Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Drama therapy is a form of mental healthcare that uses drama and theatre tools (e.g. role-play, puppets, masks, improvisation) to help clients. Drama therapy is an essential treatment as it provides clients an alternative form of expression and communication. Drama therapy has demonstrated to be effective with a number of clinical populations, including victims of trauma, individuals with Selective Mutism, and adults with developmental disabilities. Despite these successes, research has yet to demonstrate why drama therapy is effective. Two parts of drama therapy thought to be responsible for client change are dramatic projection and embodiment. Dramatic projection involves the movement of the client's inner conflicts onto dramatic material (e.g. characters, puppets, etc.), and embodiment is the client's physical expression of roles and emotions. In more common forms of psychotherapy, emotional arousal and experiencing (how involved the client is in therapy) have been found to play a significant role in the client change process. It has been hypothesized that clients have higher levels of emotional arousal and experiencing in drama therapy than in other forms of therapy. The proposed study will determine if there is a relationship between the psychotherapy processes of experiencing and emotional arousal, and the drama therapy processes of dramatic projection and embodiment. Video of drama therapy exercises and interventions will be examined. Segments involving dramatic projection and embodiment will be identified, and the experiencing level and emotional arousal level of the drama therapy participants will be rated. The experiencing and emotional arousal level in segments with and without dramatic projection and with and without embodiment will then be compared. The proposed study will improve clinical practice by giving clinicians a better understanding of effective drama therapy processes and how to use them to bring about client change.