This edited volume explores the singularity of embodiment and somatic approaches in the healing of trauma from a dramatherapy, theatre and performance perspective. Collating voices from across the fields of dramatherapy, theatre and performance, this book examines how different interdisciplinary and intercultural approaches offer unique and unexplored perspectives on the body as a medium for the exploration, expression and resolution of chronic, acute and complex trauma as well as collective and intergenerational trauma. The diverse chapters highlight how the intersection between dramatherapy and body-based approaches in theatre and performance offers additional opportunities to explore and understand the creative, expressive and imaginative capacity of the body, and its application to the healing of trauma. The book will be of particular interest to dramatherapists and other creative and expressive arts therapists. It will also appeal to counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists and theatre scholars.

"Psychodrama and Socio-drama are new concepts of therapy to resolve mental health issues in Bangladesh. Mental health professionals in Bangladesh who had been able to absorb the technique created by integrating socio-psychodrama have been greatly benefited from this intervention in the healing process... " --Mehtab Khanam, PhD Professor of Psychology Dhaka University Bangladesh When large groups of people become victims of political upheavals, social crises, and natural disasters, it is often challenging to allocate appropriate resources to deal with the stress that ensues. Of the methods employed to address post-traumatic stress syndrome and collective trauma, sociodrama and drama therapy have had a long-standing history of success. Group therapists and counselors will find this book to be an indispensable resource when counseling patients from trauma-stricken groups. This book travels across geographic and cultural boundaries, examining group crises and collective trauma in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the U.S. The contributing authors, many of whom are pioneers in the field, offer cost-effective, small- and large-group approaches for people suffering from PTSD, socio-political oppression, and other social problems. The book extends the principles and practices of psychodrama and sociodrama to include music, painting, dance, collage, and ritual. In essence, this innovative book illustrates the proven effectiveness of sociodrama and drama therapy. Key topics: The difficulties of developing trust in victimized or opposing groups Initiating warm-ups and therapeutic strategies with both groups and individuals "Narradrama" with marginalized groups Using anti-oppression models to inform psychodrama Re-reconciling culture-based conflicts using "culture-drama"

This book examines how drama therapists conceptualize and respond to relational and systemic trauma across systems of care including mental health clinics, schools, and communities burdened by historical and current wounds. This second edition of Trauma-Informed Drama Therapy: Transforming Clinics, Classrooms, and Communities offers a broad range of explorations in engaging with traumatic experience, across settings (clinical, educational, performance) and geographies (North America, Germany, Sri Lanka, South Africa, India, Belgium), and methodologies (Sesame, DvT, ethnography, performance, CANY, Self Rev). Each effort runs into obstacles, resistances, biases, and random events that highlight the authors’ passion and courage. No solutions are to be found. No grand schemes are proposed. Just hard work in the face of impenetrable truth: we are still at the beginning of understanding how to achieve an equitable, moral, accountable, healthy collective being-with. Confronting trauma, listening to victim testimonies, sitting with unsettling uncertainty, understanding the enormity of the problem, are difficult tasks, and over time wear people down. The chapters in this book belie this trend as they illustrate how the passion, creativity, faith, and perseverance of drama therapists the world over, each in their own limited way, can help. In each of these chapters you will read about people who have been pushed to the margins of existence, and then, how drama therapists have worked to remind them of their immutable, unique value that can transcend and transform those margins into spaces of care, power, and possibility. It will be useful for creative arts therapists, mental health professionals, educators, students and many others interested in the role of the drama and performance in the treatment of trauma.

"This book examines how drama therapists conceptualize and respond to relational and systemic trauma across systems of care including mental health clinics, schools, and communities burdened by historical and current wounds. This second edition of Trauma-Informed Drama Therapy: Transforming Clinics, Classrooms, and Communities offers a broad range of explorations in engaging with traumatic experience, across settings (clinical, educational, performance) and geographies (North America, Germany, Sri Lanka, South Africa, India, Belgium), and methodologies (Sesame, DvT, ethnography, performance, CANY, Self Rev). Each effort runs into obstacles, resistances, biases, and random events that highlight the authors' passion and courage. No solutions are to be had . No grand schemes are proposed. Just hard work in the face of impenetrable truth: we are still at the beginning of understanding how to achieve an equitable, moral, accountable, healthy collective being-with. Confronting trauma, listening to victim testimonies, sitting with unsettling uncertainty, understanding the enormity of the problem, are difficult tasks, and over time wear people down. The chapters in this book belie this trend as they illustrate how the passion, creativity, faith, and perseverance of drama therapists the world over, each in their own limited way, can help. In each of these chapters you will read about people who have been pushed to the margins of existence, and then, how drama therapists have worked to remind them of their immutable, unique value that can transcend and transform those margins into spaces of care, power, and possibility. It will be useful for creative arts therapists, mental health professionals, educators, students and many others interested in the role of the drama and performance in the treatment of trauma"--

This second edition takes the reader further into the heart of using drama for healing. Dr. Emunah offers an expanded understanding of her Integrative Five Phase model, a foundational approach that embraces the wide spectrum of possibilities within the playing field of drama therapy. Grounded by compassionate clinical examples, including ones that reach over time into deep-seated issues, the book offers tools for action-oriented treatment, embodied therapeutic interventions, and creatively engaging a wide variety of clients. This comprehensive text also contains over 120 techniques, categorized by phases in the session and treatment series, and subcategorized by therapeutic objective. Process-oriented drama therapy with group and individuals, as well as performance-oriented forms, are described in vivid detail. New to the second edition is an exploration of drama therapy outside of the clinical arena, including dramatic methods in family life and parenting, and drama therapy geared toward social change.

This book is the first to examine the performance of autobiographical material as a theatrical form, a research subject, and a therapeutic method. Contextualizing personal performance within psychological and theatrical paradigms, the book identifies and explores core concepts, such as the function of the director/therapist throughout the creative process, the role of the audience, and the dramaturgy involved in constructing such performances. It thus provides insights into a range of Autobiographic Therapeutic Performance forms, including Self-Revelatory and Autoethnographic Performance. Addressing issues of identity, memory, authenticity, self-reflection, self-indulgence, and embodied self-representation, the book presents, with both breadth and depth, a look at this fascinating field, gathering contributions by notable professionals around the world. Methods and approaches are illustrated with case examples that range from clients in private practice in California, through students in drama therapy training in the UK, to inmates in Lebanese prisons.

This book is a collection of chapters by playwrights, directors, devisers, scholars, and educators whose praxis involves representing, theorizing, and performing social trauma. Chapters explore how psychic catastrophes and ruptures are often embedded in social systems of oppression and forged in zones of conflict within and across national borders. Through multiple lenses and diverse approaches, the authors examine the connections between collective trauma, social identity, and personal struggle. We look at the generational transmission of trauma, socially induced pathologies, and societal re-inscriptions of trauma, from mass incarceration to war-induced psychoses, from gendered violence through racist practices. Collective trauma may shape, protect, and preserve group identity, promoting a sense of cohesion and meaning, even as it shakes individuals through pain. Engaging with communities under significant stress through artistic practice offers a path towards reconstructing the meaning(s) of social trauma, making sense of the past, understanding the present, and re-visioning the future. The chapters combine theoretical and practical work, exploring the conceptual foundations and the artists’ processes as they interrogate the intersections of personal grief and communal mourning, through drama, poetry, and embodied performance.