Routledge International Handbook of Dramatherapy

Sue Jennings, Clive Holmwood, Sue Jennings, Clive Holmwood

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317543206
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Psychotherapie

Routledge International Handbook of Dramatherapy is the first book of its kind to bring together leading professionals and academics from around the world to discuss their practice from a truly international perspective. Dramatherapy has developed as a profession during the latter half of the twentieth century. Now, we are beginning to see its universal reach across the globe in a range of different and diverse approaches. From Australia, to Korea to the Middle East and Africa through Europe and into North & South America dramatherapists are developing a range of working practices using the curative power of drama within a therapeutic context to work with diverse and wide ranging populations.

Using traditional texts in the Indian sub-continent, healing performances in the Cameroon, supporting conflict in Israel and Palestine, through traditional Comedic theatre in Italy, to adolescents in schools and adults with mental ill health, this handbook covers a range of topics that shows the breadth, depth and strength of dramatherapy as a developing and maturing profession. It is divided into four main sections that look at the current international:

Developments in dramatherapy

Theoretical approaches

Specific practice

New and innovative approaches

Offering insights on embodiment, shamanism, anthropology and cognitive approaches coupled with a range of creative, theatrical and therapeutic methods, this ground breaking book is the first congruent analysis of the profession. It will appeal to a wide and diverse international community of educators, academics, practitioners, students, training schools and professionals within the arts, arts education and arts therapies communities. Additionally it will be of benefit to teachers and departments in charge of pastoral and social care within schools and colleges.

Part I International developments in dramatherapy

In the first section of this International Handbook we take a trip around the world to explore current developments in dramatherapy from an international perspective. We begin by tracking east, starting in Korea and Taiwan, where dramatherapy is relatively new. We pass through India, before flying across Africa into Romania in central Europe and then crossing the Atlantic and finishing this first part of the Handbook in North America.

This section gives us a sense of the vastness of practice in a range of cultures, but, as importantly, also hints at levels of development of the profession as it continues to mature globally.

In Chapters 1 and 2, Miri Park (Korea) and Hsiao-hua Chang (Taiwan) share similar experiences of the development of a profession in its ‘infancy’ within their societies; influenced by the Western perspective of dramatherapy, they show how their own developments of dramatherapy are influenced and affected by their own sociocultural and societal perspectives, acknowledging that how they practise within their own unique cultures should take precedent.

We follow this with the arts based therapy approaches being developed in the vast country we know as India, as discussed by Aanand Chabukswar and Zubin Balsara (India). British-based Bruce Howard Bayley (Anglo-Indian) discusses the intricacies of dramatherapy within the classic Indian story of the Ramayana.

Paul Animbom Ngong (Cameroon) takes us to where the concept of dramatherapy, in a Western professional context at least, doesn’t exist – in that there is no formal training or state registration. He compares traditional ritual practices as a potential dramatherapy approach. In central Europe, we meet Ioana Serb (Romania), who describes the complexities and connections between dramatherapy and play therapy within her specific culture and society from a dramatherapy perspective.

Finally, we travel to North America to get a sense of the historical development and current state of play of dramatherapy, as described by Andrew M. Gaines (USA) and Jason D. Butler (Canada).

This first, introductory part of the International Handbook gives us a sense of the vast approaches, current developments and culturally specific uses of dramatherapy as it exists in all its contexts today.

1 The development of Korean drama therapy

From a latecomer to the leading special practical human science in arts therapy

Miri Park

DOI: 10.4324/9781315728537-1

An overview of recent Korean drama therapy

Where drama exists, so does drama therapy. However, it has only been a decade since drama therapy has been acknowledged as an academic specialty in Korea. It started spontaneously with two different groups – the first group included students who studied drama therapy in the USA and UK; the second group involved drama and psychodrama specialists in Korea. Ever since its introduction, it has developed at a significantly rapid pace compared with other countries, mainly owing to the unique cultural background of Korea. Koreans are open-minded about accepting new theories and practices in the academic field; therefore, various alternative medicines have been adopted without intense resistance. In addition, owing to the positive, dynamic nature of Koreans, the medical effect of other forms of therapy, such as art therapy, music therapy and dance and movement therapy, had already been widely acknowledged, even before the introduction of drama therapy.

This rapid growth of drama therapy in Korea can also be seen in the curriculums of many universities. Currently, there are more than ten universities with arts-therapy departments, offering drama therapy courses at postgraduate level. Furthermore, many universities have started providing related courses for undergraduates and PhD students as well. In addition, the number of private institutions training drama therapists is also rapidly growing, as people with appropriate qualifications can establish their own institutions in Korea much more easily than in other countries.

The current trend of drama therapy practice in Korea

Korean drama therapists work in a various places, including schools, hospitals, community centres and arts-therapy centres. In the earlier stages, there was no specific distinction between drama therapy, educational drama and dramatic plays, but today they tend to be implemented in separate settings, because each activity has different effects. In the case of drama therapy work, there is usually assessment of participants and intervention by therapists.

In the discretionary creative activities in primary and secondary schools, drama education and educational drama work are provided generally; sometimes, special drama therapy classes are offered in a more specific setting for children with specific needs, upon the request of individual schools. These students have mostly experienced school instability, violence or bullying, or have emotional difficulties, mental health problems, learning disabilities, ADHD or suicidal ideation. General drama courses usually include twenty to thirty students per class, whereas drama therapy courses have no more than five students, and the whole process usually consists of ten to twenty sessions per semester. Welfare centres provide a much wider variety of programmes according to the main users of the institutions – the general public, disabled people or senior citizens, etc. Drama therapy work in welfare centres mostly offers individual or group sessions, according to the participants, from children to older people with their various difficulties. In general, teachers, counsellors and social workers, in schools and welfare centres, request specific drama therapy courses to be led by professionals.

The voucher system initiated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare is one of the key factors that has significantly contributed to the expansion and development of art therapy. This is a social service system that aims for the enhancement of the well-being of individuals within the general welfare system. It was introduced as part of welfare policy, and the government provides vouchers that directly aid purchases related to welfare services such as education, housing, medical treatment and travel. Art therapy is generally intended for juveniles, seniors and disabled people in the education and medical treatment sectors.

The number of art therapists working in hospitals as full-time workers is increasing, followed by music therapists, dance therapists and drama therapists. Even though there is only one hospital, the Myung-ji hospital, that has an arts-therapies centre, here there is still remarkable progress, because this is the first attempt by a medical department to acknowledge art therapies as an individual sector. Other hospitals have also paid attention to similar facilities, and some art therapists have established their own institutions.

Many drama therapists in Korea have adopted various methods from precedents set by drama therapists in other countries, especially from the USA and the UK. These include the Embodiment–Projection–Role (EPR) model by Sue Jennings (1998; Jennings et al. 1994), Role Profile and TAS by Robert Landy (1994), the Developmental Transformation model by David Read Johnson (Johnson and Emunah 2009), and the five-step model by Renée Emunah (Johnson and Emunah 2009). They have also adopted other methods from art therapies and psychotherapies, and these methods especially put emphasis on role and emotion as the most important principles.

For a diagnostic assessment, the most frequently used methods include the six-part story method proposed by Mooli Lahad (2013), Robert Landy’s role checklist (1993) or the Diagnostic Role-Playing Test by David Read Johnson (1988). Sometimes, modified versions of existing assessment tools, such as the measures of dramatic involvement by Phil Jones (1996) and the six-key model by Susana Pendzik (2008), are also used, according to the subject. As diagnostic assessment tools have not been acknowledged as objective tools, they are often used together with psychological tests. Thus, many drama therapists have recently been working on the development of more suitable drama therapy assessment tools for Korean cultural settings. Their primary interest lies in the development related to physical movement. Currently, they mostly use EPR analysis and self-images of role and emotion. They are trying to get useful statistical sources, based on data from these tools.

The drama therapy process typically involves improvisation and it includes dramatisations of well-known stories using projective objects, such as figures, materials, puppets and masks, etc. However, the most effective improvisation involves spontaneous movement without specific fixed formats in the ‘here and now’. Playback theatre, autobiographical performance and other psychodrama methods are also frequently used.

The unique character of drama therapy as a performance continues within public ‘therapeutic performances’. Recently, the Korean Drama Therapy Association has presented annual therapeutic performances for suicide prevention. The procedure includes: auditioning of performers – actors/actresses and therapists; a drama therapy workshop with performers in which each character is cast; and training, rehearsals, performance and, finally, feedback and co-work with the audience (including a conversation between performers and audiences or brief drama therapy work). The storyline is based on the performers’ own stories. This therapeutic performance has two positive impacts on the popularisation of drama therapy. The general public can enjoy the process of participation in activities and get better opportunities to understand the healing power of drama itself. Second, people who are in need of drama therapy, but have not experienced it before, get a proper chance to learn and engage in further work.

The academic trend of drama therapy in Korea

As already mentioned, doctoral programmes in drama therapy have been provided for the last 3 or 4 years. As the demand for drama therapy keeps growing, the number of universities with a department of drama therapy is expected to increase as well. In other words, there are a myriad of academic approaches to drama therapy in Korea; therefore, researchers are trying to establish a theoretical basis for drama therapy by implementing concepts from various related subjects, such as drama, literature, philosophy, anthropology, social sciences and psychology. There is a heavy emphasis on the multidisciplinary study of Eastern and Western philosophy, especially with a link to Korean traditional studies.

Recently, there has been a strong movement in humanistic therapies focusing on philosophy and literature in Korean academic society, which has certainly encouraged the development of drama therapy as well. A lot of academics and therapists are working on developing their own assessment tools and therapeutic methods to use, not as subdivisions of psychotherapy, but as independent domains. However, these rather newly developed assessment tools and methods have only been used in limited cases on a trial basis for qualitative evaluation. For them to be acknowledged as objective assessment tools, there need to be more efforts in pursuing in-depth studies based on large-scale statistical data.

In 2011, professors from the theatre departments of various universities set up the Korean Drama Therapy Association in order to contribute to the academic development of drama therapy in Korea. It publishes an annual journal and also planned to hold an international academic symposium every 2 or 3 years, starting from 2015. Researchers focus on the development of drama therapy as a cross-disciplinary practical study integrating various studies, such as emotion-focused Eastern and Western philosophy, the philosophy of imagination of Gaston Bachelard, and Gilbert Durand, the psychology of emotion and self-psychology. Emotional Model in Drama Therapy (Miri Park, 2013) explains more specifically how emotions can be used as the key element of drama therapy. This recently published academic work explains emotion-based drama therapy based on dramatics.

Emotional model in drama therapy

Some researchers emphasise the importance of emotional happiness as a primary reason for emotion-focused perspectives in drama therapy. Happiness is not only the ultimate goal in our lives, but should also be the way we live currently. Many people believe that ‘happiness’ equals ‘well-being’ and ‘healthiness’. At the same time, it is a matter of ‘feeling’, and so, eventually, the goal of therapy becomes for clients to be able to actually ‘feel happy’. For this reason, it is quite natural to use emotions in the field of therapy, and in fact many therapists have already carried out emotion-focused approaches. However, this has worked as a secondary function in most cases, and not enough research work has focused on how to use emotion in the overall drama-therapeutic process.

Drama therapy is focused on emotion as a main tool. It refers to the importance of seeing emotion as a physical reaction; we can feel and express emotions instantly through our body when we encounter a stimulus. These feelings and the possibility of expressio...