Overview
This authoritative volume, written by one of the world's leading pioneers in the field, provides an integrative framework for the practice of drama therapy. It is the first book to offer a comprehensive and systematized description of drama therapy techniques as well as an in?depth analysis, supported by clinical examples and case histories, of the progression of brief and long?term drama therapy. After exploring the primary conceptual sources at the roots of drama therapy, the author delineates five distinct development phases in the therapeutic process that will help the therapist to pace treatment, assess progress, and choose effective techniques and interventions. The volumes describes over 125 distinct drama therapy techniques, many of which were created by the author. These techniques are categorized according to phases of the session and treatment series and subcategorized by therapeutic objective. Also included are an examination of performance?oriented drama therapy and "self?revelatory" theater as well as the poignant story about a group of seven former psychiatric patients and the play they created about their lives. The techniques described in Acting for Real will be particularly useful for clients who have difficulty with verbal communication, social interaction, or emotional expression/containment. They can be easily integrated into the contexts of individual, family, and group therapy; day treatment centers; inpatient psychiatric hospital units; as well as clinical and recreational work with all populations and age groups. Drama therapy offers an intensification of the psychotherapeutic process that will contribute to the growing need, in our current economic climate,for more cost?effective types of psychiatric treatment. But above all, drama therapy, as so clearly and knowledgeably set forth in Acting for Real, can offer individuals a particularly potent and multidimensional means of accessing their most profound and vital selves.Synopsis
This authoritative volume, written by one of the world's leading pioneers in the field, provides an integrative framework for the practice of drama therapy. It is the first book to offer a comprehensive and systematized description of drama therapy techniques as well as an in?depth analysis, supported by clinical examples and case histories, of the progression of brief and long?term drama therapy. After exploring the primary conceptual sources at the roots of drama therapy, the author delineates five distinct development phases in the therapeutic process that will help the therapist to pace treatment, assess progress, and choose effective techniques and interventions. The volumes describes over 125 distinct drama therapy techniques, many of which were created by the author. These techniques are categorized according to phases of the session and treatment series and subcategorized by therapeutic objective. Also included are an examination of performance?oriented drama therapy and "self?revelatory" theater as well as the poignant story about a group of seven former psychiatric patients and the play they created about their lives. The techniques described in Acting for Real will be particularly useful for clients who have difficulty with verbal communication, social interaction, or emotional expression/containment. They can be easily integrated into the contexts of individual, family, and group therapy; day treatment centers; inpatient psychiatric hospital units; as well as clinical and recreational work with all populations and age groups. Drama therapy offers an intensification of the psychotherapeutic process that will contribute to the growing need, in our current economic climate,for more cost?effective types of psychiatric treatment. But above all, drama therapy, as so clearly and knowledgeably set forth in Acting for Real, can offer individuals a particularly potent and multidimensional means of accessing their most profound and vital selves.