"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 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.

"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 third edition of Current Approaches in Drama Therapy offers a revised and updated comprehensive compilation of the primary drama therapy methods and models that are being utilized and taught in the United States and Canada. Two new approaches have been added, Insight Improvisation by Joel Gluck, and the Miss Kendra Program by David Read Johnson, Nisha Sajnani, Christine Mayor, and Cat Davis, as well as an established but not previously recognized approach in the field, Autobiographical Therapeutic Performance, by Susana Pendzik. The book begins with an updated chapter on the development of the profession of drama therapy in North America, followed by a chapter on the current state of the field written by the editors and Jason Butler. Section II includes the 13 drama therapy approaches, and Section III includes the three related disciplines of Psychodrama and Sociodrama, Playback Theatre, and Theatre of the Oppressed that have been particularly influential to drama therapists. This highly informative and indispensable volume is structured for drama therapy training programs. It will continue to be useful as a basic text of drama therapy for both students and seasoned practitioners, including mental health professionals (such as counselors, clinical social workers, psychologists, creative arts therapists, occupational therapists), theater and drama teachers, school counselors, and organizational development consultants.

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.

Strength-Based Drama Therapy is a user-friendly guide to the theory and practice of drama therapy with groups. It explores what makes drama therapy strength-based and provides suggestions for further research. It investigates the importance of a trauma-informed approach and connects strengths theory and trauma informed care. The final section is a tool-kit for practical applications of theory and research. It gives step-by-step explanations for how to structure and facilitate a wide variety of groups. From poetry, scarves and incorporating art to improv, sculpting and monologues there is something in here for everyone.

Therapists interested in conducting rigorous and effective trauma-centered conversations with their patients will find Principles and Techniques of Trauma-Centered Psychotherapy of enormous instructional and clinical value. Never before has a text examined the process of trauma inquiry in the detail presented here—specifically, in dozens of extremely thorough case examples that demonstrate successful and unsuccessful therapeutic interventions. Exercising great care and skill, the authors describe the step-by-step mechanics of conducting an effective trauma-centered psychotherapy based on imaginal exposure from an in-depth narrative of the client’s traumatic experiences. Clinicians in practice and in training will benefit from the authors’ focus on increasing competence in this important aspect of treatment. From establishing the trauma treatment framework to navigating the inevitable disruptions to dealing with the negative effects on the therapist of hearing detailed accounts of traumatic events, Principles and Techniques of Trauma-Centered Psychotherapy is both pragmatic and empathic, providing effective strategies in the context of true life treatment.