The autobiographical dramatic theatrical performance as a therapeutic intervention
Performance-based drama therapy: Autobiographical Performance as a Therapeutic Intervention
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35699/2237-5864.2021.36301Keywords:
Drama Therapy, Autobiographical Therapeutic Performance., Therapeutic TheratreAbstract
This paper articulates the basic features of Autobiographical Therapeutic Performance (ATP). Contextualizing it in drama therapy practice as a performance-based intervention, the paper describes ATPs roots in experimental theatre and grounds its features in psychotherapy concepts. The paper outlines the main therapeutic constituents of ATP: Narrating lived experience, shaping the material into aesthetic forms, embodying, and rehearsing personal stories that have been processed, performing in front of an audience, and integrating new insights in the post-performance reflection. Finally, a “warning” is voiced about the potential danger of using this intervention when it’s not adequate.
References
Ali, A., Wolfert, S., Lam, I. and Rahman, T. (2018). Intersecting modes of aesthetic distance and mimetic induction in therapeutic process: Examining a drama-based treatment for military-related traumatic stress, Drama Therapy Review, 4:2, 153–65, doi: https://doi.org/10.1386/dtr.4.2.153_1
Ali, A.; Wolfert, S. and Homer, B. (2019). In the service of science: Veteran-led research in the investigation of a theatre-based posttraumatic stress disorder treatment. Journal of Humanistic Psychology. doi:10.1177/0022167819839907
Artaud, A. (2010) [1964]. The Theatre and Its Double. Richmond, Surrey: Oneworld classics.
Bailey, S. (2007). Drama therapy. In A. Blatner (Ed.), Interactive and improvisational drama (pp.164-173). NY: i Universe, Inc.
Bailey, S. (2009). Performance in drama therapy. In D, Johnson and R. Emunah (Eds.), Current approaches in drama therapy (pp.374-389). Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
Emunah, R. (2020). Acting for Real. New York, NY: Routledge.
Fischer-Lichte, E. (2014). The Routledge introduction to theatre and performance studies. Abingdon, Oxon (UK) and New York (US): Routledge.
Gjelsvik B., Lovric D., Williams J. (2018). Embodied cognition and emotional disorders: Embodiment and abstraction in understanding depression. Journal of Experimental Psychopathology. doi:10.5127/pr.035714
Gopalakrishna, M. and Rao, S. (2017). Performance, revelation and resistance: Interweaving the artistic and the therapeutic in devised theatre. Indian Theatre Journal, 1:1, 83-90. doi: https://doi.org/10.1386/itj.1.1.83_3
Harel, D. (2016). Autobiographical therapeutic theatre with older people with dementia. In S. Pendzik, R. Emunah and D. Johnson (eds.), The Self in Performance (pp. 213-226). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Heddon, D. (2008). Autobiography and performance. Hampshire & New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kauder-Nalebuff (2018) The birds: A writer learns from therapeutic theatre. Drama therapy Review, 4:2, 287-293. doi: 10.1386/dtr.4.2.287_7
Landy, R. (1996). The use of distancing in drama therapy. In: Essays in drama therapy: The double life, (pp. 13-27). London: Jessica Kingsley.
Landy, R. and Montgomery, D. (2012). Theatre for change: Education, social action, and therapy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lehmann, H. T. (2006). Postdramatic theatre. Abingdon, Oxon and New York: Routledge.
McAdams, D. (2008). Personal narratives and the life story. In O. P. John, R. Robins, and L. Pervin (eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp.242-262). New York & London: Guilford Press.
Park-Fuller, L. (2003). A clean breast of it. In: L. C. Miller, J. Taylor, and M. Carver (Eds.), Performing women’s autobiography: Voices made flesh (pp.215-236). Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.
Perez, L. (2019). Writings on art, spirituality and the decolonial. Durham & London: Duke University Press. Retrieved 21, 9, 2021, https://books.google.co.il/books?id=WH66DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Pendzik, S. (2006). On dramatic reality and its therapeutic function in drama therapy. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 33, 271–80.
Pendzik, S. (2014). The poiesis and praxis of autobiographic therapeutic theatre. Keynote speech pronounced at the 2013 Summer Academy Conference of the DGFT (German Association of Theatertherapy). Proceedings [German], 112-132.
Pendzik, S. (2016). Dramatherapy and the feminist tradition. In S. Jennings and C. Holmwood, (Eds.), The international handbook of dramatherapy (pp.306-316). London: Routledge.
Pendzik, S. (2021). Autobiographical therapeutic performance in drama therapy. In D. Johnson and R. Emunah (Eds.), Current approaches in drama therapy, third edition (pp. 338-361). Springfield, IL: Charles, C. Thomas.
Pendzik, S. and Brik Levy (2018). Dramaterapia: un enfoque creativo para el trabajo terapéutico. Madrid: Síntesis.
Pendzik, S., Emunah, R, and Johnson, D. (2016). The self in performance: context, definitions, directions. In: The self in performance: Autobiographical, self-revelatory, and auto-ethnographic forms of therapeutic theatre (pp.1-18). New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.
Pitruzzella, S. (2017) Drama, creativity and intersubjectivity: the roots of change in dramatherapy. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Schechner, R (2002). My art in life: Interviewing Spalding Gray. The Drama Review, 46(4), 154-174.
Schechner, R. (2013). Performance studies: An introduction (third edition). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Sennett, R. (1974). The fall of public man: On the social psychology of capitalism. New York: Vintage.
Snow, S. (2009). Ritual/theatre/therapy. In D.R. Johnson and R. Emunah (Eds.), Current approaches to drama therapy (pp.117-144). Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
Snow, S. (2016). Influences of experimental theatre on the emergence of self-revelatory performance, In S. Pendzik, R. Emunah, and D. Johnson (Eds.), The self in performance (pp. 21-35). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Snow, S., D’Amico, M., Tanguay, D. (2003). Therapeutic theatre and well-being. Arts in Psychotherapy 30, 73–82.
Stanislavski, K. (1989) [1936]. An actor prepares. New York: Routledge.
White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company.
Wood, S.M. (2018). Transforming families using performance: Witnessing performed lived experience. Drama Therapy Review, 4:1, 23-37. doi: 10.1386/dtr.4.1.23_1
Yaniv, D. (2014). Don’t just think there, do something: A call for action in psychological science. Arts in Psychotherapy, 41, 336-342. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aip.2014.03.005
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Editor Revista Pós
![Creative Commons License](http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/88x31.png)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish in this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under the a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License that permits sharing of the work with acknowledgement of authorship and initial publication in this journal;
- Authors are permitted to enter into additional contracts separately, for non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in this journal (e.g., the Creative Commons Attribution License).
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to publish and distribute their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their home page) at any point before or during the editorial process, as this may generate productive changes as well as increase the impact and citation of the published work.
- It is the responsibility of the authors to obtain written permission to use in their articles materials protected by copyright law. Revista PÓS is not responsible for copyright breaches made by its contributors.