The Drama Therapy Decision Tree

Sally Bailey, Paige Dickinson

Description

This book provides the reader with a thorough understanding of drama therapy methods through the provision of examples so therapists can select the most appropriate methods and apply them themselves.  The authors provide a common language for communicating what drama therapists do in terms of diagnoses and interventions, especially for new students in the field.

There has been no systematic method developed for drama therapists and drama therapy students for selecting the most appropriate drama therapy technique or method for clients. Typically, students leave university and have to work out how to plan treatment through trial and error. This book is not intended as an instruction manual, but the authors of this book have identified and analysed how they approached this task themselves, and they explain how the theory learnt at university can be put into practice. Their desire is to give early career drama therapy professionals a reliable and effective tool for making the best clinical decisions they can. This book is not only an educational tool, but also a practitioner’s reference tool for planning how to address the socio-emotional needs of their clients. Readers will find this timely book offers structure to drama therapy teachers and students alike.  

It explains the basic tools that drama therapists use in all therapy situations, starting with the therapeutic process, then moves on to identify the core healing concepts that make drama therapy so powerful and unique. The diagnostic systems used by all mental health professionals (DSM-5 and ICD-11) are integrated by relating the core healing concepts and tools to the symptoms of diagnoses. The basic treatment planning process is also discussed. The book then explains how these components are used together systematically through a series of questions (that the therapist asks themself) in order to identify the most appropriate type of intervention for the client. Finally, the book offers several examples of how this system can be applied to a variety of common diagnoses. The appendices provide resources about drama therapy in terms of theory, approach and specific population.

Of primary relevance to teachers and students of drama therapy, and drama therapists and integrative arts therapists in training and early career stages. May be useful for other professionals interested in drama therapy and related creative or therapeutic practices where theatre and drama are used.

Note: in the US context there is a wider range of related practices, which are often regarded as part of drama therapy.

Prologue: The Need for this Book

Chapter One: Foundational Principles of the Therapeutic Process

Chapter Two: Foundational Principles of Drama Therapy

Chapter Three: Diagnoses and Global Issues in Drama Therapy Treatment Planning

Chapter Four: The Drama Therapy Decision Tree, Part One: A Systematic Method of Drama Therapy Treatment Planning

Chapter Five: The Drama Therapy Decision Tree, Part Two: A Systematic Method of Drama Therapy Intervention Choices

Chapter Six: The Drama Therapy Decision Tree: Part Three: Drama Therapy Treatment Evaluation

Chapter Seven: Issues of Diversity and Adaptations for Diagnoses and Individuals

Chapter Eight: Ethical Issues

Appendix A: The Drama Therapy Decision Tree

Appendix B: Treatment Outcome - Intervention Suggestions

Sujets

• Occupational Therapy
• Allied Health Services
• Performing Arts
• Medical
• Médecine
• DSM-5
• Expressive therapy
• Drama therapy
• General officer
• Psychotherapy
• International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems
• General

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 28 janvier 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781789382495
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Drama Therapy Decision Tree
The Drama Therapy Decision Tree
Connecting Drama Therapy Interventions to Treatment
Paige Dickinson and Sally Bailey
First published in the UK in 2021 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2021 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2021 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copy editor: Newgen KnowledgeWorks Cover designer: Aleksandra Szumlas Production manager: Aimée Bates Typesetting: Newgen KnowledgeWorks
Print ISBN 978-1-78938-247-1
ePDF ISBN 978-1-78938-248-8
ePub ISBN 978-1-78938-249-5
To find out about all our publications, please visit www.intellectbooks.com There you can subscribe to our e-newsletter, browse or download our current catalogue, and buy any titles that are in print.
This is a peer-reviewed publication.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Section 1 Foundations
1. Foundational Principles of the Therapeutic Process
2. Foundational Principles of Drama Therapy
3. Foundations of Diagnoses and Global Functioning
Section 2: The Drama Therapy Decision Tree
4. A Systematic Method of Drama Therapy Treatment Planning
5. A Systematic Method for Choosing Drama Therapy Interventions
6. A Systematic Method for Drama Therapy Treatment Evaluation
Section 3: Diversity and Ethical Considerations
7. Diversity: Cultural Competence, Adaptations and Accommodations
8. Ethics
Appendix A The Drama Therapy Decision Tree
Appendix B Global Outcomes Connected to Drama Therapy Intervention Suggestions
References
Index
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the people who have supported us during the writing of this book.
We were inspired to write this book by our students at Kansas State University and Eckerd College, who kept asking for a resource detailing how to synthesize all the information we were pouring into their brains. Right before we started writing, Sally’s supervision class practiced brainstorming which drama therapy interventions would work with specific DSM diagnoses and why. They said they wanted credit when the book came out, so here it is: Michael Rogers, Sarah Edwards, Funmilola Cole, Sherry Brown, Soekie Woolls, Hannah Rockey, Ellen Burke, and Tim Tarkelly.
To the editors at Intellect who responded within eight weeks to our query and accepted our book proposal. They have been accessible and helpful whenever we needed them: Amy Damutz, Tim Mitchell, Jessica Lovett, Naomi Curston, and Aimee Bates. APA format is ingrained in our brains. We are so grateful that the Intellect team was willing to work in APA format, so our brains did not have to do contortions to remember a different citation style!
In terms of artwork, we could not be more pleased with the cover design created by Alex Szumlas. We do a “happy dance” each time we look at it. Thanks also to Sue Leo for her infographic of the Drama Therapy Pie and Hunter Pressley for her wonderful depiction of the Drama Therapy Decision Tree in the Prologue.
Thanks to the colleagues who read various sections of the manuscript and served as experts on special populations or adaptations/accommodations: Nicole Andrusky-Harris and Kristin Long for their knowledge of Deaf culture and cochlear implants, Hunter Blencowe and Ally Gallagher for their expertise in animal assisted therapy and service animals, and Susana Pendzik for feedback on all we wrote about her construct of dramatic reality and the six keys. Thanks to Lanell Finneran for brainstorming book titles, reading several early chapters, and for providing laughs and an introduction to Ninja Ginger Chips. Thanks also to Calli Armstrong for surveying the drama therapy community to confirm which diagnoses drama therapists most frequently address so that our case studies would be most relevant to readers. We are exceedingly grateful to Dr. Mimi Savage for her careful and cogent suggestions about the text and her support and enthusiasm for it. We know she was very busy at the time, and we appreciate her giving of her time and energy to our work.
We were sustained in our work by the enthusiasm of the many drama therapists who attended our workshops at the North American Drama Therapy Conferences during the beginning stages of the Drama Therapy Decision Tree. Whenever we have emailed them for suggestions, they have responded to our queries and encouraged us (as in “So WHEN is the book coming out?”)
Most importantly, thanks go to Quincy, Fred, and Tucker, our cats, who provided comic relief and lots of unconditional positive regard throughout long hours of writing together in-person and on the phone.
Prologue
Entering the profession of drama therapy, the authors of this book walked in to lead our first drama therapy groups knowing that just playing theatre games or improvising scenes was not enough, yet we felt at a loss as to how to proceed in a systematic and effective therapeutic manner. We had been trained in a variety of drama therapy interventions and methods (e.g., role method, psychodrama, sociodrama, playback theatre, etc.), we had taken courses in abnormal psychology, group processes, theories of counseling, and life span development. We could watch a drama therapist in action and identify what theory was being used, why the theory did or did not work, and we could rattle off the interventions that were being employed. But we had difficulty reversing that process. We had difficulty looking at a new group and saying, “This is what is dysfunctional in these clients, and this is how I can use drama therapy to intervene.” We wondered how the drama therapists, who were our mentors and supervisors, knew what to do for which participants at different times. In short, we felt overwhelmed.
Even though we had been taught systematically, our knowledge was not cohesive; it was more like disconnected pieces of a thousand-piece puzzle. We had the puzzle pieces, but we did not know how to start putting them together to create a complete picture. People who do puzzles all the time have a system. They will tell you:

First pull out the edge pieces, then start sorting colors together, and then work on the puzzle in sections. Take the edge pieces and build the frame of the puzzle, then put together the distinct imagery, and then the background. The sections get bigger and start fitting together with each other. Voilà, the puzzle is complete.
We needed a system like that.
Part of the struggle that most early career professionals face relates to the way much of higher education is delivered. All the pieces of information are presented separately in different semesters and not always presented in relation to each other. That is not done to confuse students; the reality is that only one piece of information can be learned at a time. Additionally, when one skill builds upon another, the first must be taught before the next. For instance, a student cannot learn how an intervention will affect a population (i.e., a group of people with a specific diagnosis) without learning first about the intervention and then about the population. Drama therapy students might learn the empty chair technique in a psychodrama class in the fall, but not in context with a specific population. Abnormal psychology, which provides information about specific diagnostic populations, might be taught in a different semester. Drama therapy with special populations provides instruction on how to adapt the empty chair for a particular population, and that course might be in yet another semester. Realistically, there is not enough time in a two- to three-year master’s degree program to explore all the combinations of diagnoses and interventions that might be needed in practice. Even in a doctoral program there is no way to take enough classes to understand all the combinations of participants, interventions, and practice situations that exist in the real world.
What each of us separately discovered, as we grew as therapists and teachers, was a way to synthesize our separate areas of knowledge into a body of knowledge that was accessible to us when needed. Rather than floundering around for ten years, we would like every drama therapist to be able to start thinking systematically right at the beginning of their career. We hope this book will provide that system for you.
This book presents the drama therapy decision tree, which integrates the components involved in drama therapy practice. Using the decision tree as a guide, early career drama therapists can move forward confidently and ground their work with participants in an integrated system. This does not mean that you will never feel confused or that you will never make a mistake, but we hope that you will feel more confident and have a process to follow in order to answer the questions that inevitably come up with new drama therapy groups.
We definitely do not want anyone to use this book as a checklist. As Gary Klein says in his book about insights, “The downside of checklists is that they intentionally induce mindlessness . We just have to follow the steps and not think about them. The important thinking has been done by the checklist designers” ( 2013 , p. 161, emphasis in the original). Each participant and each group that a drama therapist works with will be unique and will need their treatment plan and interventions to be created with detail, sensitivity, and critical thinking. We see this book as a map to keep you on the right path so you can make good choices.
We also definitely do not want anyone to see this book as an intellectual critique of drama therapy or psychological theories. We are not teachi