The role of dramatherapy in personal healing and growth

For Julianne Mullen, dramatherapy was a natural career path. It draws together her passions for drama, theatre and teaching into one role – arewarding one in which she’s seen significant results. ‘Through dramatherapy, I’ve witnessed the incredible potential of drama and theatre to facilitate creativity, imagination, learning, insight, change and growth,’ she says.

Julianne works with clients through her private practice, Phoenix Dramatherapy, in north and central London, and with children aged three to 11 in state schools. She explains that in dramatherapy, all the performance arts are utilised within the therapeutic relationship. ‘[It] gives equal validity to body and mind within the dramatic context,’ she says.

‘Stories, metaphor and improvisation are examples of artistic interventions that a drama therapist may employ.’

US drama therapist David R Johnson, co-director of the Post Traumatic Stress Center in New Haven, Connecticut, defines the therapy as ‘the intentional use of creative drama toward the psychotherapeutic goals of symptom relief, emotional and physical integration and personal growth’. Categorised as a psychotherapy, it draws on the healing potential of drama and theatre to help people explore and reflect on their feelings in a bid to bring about meaningful change. It encompasses working with more positive ways of thinking, feeling and behaving, and can be used to address concerns including anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, phobias and lack of confidence. Practitioners, who are both clinicians and artists, work in private practice, prisons, education and public health and social services.