ABSTRACT
Adults who suffer from grief and connect with an empathic and compassionate listener can benefit from watching live theatrical productions or short films on themes of grief and loss. This approach to grief therapy can be held one on one or in a group setting or classroom. It may be less appropriate for individuals who are not assured of caring and skilled listeners or whose experience of traumatic or fresh loss requires highly tailored individual or family-centered intervention. Using theater as a means to start a conversation regarding experiences of loss serves as an effective practice for clients in mourning and students. It invites them to experience a major emotional, cognitive and physical shift regarding death and grief and demonstrates that contact with a live experience, such as observing a play, can foster sensations, movements, emotions and images known as affective embodied experience.
