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 â 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 â 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 EmbodimentâProjectionâRole (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 RenĂ©e 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 Landyâs 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 âhere and nowâ. Playback theatre, autobiographical performance and other psychodrama methods are also frequently used.
The unique character of drama therapy as a performance continues within public âtherapeutic performancesâ. Recently, the Korean Drama Therapy Association has presented annual therapeutic performances for suicide prevention. The procedure includes: auditioning of performers â 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 performersâ 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.