Dramatherapy with Children, Young People and Schools

Enabling Creativity, Sociability, Communication and Learning

Lauraine Leigh, Irvine Gersch, Ann Dix, Deborah Haythorne, Lauraine Leigh, Irvine Gersch, Ann Dix, Deborah Haythorne

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136493133
• Subtopic: Medical Theory, Practice & Reference
• Index: Psychology

Dramatherapy with Children, Young People and Schools is the first book to specifically evaluate the unique value of dramatherapy in the educational environment. A variety of highly experienced dramatherapists, educational psychologists and childhood experts discuss the benefits to the children and young people, and also in relation to the involvement of teachers, the multi-disciplinary team and families. This professional book offers a panoramic view to explain how through dramatherapy children and young people develop their communication skills, sociability and their actual desire to learn.

Detailed case studies demonstrate individual successes in youngsters experiencing a range of emotional difficulties and psychological needs. These studies include: conquering a fear of maths; violent behaviour transformed into educational achievement; safe expression of feelings for a sexually abused child; and where children are diagnosed with mental health disorders such as ADHD and ODD, where the benefits of dramatherapy with children and families are carefully described and evaluated, suggesting that this therapeutic discipline can achieve positive outcomes.

The practical advice and inspirational results included here promote a future direction of integration and collaboration of school staff, multi-disciplinary teams and families. Education and equality are high on the agenda, and the function of dramatherapy is not just as a treatment, but as an economically viable and valuable preventive therapy.

Part I

Introduction

1 The role and relevance of dramatherapy in schools today

Lauraine Leigh, Ann Dix, Ditty Dokter and Deborah Haythorne

Introduction

Why should schools need dramatherapy?

There is something of a revolution taking place in education today. Schools are faced with the choice of opting out of local authority control to become Academies or Free Schools. For those that remain with the local authority there are further changes to the curriculum. Support services may be cut and finances refocused, leaving schools to manage the emotional wellbeing of the children they teach. There is a shift in thinking, which suggests that emotional health should become a part of the school’s responsibility, yet teachers, already under pressure to teach, will find this a challenge.

Just how much we should be concerned about children’s mental health is indicated by the November 2010 Scottish Integrative Care Programme for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS): ‘Mental health problems in children and young people are more common than many realise’. The Public Health Institute for Scotland Needs Assessment Report on CAMHS (2003: 3) states that about 10% of children and young people ‘have mental health problems which are so substantial that they have difficulties with their thoughts, their feelings, their behaviour, their learning, their relationships, on a day-to-day basis’. Children’s behaviour can become problematic as they try to make sense of their chaotic lives, and this obviously has a big impact on schools and the wider community.

Dramatherapists have been working effectively in schools for over twenty years and this book suggests an even greater need for dramatherapy in schools. The role of the dramatherapist can be to bridge the gap between education and mental health, working in schools alongside and in tandem with teachers and other professional staff, with the child and young person at the centre. An understanding of the use of therapy in schools has evolved, even though parents and children may still struggle with a fear of stigmatization (Carr and Ramsden 2008). Many parents and adolescents actively request dramatherapy. The provision of help through dramatherapy towards supporting good mental health in children and young people within schools can depathologize the problems children and young people experience, and make it a part of normal development. There is significant evidence that dramatherapy is effective in working with children in schools (see part IV).

Who are dramatherapists?

Dramatherapists come from many walks of life including teaching, nursing and mental health professions such as clinical psychology, primary mental health workers, and from arts and theatre related professions. A large percentage of dramatherapists work in educational settings with children and young people. Some are employed by the local authority, or directly by the school. Many work freelance, building up a network of relationships within the school community. Some work for CAMHS and other agencies that provide therapeutic support to schools. Many dramatherapists work for charities such as Roundabout and The Place2B.

What is dramatherapy?

The British Association of Dramatherapists (BADth) offers the following definition of dramatherapy:

Dramatherapy has as its main focus the intentional use of the healing aspects of drama and theatre within the therapeutic process. It is a method of working and playing which uses action to facilitate creativity, imagination, learning, insight, and growth.

It is mandatory for all dramatherapists to be registered with The Health Professions Council whose Standards of Proficiency for Arts Therapists document (2007) describes dramatherapy as:

a unique form of psychotherapy in which creativity, play, movement, voice, storytelling, dramatisation, and the performance arts have a central position within the therapeutic relationship.

As this book demonstrates, dramatherapy sessions may use a wide selection of techniques to engage the child or young person, individually or in groups in schools. These include cooperative games, story telling, drawing and painting and the use of materials to create stories and plays. This metaphorical work can be non-verbal or verbal, using speech, script and/or movement. Jenkyns’ work with adults would suggest exciting possibilities for adolescents and children, utilizing published texts (Jenkyns 1996), and indeed, Carr writes of her work in an inner city school using Shakespearian text with adolescents (chapter 9). Dramatherapy uses metaphor, to enable the child to begin to express their feelings safely and to feel better about themselves. The use of ‘as if’ allows dramatic distance so that the child is not overwhelmed or re-traumatized.

Each session will be planned to allow the child to work at their own pace and children and young people are not required to talk about their difficulties if they are not comfortable doing so. By creating a safe therapeutic space the dramatherapist sets the scene and waits for the child to begin to move centre stage.

Dramatherapy in schools

Difficult behaviour in classrooms

Difficult behaviour in classrooms can indicate emotional difficulties at home; for instance, the separation of parents or the death of a grandparent. Children who are feeling vulnerable can become less tolerant of schoolmates and they may have difficulty in settling in lessons, deliberately flout rules and may constantly challenge teachers, verbally and physically. Domikles (chapter 7) makes the point that sometimes difficult behaviour is a symptom of mental health issues. If these can be diagnosed funding for mental health interventions may be offered to schools. There is a clear link, then, between challenging behaviour in schools as an indicator of young people’s anxieties, and mental health issues which become visible in adolescence and are later diagnosed in adolescence and adulthood. Leading psychoanalyst Margot Waddell (2005) refers to adolescence as ‘a narcissistic disorder’ and suggests that for some young people the impact of puberty is a ‘kind of detonation’ which they can spend the rest of their lives getting used to. This impacts on their relationship with the world and on their ability to cope with adulthood (L. Leigh: personal record of Margot Waddell’s address to the Institute of Psychoanalysis: November 2005).

Dramatherapists in schools notice that peer pressure exerts a strong influence on children and it would appear that growing numbers of children feel the need to join the periphery of difficult behaviour. There are many reasons for this, including boredom, to be ‘acceptable’ to their peers, or to challenge authority. Of significant and growing concern to parents and teachers is gang membership and violent behaviour.

Bullying in and out of school can be subtle or overt and the rise of social networking sites makes this more difficult to monitor. Schools are therefore key in helping. This is an issue of education. Anti-bullying issues are high on school agendas. These issues can be addressed by teachers, dramatherapists and educational psychologists, and Holmwood and Stavrou (chapter 3) examine how dramatherapists and drama teachers might work alongside the educational psychology profession in integrative ways to promote ways of working with drama for just these sorts of issues.

Dramatherapy provides an ideal medium to explore difficult, painful issues, to build resilience in children and young people. Group work can provide a reflective space for children to confront their prejudices and fears.

Working with children who are diagnosed and working with those who are not

In schools dramatherapists work with a wide range of children and young people, including those who have emotional and behavioural problems, children who have experienced abuse, trauma, bereavement and loss, and those who experience discrimination such as refugees and asylum seekers or children in the care system. Children with diagnosed mental health issues such as severe anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), or conduct disorder (CD), and autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) make up a large percentage of our client group, together with children who have learning difficulties, and children who get into conflict in school. In this book we include vignettes of work with children and young people of all ages and abilities, ethnicities and cultures. We respect different cultural and religious values, and it is central to our profession that we work to foster tolerance.

Working together

The British Association of Dramatherapists have a helpful website that includes information about dramatherapy in schools, highlighting the areas in which dramatherapists can offer their services, including staff training, diagnostic assessments and short- and long-term dramatherapy interventions. Dramatherapists work according to the BADth Code of Ethical Practice. Central to dramatherapy practice are consent, safeguarding, liaison, health and safety and continuing professional development.

Dramatherapists work throughout the education system, working closely with teachers, parents, educational psychologists (EPs), CAMHS, social care, psychiatrists, and other agencies through the child assessment frameworks (CAF), the courts and reviews.

Supervision supports safe practice and offers a place for dramatherapists to reflect on their work. Later in this chapter Dokter, leading dramatherapy practitioner and academic, describes the importance of supervision for dramatherapists. As Dokter and the supervisees who have provided the vignettes highlight, there are implications for the teaching profession, because nowadays particularly, teachers also need emotional support in their work. Kelly and Bruck (chapter 14) put forward an effective, evaluated model of integrative staff support.

It is the responsibility of parents and professionals to ensure positive outcomes for children and young people. In order to support the child, their teachers, parents and carers also need support, so that the child’s needs can be addressed systemically. Many dramatherapists include family therapy in their continuous professional development, recognizing the need for a systemic approach to their work. ‘No man is an island’ and the most effective way of helping the child is by supporting their family network where possible. ‘Families’ voices have moved centre stage such that some therapists regard therapy as essentially the process of conversing, of engaging in storytelling and making’ (Dallos and Draper 2000: 11). The teacher, paediatrician and psychoanalyst Winnicott made the point, ‘When we are able to help parents to help their children we do in fact help them about themselves’ (2003 [1958]: 308).

Boundaries and working agreements

The use of simple, effective boundaries and the opportunity to discuss them is an important part of any dramatherapy session. Boundaries such as ‘No put-downs’ and ‘You can say “Pass”’ hold a useful appeal for children and young people, giving them a sense of ownership and control as well as a feeling of safety. The work’s non-judgemental ethos for children and teenagers appears to be easily understood by most young people, including children new to the UK, possibly with limited English language. These boundaries have the advantage of being accessible, easily remembered, and acceptable. Luxmoore’s Feeling Like Crap (2008) describes the attitudes that can so easily be prevalent for teenagers in their search for identity. This boundary making is a most important foundation for those with continuing challenging behaviour, who may have little patience for going through a set of rules posted on a wall.

However, some children and young people do respond well to setting up a ‘working agreement’ at the beginning of a dramatherapy intervention that can be discussed and agreed verbally or may be presented as a written and signed document. The first part of the agreement is to explain and discuss consent with regards to the children and young people attending dramatherapy and to discuss confidentiality. The rest of the agreement focuses on the rules of the group and is usually worked out between the children and young people and the therapists.

Therapy takes place within school and therefore, although there may be boundaries or rules within the session, school rules need to be adhered to and the child needs to be aware of this. The child needs to return to class in a composed and settled manner. Dramatherapy with its emphasis on the concept of ‘de-rolement’, means that attention is always paid to de-roling and relaxation at the end of the session.

The teacher–therapist partnership is key

Confidentiality is also an important factor in the provision of dramatherapy. Good relationships between teachers and dramatherapists ensure the work of each is respected: Roger (chapter 13) details the importance of the ongoing and effective communication between dramatherapist and teacher who talk together regularly about the young people. She highlights how this partnership of adults is key to affecting the young people’s own feelings of safety in dramatherapy, and therefore its effectiveness. The dramatherapist communicates with the teacher as well as keeping the confidentiality of sessions. Confidentiality in the dramatherapy sessions is explained to the children and young people within the context of safeguarding, recognizing that there are times when other appropriate named adults may need to know about what has been shared in a session.

Models of dramatherapy

Reference is made in this book to a variety of models of dramatherapy, some well established, including Jennings’ EPR developmental model (chapters 5 and 24) and Read Johnson’s DvT model. Domikles (chapter 7) offers an adaptation of the latter, working as a primary mental he...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Introduction
• Part II Case studies
• Part III Collaborative partnerships in schools and beyond
• Part IV Evidence and outcomes
• Part V Future possibilities
• Index