What is Drama Therapy?

Written by 7 Cups Therapist, Daniela Golbert.

Drama therapy is an integration of techniques from the theatre world including role play, storytelling and improvisation with psychotherapy. Using metaphor, story or role clients are able to explore their problems, inner conflicts and to rehearse possible solutions from a creative stance. The result is an embodied, experiential process that draws on the client's capacity for play, utilizing it as a core route for accessing and expressing internal conflict, achieving insight, rehearsing alternative choices, and cognitively reworking habitual patterns of response to stressful situations (Haen, 2008).

Drama therapy facilitates change through the core processes of projection, embodiment and role (Jennings, 1990) and it uses the potential of drama to reflect and transform life experiences to enable clients to express and work through problems they encounter in playful and creative ways (Jones, 1996). Drama therapy builds upon the healing aspects which are present in dramatic and theatrical activities including creativity, spontaneity, playing and acting (Jones, 1996).

Therefore drama therapy is a: multimodal vehicle for accessing inner resources. Patient's role repertoires are expanded in depth as well as breadth, because drama therapy cultivates spontaneity and the capacity for self-reflection. Furthermore, in helping patients to relinquish those defensive patterns that have become counterproductive, it is necessary to put them in touch with a more reliable source of self-esteem and the most natural source is the rich flow of vitality, imagination, and spontaneity which if properly appreciated constitutes a vibrant core of being (Emunah, 1994, p 10).

For example, in parenting, using drama to invite a parent to get into the childs role and to physically and mentally sit in the childs place may enable mothers to think about their children as separate persons with their own needs and emotional world .Along similar lines, using cards of images or different projective objects to represent the child and the relationship may force the parent to broaden their perception of their children and think about them in a multidimensional and complex way. Experiencing acceptance in an empathic and creative way may be the crucial point from which people can provide an accepting and containing relationship and serve as a secure base for their children.

Haen, C., (2008). Vanquishing monsters: Drama therapy for treating childhood trauma in the group setting. In Makchiodi, C A. (Ed). Creative intervention with traumatized children (pp.225-246). Guilford Press, NY

Jennings, S. (1990). Dramatherapy with Families, Groups and Individuals. London /New York: Jessica Kingsley.

Jones, P. (1996). Drama as Therapy Theatre as Living. Routledge, London. Jurkovic, G. J. (1998). Destructive parentification in families: Causes and consequences. In L. LAbate (Ed.), Family Psychopathology. New York: Guilford.

Emunah, R. (1994). Acting for real: Drama therapy process, technique, and performance. Routledge.