ABSTRACT

Routledge International Handbook of Dramatherapy is the first book of its kind to bring together leading professionals and academics from around the world to discuss their practice from a truly international perspective. Dramatherapy has developed as a profession during the latter half of the twentieth century.  Now, we are beginning to see its universal reach across the globe in a range of different and diverse approaches. From Australia, to Korea to the Middle East and Africa through Europe and into North & South America dramatherapists are developing a range of working practices using the curative power of drama within a therapeutic context to work with diverse and wide ranging populations.

Using traditional texts in the Indian sub-continent, healing performances in the Cameroon, supporting conflict in Israel and Palestine, through traditional Comedic theatre in Italy, to adolescents in schools and adults with mental ill health, this handbook covers a range of topics that shows the breadth, depth and strength of dramatherapy as a developing and maturing profession. It is divided into four main sections that look at the current international:

Developments in dramatherapy

Theoretical approaches

Specific practice

New and innovative approaches

Offering insights on embodiment, shamanism, anthropology and cognitive approaches coupled with a range of creative, theatrical and therapeutic methods, this ground breaking book is the first congruent analysis of the profession. It will appeal to a wide and diverse international community of educators, academics, practitioners, students, training schools and professionals within the arts, arts education and arts therapies communities. Additionally it will be of benefit to teachers and departments in charge of pastoral and social care within schools and colleges.

 

 

part I|63 pages

International developments in dramatherapy

chapter 1|6 pages

The development of Korean drama therapy

From a latecomer to the leading special practical human science in arts therapy

chapter 3|7 pages

Converging lineages

Arts-based therapy in contemporary India

chapter 4|10 pages

Embodying Ramayana

The drama within

chapter 5|9 pages

Culture and mental health

An evaluation of Esie performance as a community-based approach to dramatherapy in Cameroon

chapter 6|7 pages

A bridge over troubled waters

‘Play can break the mask of silence’

part II|125 pages

Internationalism and theoretical approaches

chapter 9|15 pages

How do dramatherapists understand client change?

A review of the ‘core processes’ at work

chapter 14|10 pages

From brains to bottoms

The preoccupations of the very young and the very old

chapter 15|15 pages

A critical aesthetic paradigm in drama therapy

Aesthetic distance, action and meaning making in the service of diversity and social justice

chapter 16|10 pages

Dramatherapy and theatre

Current interdisciplinary discourses

part III|83 pages

Internationalism and specific practice

chapter 20|8 pages

Drowning … but waving

Children today

chapter 21|10 pages

‘I am a black flower’

The use of rituals in dramatherapy work with a special education class in Arab–Israeli society

chapter 23|10 pages

Stevie and the Little Dinosaur

A story of assessment in dramatherapy

chapter 25|12 pages

Sparks of hope

Dramatherapy with people with a terminal illness

part IV|90 pages

Internationalism and new and innovative approaches

chapter 27|10 pages

The dramatherapy commedia

Improvisation, creativity and person-making

chapter 28|9 pages

Spagyric dramatherapy

A transcendental perspective

chapter 29|12 pages

Breaking through the walls of shyness

Overcoming shyness, self-consciousness and social anxiety through dramatherapy

chapter 34|12 pages

Redefinition, restoration, resilience 1

Drama therapy for healing and social transformation

chapter |2 pages

Afterword