Drama

Drama is a tremendously powerful therapeutic tool. When you actually enact such defining moments as reclaiming your power, defending yourself and nurturing your inner child, you experience the power of that enactment. Drama therapy allows "surplus reality" to have all the power of -- more power than -- "normal" reality.

Drama has a long history as a tool of personal change and growth. Many rituals of initiation involve masks and enactment of sacred stories. In ancient Greece, psychological healing, medicine, sacred ritual and theatrical performance were one and the same thing, a unified practice to promote an integrated whole person.

All the components of theater -- acting, props, masks, puppets, stories -- are available as therapeutic tools. Drama therapy can range from fun, spontaneous warm-up exercises to incredibly intense dramatic enactments and rescripting of past traumas.

In terms of the four dimensions of expressive arts, drama tends toward aesthetic closeness, though there are many ways to keep the work more aesthetically distant. Likewise, drama is highly embodied work, though puppets, masks and "empty chair" can titrate the level of embodiedness. Drama can be anywhere from literal to metaphorical, and land anywhere along the continuum from holding to probing.

Drama therapy is an entire therapeutic approach unto itself, with great flexibility and adaptability. It also integrates seamlessly into expressive arts therapy -- the theater arts are inherently intermodal.

Interventions

Here are a few (out of countless) interventions using drama therapy:

• "Empty chair" dialogues -- set up an empty chair facing client, who has a conversation with someone or something (father, girlfriend, "my depression", "white people", etc). Client moves back and forth between chairs, supplying both sides of conversation. A variant in group settings is to choose another member to play the role.
  
• Line repetition -- pair off, exchange lines with various feelings; lines could be "yes/no", "I want it/you can't have it", "you hurt me/I'm sorry", "please stay/I have to go", etc. Optionally, use this to springboard into an improvised scene
• Psychodrama -- enroll multiple group members to embody various roles in a scene, either historical or metaphorical. Protagonist enacts scene with help of others, while therapist "directs". Can lead to powerful catharsis and new insights
• Self-revelatory performance -- a client creates, develops, rehearses and publicly performs an autobiographical "show" exploring and working through some issue
• Video/film performance -- this has all the power of performance, plus the sense of accomplishment that comes from creating a concrete work of art
  
• Ritual -- design and conduct ritual enactments. Great for letting go, saying farewell (especially to loved ones who have died), celebrating a milestone, marking a transition
  

Photo (c) 2008 Svetlana Kreimer