Symbol and metaphor

In order to believe that all these castles, trees and rocks designed in canvas and unnatural in outline and proportions are real, one must will them to be real.

Hoffman, ‘Cruel Sufferings of a Stage Director’

Some clients or client groups form relationships with dramatic symbols and metaphors quickly and spontaneously. They will be able to create, be aware of and use the richness of the symbol or metaphor. Van Den Bosch reflected this in her research vignette (p. 150) regarding Jilly’s use of symbolic objects: ‘it was a very powerful connection and quite immediate’. Other clients may create and use symbols within sessions but are developmentally unable to reflect and use them. For others, the emphasis in dramatherapy would usually be upon concrete and reality-based drama, rather than the exploration of metaphoric or symbolic aspects of enactment. For some clients it is necessary to introduce them to the way in which dramatic symbols and metaphors can be expressed and worked with in dramatherapy. The formation and expression of a symbol or metaphor within dramatherapy involves a particular kind of relationship with the material presented by the client. Langley referred to the ideas presented in the first edition of this book on symbol and metaphor in a way that lies at the heart of clients’ vital involvement in acting. She says that within the dramatherapy space clients experience an enacted, metaphoric or symbolic reality:

Bolton . . . describes the experience of ‘it is happening to me now’ as a function of dramatic play (1979: 54). Certainly the ‘as if’ factor is paramount in both dramatherapy and psychodrama . . . The use of a stage area indicates the presence of an audience, and with it the application of . . . a ‘suspension of disbelief’ (Jones 1996: 44) . . . the audience knows the events in the story being presented on stage are not really happening

in the here and now, yet are able to believe in them as if they were. The performance is real and happening at the moment.