Rea, K. (2013) : The Healing Dance: The Life and Practice of an Expressive Arts Therapist, Springfield, ILL : Charles C. Thomas

Book review of: Rea, K. (2013): The Healing Dance: The Life and Practice of an Expressive Arts Therapist, Springfield, ILL: Charles C. Thoma

Art and dramatherapists together consider a multimodal approach for supporting clients with complex trauma

‘Creative arts therapies’ (CATs) is a combined term referring to therapeutic training in one or more arts modalities. Art therapy and dramatherapy are two of these CATs, each having stand-alone training. Our research shows how, as we investigated the experiences of members in a trauma-informed workshop at the ANZACATA conference in 2018 – where members were celebrated as CATs professionals for the first time – our initial qualitative grounded theory study changed to a more performative and practice-based one. An emergent theory indicates the importance of client and therapist safety, of embodiment, and of exploring the intersectionality of these two modalities

Liminality and ritual in dramatherapy : the intersubjective space

‘Theatre’ is a word which describes what can be seen in a performance space, including an empty stage suggesting an ‘active absence’ as well as performativity. The space can also be a liminal one where the audience experiences flashes of recognition as in Hamlet's play within the play. ‘Aha moments’ are not always of the guilty secret variety that Shakespeare wanted to emphasize there, but sometimes of really inspired vision. They can give us a soul sense which connects us more easily with a way of perceiving the world around us. These moments wake us up, freeing us from unconsciousness and allowing us to renew the unfinished past in the light of the present moment, changing our biography. Dramatherapy offers an intersubjective space where therapist and client can build a ritualized enclosure, a play space where mysteries can be explored and in-between openings encountered. In the Covid-19 era, the enclosures can be as limited as small, rectangular spaces on a computer screen. This chapter explores the choices of spaces for sessional dramatherapy with a range of clients and supervisees, connecting them with the possibilities for liminal space to occur. Encounters with adult clients from private practice as well as people with dementia from a doctoral research project are presented here. They demonstrate that dramatherapy interventions, given preparatory thought and reflection, can result in a process where unexpected awakenings can be embodied, experienced and later processed

For love of the world

The play For love of the world (also called an ethnodrama), was written as the centrepiece of a thesis (Jaaniste, 2014) which linked my interest in dramatherapy with research in the fields of dramatherapy and dementia. My thesis research was carried out as a result of invitations by individuals and organisations interested in a person-centred approach to people with dementia (Kitwood, 1997), to work with this population and write about them and the effects of dramatherapy upon their lives. In the light of our ageing population, and the small quantum of published research in the area, I wanted to find out whether dramatherapy would improve well-being for people with dementia, and have a positive effect on their quality of life

Missing the point : dementia, biomedicine and dramatherapy

While the arts therapies cannot be placed into the same category as complementary medicine and do not come under the legal ramifications of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), there remain considerable barriers to their trained therapists’ acceptance as clinical practitioners, despite having Masters level training. Art therapy now has its own professional award as psychotherapy; however, drama-therapy is seen as a complementary therapy, even though it is registered to the same standard as art and music therapy by the Australia and New Zealand Arts Therapy Association (ANZATA). However, the arts therapy modalities (art, drama, dance and music therapy) are not readily accepted in mainstream medicine, and certain simple tasks may only be fulfilled by a doctor, nurse, social worker, occupational therapist or psychologist ‘for medico-legal reasons’. In biomedical approaches to dementia, for example, environments for people’s care have been constructed around the needs of the carers who are well rather than asking the individuals and communities themselves what their needs are. This chapter encompasses the gesture of self-healing for participants that is present in her specific area of drama therapy. The chapter will include a meta-analytical response to the challenging discourse of institutions that tick biomedical boxes and put medication before individual needs in dementia care

Quality of life improvement through dramatherapy with people with dementia : a developmental approach

This paper explores Quality of life (QoL) of people with dementia from a developmental viewpoint by presenting research stories from 16 sessions of dramatherapy. An early life developmental paradigm, Embodiment, Projection and Role (EPR), is reversed for old age, in order to honour later lifestages: Role, Projection and Embodiment (RPE) actively promoting expression. The full range of feeling intelligence (a concept defined and clarified in this article) was apparent in the dramatherapy group during a mixed-method project. Improved QoL of the group was demonstrated, compared with a control group undertaking ‘usual activities’. Triangulated with the quantitative data, resulting qualitative improvement in QoL in the dramatherapy group was justified

Dramatherapy With Elders and People With Dementia: Enabling Developmental Wellbeing

Dramatherapy with Elders and People with Dementia illuminates how targeted sessions of dramatherapy can improve the quality of life of elderly people with dementia. The book takes the reader through the dramatherapy experience of a group of people who display a 'feeling intelligence'; a quality that softens distress at vanishing words and clouded memories. Unique in its approach, not only to dramatherapy with elders and people with dementia, it presents an essential validation of older people's life stage development. Rather than being different or 'other', Jaaniste paints word pictures to show human qualities such people have in common with their dementia-free contemporaries. Readers will glean insights into the arts therapies, especially creative drama, meeting examples of elder wisdom, wit and resilience in dealing with life, but especially grief, loss, and deep questions that come with ageing. Enriched with vignettes and anecdotes based on rigorous research and measurement, the book will be suitable for adaptation by arts therapists and other allied health professionals who are interested in using person-centred, strengths-based approaches

Immuniversal discoveries

COVID-19 has changed so much about life, especially my professional life. I live and work as a drama therapist in Sydney, Australia, which has been in lockdown since early April. I miss my face-to-face work with clients, but I do not want my biases about arts therapy via telehealth to negatively affect the privileged work I do with people. This reflection calls on wise thinkers to make sense of a change that is based on challenges and learnings during this adventure in telehealth with students and clients. Examples from my teaching and clinical work serve to illustrate how a drama therapy transition has been made in my practice

Interview with Sue Jennings

In this interview Joanna -Jaaniste speaks with pioneer dramatherapist Dr Sue Jennings, who founded 'remedial drama' in the '70s, a modality which eventually became known as dramatherapy. Since then, Sue has completed her doctorate on fieldwork with the Senoi Temiar tribe of Malaysia, worked dramatherapeutically with men and women in the fertility clinic of the London Hospital, co-founded the British Association of Dramatherapists, and much more. In this interview she speaks about her work with adults and orphaned young people in Romania using ma'sks; clinical choice points with a range of clients; and the development of her Neuro-DramaticPlay and Embodiment-Projection-Role models. Sue is a prolific author and continues to edit and publish books on dramatherapy

Life stage and human development in dramatherapy with people who have dementia

In Australia, as in other Western countries, respect for elders is being lost in the economic and political discourse over dementia and its perceived social and fiscal consequences. Because of 'gerontologists' value-dependent assumptions' (Tornstam 2005, p. 29), little is written about life-stage development for the elderly, even in dementia. This chapter advocates for sensitive use of developmental models, thereby avoiding the chance of 'othering' older people (Taussig 1980). The critique of the notion of autonomous existence through theories of inter-subjectivity and embodiment (Merleau-Ponty 1945/1962) lends weight to Taussig's warning, emphasising the value of the selfhood of people with dementia. Merleau-Ponty's interpretation of embodiment and inter-subjectivity seems to be missing from Kitwood's (1997) otherwise enlightened views of how personhood may be maintained in dementia in an interpersonal dimension (Kontos 2004, 2005)