and transformation, and a unique genre of theatre – with elements that lend themselves toward compelling and poignant performance – is explicated.

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.

Trauma-Informed Drama Therapy: Transforming Clinics, Classrooms, and Communities, Nisha Sajnani and David Read Johnson (eds) (2014) Springfield, IL: C.C. Thomas, 414 pp., ISBN: 9780398087760, Hardback, $72.95, ISBN: 9780398087777, Paperback, $52.95