What Is Drama Therapy?

Drama Therapy uses theatrical and cinematic processes to reduce symptoms, the physiological integration of emotions, and personal growth. It can use role-playing, drama games, mime, puppet shows, and other improvisational techniques.

Drama therapy is a new model of expressive art therapy developed in European and American countries in the 1950s. Drama Therapy integrates knowledge from multiple disciplines such as psychotherapy, drama performance, and sociology. It emphasizes that visitors should use drama as a medium to promote self-reintegration and personality under the premise of establishing a trust relationship with the consultant. Development again to achieve the purpose of curing psychological problems.

The origin of dramatic healing can be traced to the shamanistic religious rituals of primitive society. In ancient Greece, it was already known that drama had a healing effect. Aristotle proposed the "purification theory" in his drama theory "Poetics", that is, when people watch tragedies, they can release their negative emotions by triggering pity and fear to achieve the purpose of improving their mood.

As an art therapy model, drama therapy has its own applicable groups. Traditionally, drama therapy is mainly used in special education schools, psychiatric hospitals and other fields. In special education schools, drama therapy is mainly used for the intervention of psychological problems such as deaf-mute children, children with emotional disorders, children with mental retardation, and children with retarded development. In the treatment of mental illness, drama therapy is mainly aimed at obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, substances Abuse and other treatments. In addition, drama therapy is also used in the psychological correction of criminals, the psychological assistance of persons with physical disabilities, and the treatment of veterans' psychological trauma.

"Drama therapy" is composed of two independent nouns, "drama" and "healing", which not only contain the basic connotations of "drama" and "healing", but are also different. Compared with traditional psychotherapy, drama therapy has its unique expression and counseling form. In terms of expression, drama therapy uses the form of dramatic performance to allow visitors to show the suppressed content in the subconscious. Because there is a certain distance between the role of the drama and the real self, it is easier for visitors to accept this approach. In the form of consultation, the form of drama performance can be individual consultation or group counseling, which overcomes the differences in language, occupation, intelligence, and values of different visitors. It is flexible and easy to implement, which improves the efficiency of treatment. Compared with general drama, there is no ready-made script for drama therapy. The performer is the script creator itself. The visitor and the consultant gradually form the script in the interactive process of therapy, so it is completely improvisation. Lin Yixuan believes that drama therapy is more like a "condensed life story". The visitor explores solutions to problems and chooses his own life path through performance.

In addition to the "purifying" effect of drama itself, the reason why drama therapy can have a positive therapeutic effect is to provide a stage for visitors to explore the inner world freely. On this stage, visitors can enter the depths of their hearts that they dare not face and face the deep psychological problems through performances. The therapist can use various techniques to help the visitors on this stage. Safely engage in various psychological processes such as empathy, projection, and identification, vent bad feelings, improve the ability of the visitor to reflect on life, consciously transfer the experience in the drama situation to real life, and promote changes in his own behavior and personality. development of.

Traditionally, theatrical procedures usually consist of three phases: warm-up, performance, and ending. In recent years, the procedure of drama therapy has been more detailed and complete. The five-stage division method of warming up, focusing, main activities, closing and removing roles, and ending has been accepted by most consultants.

After years of practice, drama therapy has developed a unique set of consulting techniques. In consulting, consultants can adopt different technologies according to different situations. At present, there are seven major types of mature technologies in drama therapy, which are dramatic projection technology, role technology, game play technology, dramatic body performance technology, psychodrama technology, metaphor technology, and ritual technology. Among them, the most widely used is drama. Projection technology and role technology ^[1] .

Dramatic projection technique

Dramatic projection means that the visitor projects different levels of self and experience into the content and performance of the drama, thereby transforming the internal conflict into an externally visible image. Unlike traditional counseling techniques, projection in drama therapy is not a means of protecting the visitor's psychological defense, but a means to help the visitor express himself as truthfully as possible. It is through this technology that visitors connect their inner world with external theatre performances, provide a space for dialogue with themselves, and explore their possible problems. In practice, consultants usually need to use certain tools to help visitors experience the process of projection. The most commonly used tools are masks, puppets, scripts and stories.

Drama Therapy Role Technology

Role theory holds that each individual has a virtual self-identity, which can be expressed through role performance. The role played can establish a creative dialogue relationship with the individual's true self, and this relationship is the basis for effective treatment. During the treatment process, the therapist designs and manipulates the role according to the characteristics of the visitor, and the visitor chooses according to different role types and their needs, and can change the role play at any time. Role technology allows visitors to reinvent themselves through roles.