6 MAJOR BENEFITS OF DRAMA THERAPY
Drama therapy is the application of theatrical skills to aid personal development and mental wellness. Drama therapy is employed in a variety of contexts, such as hospitals, schools, mental health facilities, jails, and corporations. Drama therapy is a type of creative arts therapy that can be used by individuals, couples, families, and groups in a variety of ways. The benefits of drama therapy are better. Drama therapy is a hands-on, immersive approach to change facilitation. Participants are encouraged to practice desired behaviors, stretch and find flexibility within life roles, and perform the change they hope to be and see in the world through narrative, projective play, deliberate improvisation, and performance. The use of drama and/or theatrical procedures to attain therapeutic aims is known as drama therapy. Drama therapy is a hands-on, active, and experiential form of therapy. Participants can tell their stories, make goals and solve problems, vent feelings, and reach catharsis using this approach.
- Feel Less Isolated:
Drama therapy usually takes place in groups. A drama therapist ensures an individual is understood and helped in this therapeutic process. As this therapy is mostly group therapy one does not feel isolated and thoughts of loneliness are driven away. Because you can communicate with your counselor during therapy, it can help you overcome loneliness. They pay attention to you, care about your feelings, and assist you in beginning to understand the significance of loneliness in your life and how it affects your health. The presence of other people also makes an individual feel connected and present at the moment rather than being lost in his/her loneliness.
2. Helps in Expressing Feelings:
Drama therapy includes many expressive techniques and exercises which help one understand his/her behavior. By reacting to others, participants express their feelings. To better understand their thoughts and behaviors, as well as the feelings and behaviors of others, participants adopt strategies including role reversal and emulating the protagonist's conduct. These exercises make one understand his likes and dislikes, and his behavior more clearly just like personality development training helps one get aware of his/her personality and behavior. For example, dramatic projection is a technique that allows people to project their inner thoughts and difficulties onto a character or an object.
3. Reduces Symptoms of Social Anxiety:
In a study published in European Psychiatry, drama therapy was also found to aid in the reduction of social anxiety symptoms. Drama therapy allows people to escape and release their emotions. They are allowed to play a different persona with a different life and perspective. Exercises like role-playing or enacting like a fictional character helps an individual to escape reality and be someone else for some time. It also helps to escape from the pressures of life into the imagination for a little while. The fictional character helps in distracting the mind and becoming confident and happy in the fictional play which results in the loss of stress. For example, Personification and impersonation are two separate strategies for expressing personal material through role-play or onto an item.
4. Relate Better to Other People:
Many drama therapy exercises are based on the empathy factor. Empathy and distance in drama therapy help the participants' ability to engage or disengage with content that connects with their issues and inner conflicts. As many activities are performed in groups one gets to know other people's behavior and their problems. It's like walking in the same shoes. Relating and understanding others becomes easier due to group activities. The role of a therapist, like the best personality skills mentor, plays a crucial role as they are the mediator who handles groups and makes them feel at home.
5. Provides Healthy and Creative Ways:
As parents avoid sending small children to a professional therapist, a drama therapist works out well for them, as here little children learn via creative techniques and exercises. They might not even be aware that they are under therapy, these exercises may be like their vacation of fun with other students. They learn important life skills in a creative manner, problem-solving, expressing their feelings, and standing up for themselves are all learned via different techniques associated with drama therapy.
6. Set Goals:
Goal-setting is effective because it gives you direction. Setting objectives allows you to prepare steps that will help you achieve your desired outcome. Every therapist tracks and notes down your performance, they help you in figuring out your goals, and your likes and dislikes and ensure you stick to them and achieve them shortly.
Developing better coping skills, broadening the range of expression of emotions, easy problem solving, and understanding themselves and their experience more effectively are more benefits of drama therapy. Drama therapy, for example, is a unique way to deal with difficulties, express yourself, make objectives, and acquire confidence through expressive or creative therapies. Drama therapy is one of the expressive therapies that allow you to try on different roles, and develop new ways of communicating and expressing yourself.