What Exactly is Drama Therapy?

Drama Therapy is a therapeutic modality that uses creative techniques like role-play, embodiments, storytelling, symbolism and metaphor. It can involve the use of props, masks, costumes, music, writing/reading, performance, improvisation, and scene work. These tools can help a client reach a cathartic release of emotions and process complex feelings and relationships, reframe narratives, and gain perspective and insight.

Looking at this image with the person standing on the stage and observing its elements, what stands out to you? The subject in the photo is barefoot, his right hand pressing onto his chest, his left hand holding a script, his head is tilted down focusing on his script. His lips speaking out his lines. He faces outwards towards the empty seats of the audience. He is calm, relaxed, and engaged.

The image captures some of the elements that a participant can expect when engaging in Drama Therapy. Although the subject in the photo is wearing simple clothing and is facing an empty audience, in his mind, he is taking on the role of his character. He is speaking authentically 'as if' he is someone else for a moment.

What can Drama Therapy do for a client seeking mental health services?

In mental health therapy and counselling services, there is an understanding that past traumatic events can shape a client's feelings and thoughts.

Consider a window pane covered in soot and dirt from years of build up. Life has happened to the window pane, it did nothing except do what it was supposed to do - block the elements and provide someone inside with a view to the sky outside. However, over time, without cleaning, it has collected some grime and the window no longer provides a clear visibility to the outdoors.

A window gathers dust and grime, not by choice or fault, but simply by being what it is—a silent witness to the world. Drama Therapy is a modality that offers the client the opportunity to scrub clean the grime and dirt that has been collected by the years. Self-expression is like the window cleaner of the mind. The modality offers the client the opportunity to freely express themselves in a non-judgmental space.

Like the window pane, what happens to us as we age and go through varying degrees of traumatic experiences, is that our ability to see things as they really are becomes increasingly limited. The symptoms of anxiety, depression, and anger, can be traced back to an accumulation of painful past experiences that we carry with us as we continue to age. If we have not processed our past painful experiences, we cannot see clearly, just like we cannot see clearly through a window pane that has not had its buildup of grime cleaned off.

The window pane example is not to give the idea that we were never wronged, or hurt, and that others are not responsible for our sadness and pain, but rather it is an example of how the past can accumulate enough suffering that we might need help to scrub all that suffering off our selves.

Through the use of metaphor and play, can grow our openness and take the proverbial 'cleaner fluid' and wipe off all the build up of pain and sorrow from the past. Therapeutic play has been shown to help people become more open to new suggestions and build new patterns while symbol and metaphor can be used to help us project feelings onto characters, objects, and stories, thereby de-personalizing the therapeutic process and gaining some insight onto challenges without the typical feelings that can come along with talking about emotionally challenging experiences.

Through using props, masks, puppets, and costumes we have an excuse to play and we also have an opportunity to express things we might sometimes not want to be associated with. For example, perhaps at times we might feel so angry that we can't contain ourselves, but we are ashamed of how we feel. The use of a prop, like a puppet that is representative of our anger, can help us play and act out those feelings.

The Foundations of Drama Therapy

JL Moreno, the creator of Psychodrama and one of the founders of Drama Therapy, describes that all human beings are fundamentally spontaneous and creative, but a once-spontaneous action can become something old and become a part of our sense of self and who we are. Moreno calls these concretized actions "Cultural Conserves".

An easy example is to think of a child learning to walk. The research suggests that when children are not shown how to walk by the adults in their surrounding, they will develop without the ability to walk. Therefore, we can say that the ability to walk is a learned process, despite the fact that our bodies are designed for it. In the example of the child learning to walk, they see others walking, and they learn to recreate it for themselves. At some point in a child's development, the child will spontaneously get up and attempt to walk. Eventually, with encouragement from others around them, the child learns to get their bearings, stand up, and eventually walk. The ability to walk is a simple but powerful rite of passage to become a human being.

The act of walking to Moreno would be considered a cultural conserve. Walking starts spontaneously which begins a creative process of iteration and growth, and eventually becomes part of who we are

The diagram of the circle shown below is JL Moreno's diagram called the "Canon of Creativity." The diagram is meant to be a metaphor for how human beings develop. All human beings are in a cycle of warming up to be spontaneous and will then eventually take a spontaneous action which will lead to a creative act and eventually the creative act will become a part of the identity of that person.

To Moreno, the reason behind someone's mental health challenges lies deeply in his idea of unfinished actions. Meaning, that for all of us, there were moments in our lives where we did not resolve a past traumatic experience. For example, someone hurt us and we felt powerless, vulnerable, helpless, unseen, abandoned, terrified, and taken advantage of and we did not respond how we knew we needed to at that moment.

When the past traumatic event happened, we had become locked in a loop, constantly warming up to resolve our unfinished action. Our natural state according to Moreno, is to be creative and spontaneous, but we cannot be spontaneous anymore when we are too traumatized from the past. Something is stuck. To Moreno, the answer to this problem, is to warm up enough to finally let out and express what it is we always wanted to express, breaking free from the static cultural conserve that is limiting us, and spontaneously creating a new vision, action, or identity for ourselves.

Drama Therapy invites you to tap into your natural spontaneity and creativity. It encourages you to step into new roles, explore different perspectives, and break free from the patterns that hold you back. Drama Therapy sets up the elements, the environments, the characters that move us in our lives, it re-awakens our past selves and traumas and gives us finally an opportunity to say, "Enough is enough" and to break on through to the 'other side' so-to-speak. "To take our power back" to quote that famous expression.