Drama Therapy in Action

Would you like to learn a little about drama therapy?

As you may recall,  Noel McDermott was very kind in providing us with an introduction to Drama Therapy – Healing Through Role Playing/Storytelling last year.

This post will provide you with a taste of drama therapy based upon a graduate class with a drama therapist as a guest lecturer.

According to the North American Drama Therapy Association (NADTA) drama therapy is the “intentional use of drama and/or theater processes to achieve therapeutic goals.”

Furthermore, “through storytelling, projective play, purposeful improvisation, and performance, participants are invited to rehearse desired behaviors, practice being in relationships, expand and find flexibility between life roles, and perform the change they wish to be and see in the world.”

Our sample drama class involved our participation in a number of different drama therapy exercises such as: role play [cards], sculpture, 6 piece story-making method and monologue.

When choosing an activity with a client, we were advised to take into consideration the emotional distance the client needs because unlike talk therapy, drama therapy gets the client to his/her emotions very quickly.

Distancing is a key tool in the dramatic treatment of clients. The choice of technique would depend upon the quality of distance inherent in the technique, the emotional distancing need of the client at that point in time of the therapeutic process and the treatment goals (Beauregard, 2012; Landy, 1983).

In overdistanced forms of drama therapy, clients participate in dramas that do not relate overtly to their own lives. This becomes a cognitive process of remembering the past (Landy, 1983).

Conversely, in underdistanced forms of drama therapy, clients view themselves more directly and personally in the drama. This is an affective process of reliving reexperiencing a past event (Landy, 1983).

Techniques of distancing include: storytelling, projective techniques such as puppets and masks, and psychodramatic techniques such as role-reversal. However each technique may be used along a continuum of distancing (Landy, 1983).

For example, in storytelling, a client could tell a story from his own life and reexperience emotion from that past event, thereby participate in an underdistanced form of drama therapy. On the other end of the continuum of distancing, a client could instead be asked to create a story that has nothing to do overtly with his/her life. This would be an example of an overdistanced form of drama therapy (Landy, 1983).

In general, sessions are always structured with a warm-up, middle (the focus of the session which is the “work”) and a subsequent wind-down which ensures a close-up of the issues that came up during the session with clients (Beauregard, 2012).

Moving onto the activities that we participated in….

Role Play Cards

Mark handed each one of us two cards (face down). We were to look at the cards he handed us and then think about whether we wanted to keep one or both of our cards, or trade them with our neighbors, with some of those laying in the center of the room, or to create our own replacement cards (i.e. write a different role on a blank card and take that one instead).

Examples of the various roles written on the cards included: Warrior, Villain, Bully, Innocent, Victim, Survivor, Worrier, Beast, Adult, Child etc. (R. Landy, 1993).

Discussion:

This exercise was used to illustrate how people play different roles all the time. A person can be a student, daughter, sister, leader, artist and more, depending on the context. It is our job as the clinician to help our clients negotiate their different roles and expand the number of roles a person can take on, thereby allowing a person to be more fluid/flexible.

Usually a client is in distress when they are either stuck in a particular role and/or unable to envision themselves taking on a different role.

For an assessment, it can sometimes be helpful to ask a person to make three piles using role play cards answering the following 3 questions: “Who Am I,”  “Who Do I Want to Be,” and “I’m Not Sure.” And then you work with the person in order to get him/her to “Who Do I Want to Be.”

Sculpture

One group was asked to first represent a sculpture-like image of a problem that is taking place in one of the group member’s placements from the perspective of the therapist.

This group had 5 members. One member stood as a firm thick wall separating the client (teen) from the parents. One member sat as the teen leaning towards the parents in an attempt to make a connection. One member represented the father standing facing away from both his teen and wife. One member was the mother sitting half facing the father and half facing the teen, illustrating the ambivalence and locked position. Finally, the therapist was behind the parents in a bit of a lost position.

The therapist then explained the group’s sculpture or her problem at work: her teen client no longer wishes to major in computers as her parents had expected and this is upsetting her parents, particularly her father.

The group was then asked to represent via “sculpture” the solution and all members were sitting facing one another this time around, with faces and postures more open and willing to talk and listen.

Discussion:

This exercise can be helpful in getting a person to view his problem (or relationship) in a different light and come up with new ideas for solutions.  The drama therapist and/or the other observers may provide comments and/or helpful questions to provoke additional thought.

6 Piece Story-Making Method

A second group was asked to act out a story of a “hero’s journey” according to the 6 piece story-making method which entails answering the following 6 questions:

1. Who is the main character?
2. What is the main goal?
3. Who/what can help them?
4. What is the obstacle?
5. How does the character cope with the obstacle?
6. How does it end? Does it end? Or is to be continued?

This group portrayed Michael as a young boy who wanted to go to summer camp but his mother says no. Michael gets upset and he goes out on a walk with his dog. He runs into a friend who is smoking pot and ends up smoking a little despite his dog’s obvious distress and attempts at pulling him away from this activity. This particular “play” doesn’t end with the problem getting resolved.

Discussion:

This exercise can be helpful in illustrating the way the members of a group typically perceive or react to the world. Once the story has been generated, different themes and ideas can be explored by improvising dialogue or statements from one character to another. The 6 piece story-making method has been taught internationally by Mooli Lahad (Dent-Brown, 2011).

Monologue (example of a projective technique – projecting your emotions/thoughts onto another object)

For this exercise, the members of this group were to have spent a few minutes by themselves writing a monologue, speaking on behalf of one of the objects that they had with them.

There was only enough time for two members of this group to read from their monologues. The first member placed a ring on a chair in front of her and then stood behind the chair and read her [ring’s] speech.

To a bystander, it sounded like an interesting perspective of the relationship that this member has with her boyfriend because at times, this ring would be worn but at other times not. At one point, this ring was returned to the boyfriend. Based upon this talk, it appeared that the ring thought that the member and her boyfriend belonged together and that they should stop playing around with her [the ring]. In any case, it was definitely a good sign that she [the ring] was being worn.

Unlike the first monologue which was rather light-hearted, the second talk was rather painful to hear. In this case, an airplane sick bag was the “actor” and it seemed to be expressing the difficulties a parent and teen were having in terms of letting go of one another.

It went something like: “You bring with me everyday but you don’t really need me. It’s your son who needs me and truthfully, I think you need to stop carrying me with you. Just like you need to let go of J, you need to let go of me…. J is afraid of being an adult, of going to college but you must demonstrate your faith, your belief in J that J can do it despite the fact that J is nervous and scared. J can do it.”

Discussion:

This exercise demonstrated how powerful using an inanimate object as the item onto which a person projects his feelings and/or thoughts. Projective techniques enable people to feel more comfortable in revealing their emotions.

Lastly, below are 2 brief clips (not related to class) illustrating how effective drama therapy can be.

To me, this was a very interesting introduction to drama therapy and I would love to learn more.

What are your thoughts about drama therapy? Have you had prior exposure to this type of therapy before? Please share your thoughts/reactions 🙂

You May Also Enjoy:
The New Social Worker: Theater Processes Therapeutic in Drama Therapy

References:
M. Beauregard, MA, RDT, LCAT, Drama therapy in clinical practice guest lecturer, April 16, 2012.
Dent-Brown, K., 2011. Six-Part Storymaking – a tool for CAT practitioners. Reformulation, Summer, pp. 34-36.
Landy, R. (1983). The use of distancing in drama therapy. The Arts in Psychotherapy, Vol 10(3), 175-185.
Landy, R. (1993). Personna and performance: The meaning of role in drama, therapy and everyday life. New York: Guilford Press.

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