Paradigm of Dramatherapy.

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Definition of dramatherapy by Sue Jennings is:

“Dramatherapy is the term used for the application of theatre art in special

situations, with the intention that it will be therapeutic, healing or beneficial to

the participants”

There are main aims of dramatherapy such as; enabling communication,

stimulating new thinking, providing means of resolution, developing new skills,

transforming unhelpful experiences, looking at choices, enacting new

journeys, understanding gender issues, exploring politics and so on.

Sue Jennings claims that dramatic development is innate to human beings

and already started in utero, when dramatic interaction take place between

the mother and her unborn child. This appears to be core of our early

dramatic inheritance.

The baby already exists as a person in the imagination of the mother, and

causes the woman to have feelings of displacement, and she reports having a

conversation with the foetus. This is an example of the early dramatisation

before the child is born.

Once the child is born there is a continuation of dramatic interaction between

infant and mother or other carer. Conversation of facial expression, sounds

and words take place and the infant will both echo and also initiate.

During the first year the infant is responding through sensory and bodily

means . variations in sound, light, taste, touch and smell are major transitions

for the child. Infants respond to the way in which they are held or not held,

and to their own body in relation to the immediate physical world around them.

It is the world of proximity both in time and space where the physical presence

of other is essential.

Babies are trouble because they continue to insist on interacting with others,

the essential communication in dramatic form.

The first year is very much the time of physical and sensory play and is

referred as embodiment in terms of children’s dramatic development.

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Towards the end of the first year of life the child is increasingly aware of the

outside world and responding to greater distance in time and space.

Special toys and bed coverings are invested with strong feelings of

attachment and the child is beginning to role reverse with the special objects

as the mother did during pregnancy. The child will talk to the teddy and then

answer on teddy’s behalf. As the child begins to explore the world outside of

the body, much of the playing is still very sensory with the actual feel and

texture.

As the child plays more and more with things beyond the body we can see the

emergence of the stage of projection or projective play.

As the child moves beyond the immediate sensory experience of toys. More

complicated scenarios begin to emerge, cat feels poorly, clown is hungry,

teddy and rabbit go to the seaside. The child is increasingly able to play with

other children and group scene. Although the child uses different voices for

the puppets and the dolls it is still termed projective play rather then dramatic

play.

Projective play includes: all types of drawings, telling stories about the picture,

modelling and clay work, jigsaws, the farm yard and so on. In projective play

the child is creating the world outside of himself and using a variety of media

to do that. Probably the telling of a story with characters and voices is the

nearest projective activity to the next stage, that of role, dramatic play and the

creating of characters. We can observe role activity very early in child’s

development as they mimic different voices, put on dressing up clothes, or

say in a deep voice, I am the monster are you frightened? These are brief

moments of role activity rather than the sustaining of a role and a scene;

much of the role activity is linked with sensory experience and the emotions of

fear and pleasure. Dramatic convention is also used in story telling by children

of three years old, but it is usually projective activity.

At some stage of development children start to dramatise the stories, take on

roles and play various characters, it refers as a role play.

The three stages of embodiment –projection-and role are crucial for human

development and cannot be replace by others type of playing such as

technological play.. During these three stages, not only is understanding of

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everyday reality and the imagination being developed but the child’s

understanding of selfhood and other hood is being established.

Children are learning the norms and values of the society as well as the limits

being imposed on their behaviour. The EPR is the bedrock of children

development into adulthood- its not their psychological or physical or

emotional development- it is their dramatic development- from which all other

development emerges. The dramatic development that enables the body self

and other , the projective self and other and the role self and other to become

established, means that is influences all physical and mental life and

relationships. I am unable to relate to other people unless I have developed

my own self and other identity.

EPR means identity and means a social construct more than a sociological

one.

Furthermore, during the EPR development, the child is gradually learning

about reality and imagination. The child assimilates experiences from the

world- around its hot , its noisy or I feel tired and on the other hand is able to

imagine the exact opposite on the other. In ‘let’s pretend’, the child is entering

the world of imagination, or dramatic reality.

What is needed is a balance between the two and the capacity to move in

and out of the everyday world and the imagined world.

Exercises;

Spend a few moments to recall some special time in your childhood .

1. Describe special playground activity or game which you used to enjoy

playing

2. Write down any stories that you like to hear over and over again,

whether you enjoyed enacting this stories. What character did you

imagine yourself to be while listening or enacting.

3. Describe or draw any special toys that were like your personal friends.

Did they have names? What scenes did you play out together?

4. Can you recreate scene of your favourite activity or game?

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