DRAMATHERAPY WITH CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS
Dramatherapy is a creative arts therapy method that integrates role play, stories, improvisation, and other techniques taken from the theater with the theories and methods of therapy. The result is an active, experiential process that draws on the child’s capacity for play, utilizing it as a central means of accessing and expressing feelings, gaining insight, practicing successful approaches to difficult situations. Dramatherapists also assess children who need additional services and can make appropriate referrals.
Sometimes the stories dramatherapists listen to are real, sometimes they are fantasy. Sometimes stories are told by children in role, sometimes not. Stories may be played using objects (such as puppets, dolls, or other toys) using one’s body, or using one’s voice.
With child and adolescent populations, dramatic techniques can help clarify, communicate, and define a child’s feelings.
HOW DOES DRAMATHERAPY MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS?
Some specific benefits likely to be achieved in dramatherapy with children include reducing feelings of isolation, developing new coping skills and patterns, broadening the range of expression of feelings, experiencing improved self-esteem and self-worth, increasing sense of play and spontaneity, and developing relationships. According to Erikson and other theorists, play allows children to gain mastery over conflicts and anxieties.
Dramatherapy provides a developmentally appropriate means of processing events with children and adolescents for whom verbal methods alone may be insufficient. It taps into their natural propensity toward action and utilizes it to engage children in play as a means of safely exploring issues and painful feelings. Because the dramatherapist is willing to meet the child at whatever space they are in, be it angry, frustrated, refusing to talk, etc., and because dramatherapy accesses the imagination, it is a safer, familiar method for young people. This is particularly true for those who have a hard time trusting or connecting with adults or who might otherwise struggle in therapy.
Often children don’t communicate their feelings and thoughts through only words. They have another language – that of play. Children use toys, objects, and stories to attempt to understand the world around them, as well as to communicate their needs, wants, and fears. A dramatherapist working with children is trained to speak this special language.
IN WHAT SPECIFIC SETTINGS DO DRAMATHERAPISTS WORK WITH CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS?
Dramatherapists work in inpatient and outpatient mental health settings, educational or school/after school settings, community centers, shelters, group homes, multicultural centers, private practice, early intervention programs, home health agencies, hospices, rehabilitative facilities, hospitals, and wellness centers.
Fact sheet compiled by the North American Association of Dramatherapists
For individual referrals or to set up a dramatherapy group for children or adolescents through your school or organisation please email: mariannemarcote@gmail.com
Dramatherapy is a creative arts therapy method that integrates role play, stories, improvisation, and other techniques taken from the theater with the theories and methods of therapy. The result is an active, experiential process that draws on the child’s capacity for play, utilizing it as a central means of accessing and expressing feelings, gaining insight, practicing successful approaches to difficult situations. Dramatherapists also assess children who need additional services and can make appropriate referrals.
Sometimes the stories dramatherapists listen to are real, sometimes they are fantasy. Sometimes stories are told by children in role, sometimes not. Stories may be played using objects (such as puppets, dolls, or other toys) using one’s body, or using one’s voice.
With child and adolescent populations, dramatic techniques can help clarify, communicate, and define a child’s feelings.
HOW DOES DRAMATHERAPY MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS?
Some specific benefits likely to be achieved in dramatherapy with children include reducing feelings of isolation, developing new coping skills and patterns, broadening the range of expression of feelings, experiencing improved self-esteem and self-worth, increasing sense of play and spontaneity, and developing relationships. According to Erikson and other theorists, play allows children to gain mastery over conflicts and anxieties.
Dramatherapy provides a developmentally appropriate means of processing events with children and adolescents for whom verbal methods alone may be insufficient. It taps into their natural propensity toward action and utilizes it to engage children in play as a means of safely exploring issues and painful feelings. Because the dramatherapist is willing to meet the child at whatever space they are in, be it angry, frustrated, refusing to talk, etc., and because dramatherapy accesses the imagination, it is a safer, familiar method for young people. This is particularly true for those who have a hard time trusting or connecting with adults or who might otherwise struggle in therapy.
Often children don’t communicate their feelings and thoughts through only words. They have another language – that of play. Children use toys, objects, and stories to attempt to understand the world around them, as well as to communicate their needs, wants, and fears. A dramatherapist working with children is trained to speak this special language.
IN WHAT SPECIFIC SETTINGS DO DRAMATHERAPISTS WORK WITH CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS?
Dramatherapists work in inpatient and outpatient mental health settings, educational or school/after school settings, community centers, shelters, group homes, multicultural centers, private practice, early intervention programs, home health agencies, hospices, rehabilitative facilities, hospitals, and wellness centers.
Fact sheet compiled by the North American Association of Dramatherapists
For individual referrals or to set up a dramatherapy group for children or adolescents through your school or organisation please email: mariannemarcote@gmail.com
