Youth mental health needs extend beyond traditional clinical and school settings. Summer camps can offer responsive, relationship-based environments for emotional support; however, descriptions of such mental health interventions within this setting are currently lacking. To address this gap and advance a theory-based conceptualization of tailored approaches for summer camp, this article discusses the Wellness Program, a multi-tiered drama therapy-informed model delivering brief, developmentally attuned interventions for campers and staff at a large Jewish overnight summer camp in the Midwestern United States. Case illustrations analysed through drama therapy core processes demonstrate how techniques like role-play, embodiment and dramatic projection addressed anxiety, homesickness and acute distress, highlighting the clinical potential of drama therapy in camp-based mental health care.
This report outlines the development , articulation of the Drama Therapy Disability Justice Tenets, , emerging from a collaborative workshop led by the Lesley University Dis/ability Lab and New York University's Disability Justice Interest Group at the 2024 NADTA Conference. Responding to persistent gaps in drama therapy training, pedagogy and professional culture, including the marginalization of dis/abled practitioners, limited disability-centred frameworks , the reproduction of ableist norms, the tenets are grounded in critical disabil- ity theory and the principles of disability justice. They offer suggestions designed to move beyond accommodation-based approaches towards structurally inclusive and justice-oriented practice. Drawing from community dialogue, lived experi- ence and previous research, the authors interrogate ableist structures embedded in therapeutic and educational systems and position the tenets as a practical and philosophical response to these systemic barriers, proposing a shift towards more inclusive, relational and equity-based models of engagement. The report high- lights universal design, co-created learning and the repositioning of lived experi- ence as expertise, offering actionable strategies for integrating disability justice into drama therapy spaces. These tenets serve as a living framework, intended for adaptation, that reimagines access, care and embodiment in training and clinical practice.
Individuals facing housing insecurity are at elevated risk for loneliness, social isolation and poor well-being. This mixed-methods study ( N = 52) examined a twelve-week drama therapy program with adults in permanent supportive housing using surveys, interviews and photo-elicitation. Significant increases in perceived group support were observed ( z = 2.03, p < 0.05), with higher creative self-efficacy among interview participants ( z = 2.54, p < 0.05). Six qualitative themes highlighted personal growth, social connection, emotional expression and structured therapeutic engagement. Integrated meta-inferences showed that participants experienced meaningful psychosocial benefits even when quantitative changes were modest. Drama therapy offers an accessible, relational intervention that supports connection, well-being and engagement in supportive housing settings.
This report concerns a seminar held by the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London, to celebrate 1000 citations of Drama as Therapy . The focus was on the influence of the book’s definition of the ‘core processes’ of drama therapy, drawing on interviews with researchers in different countries. The extended report contributes to the drama therapy literature by offering extracts from the seminar to illustrate how Jones’s core processes are being reinterpreted, operationalized and contested across varied, international research contexts, offering a form of qualitative knowledge insight derived from interviews with author/researchers. Themes within the interviews include the development of the core processes in: enabling the analysis of change within drama therapy research involving varied contexts and different client groups; understanding and articulating dialogues between drama therapy and different theories or frameworks of change; and supporting research concerning evidence-building.
This qualitative study explores how dis/abled drama therapy students and drama therapy faculty experience graduate training and envision more equitable education. Using separate virtual focus groups with dis/abled students and drama therapy educators across North America, researchers conducted reflexive thematic analysis to generate role- and system-based themes capturing 'Academic Harm', Findings highlight a persistent disconnect between individuals and institutions; reliance on individual faculty to 'patch' inaccessible systems; and the importance of mentorship, flexible pedagogy and disability justice principles. The authors propose a model and concrete recommendations to reorient drama therapy education towards access, collective care and leadership by those most impacted.
This commentary is based upon Robert Landy’s autobiography, The Mask and the Mirror: A Life in Drama Therapy , to be published in 2027. Landy discusses how the mask embodies the drama therapy paradoxes of reality and imagination, role and self. He cites photographer/mentor, Claude Cahun, whose deep mask work informs an understanding of role theory in drama therapy: ‘Under this mask, another mask. I will never finish lifting up all these faces’.
This autoethnographic study explored the emergence of play in post-genocide Rwanda through a drama therapist’s mission to work with street children. Despite extreme poverty and adversity, children demonstrated a remarkable capacity for creative expression, transforming found objects into play materials and creating safe spaces through performance. Four themes emerged: (1) Play in times of adversity; (2) Beyond words: the shared grammar of play; (3) The function of creative expression in extreme circumstances and (4) Power dynamics and playfulness. Findings illuminate play’s fundamental role in human resilience and meaning-making across cultures.
Drama therapy is delivered to children in schools; however, little empirical data evaluating the quantitative effect is currently available. This observation study of ten children undergoing drama therapy for emotional distress (anxiety, depression, trauma) addressed this gap. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) assessed both group and individual change. Child-, parent- and teacher-reported distress symptoms reduced, particularly internalizing symptoms and those measured via the RCADS. Studies with a larger sample, allowing for subgroup analyses, are recommended.
This editorial marks a dual transition for Drama Therapy Review : its move to full open access and a change in editorial leadership. It situates these shifts within wider developments in the field, including core processes research, disability justice initiatives and renewed attention to political responsibility. Drawing on contributions set in schools, supportive housing, summer camp and humanitarian contexts, alongside theoretical work on masks, role and pedagogy, it proposes future directions that link mechanisms of change with ethical, political and institutional commitments in drama therapy.
This commentary presents an argument for thinking politically as an essential part of ethical drama therapeutic practice. It argues that our fears may result in silencing, which in the face of injustice can represent complicity by default. The conflict in the land shared by Israelis and Palestinians is discussed as emblematic of global struggles. Some thoughts are laid out on how the history of European racism, colonial settlement and imperialist interests have contributed to the formation of an apartheid state and used to justify a genocide of the Palestinian people. The commentary concludes by suggesting that our training as drama therapists provides the opportunity to think with detachment, about human experiences, which cannot be deracinated from political contexts, and profoundly affect our understanding of trauma and emotional distress.
Review of: Drama therapy, improvisation and theatre devising for social change in Ta’ Sakena , directed by Nada Sabet, British Council, Cairo, December 2017
This editorial introduces a collection of research articles, commentaries, a performance review and a report that reflect the evolving landscape of drama therapy practice and scholarship. Spanning institutional, educational, ecological and community-based contexts, the contributions explore tensions between structure and spontaneity, clinical authority and creative autonomy, and individual vulnerability and collective healing. With a shared emphasis on aesthetic distance, relational practice and social justice, this issue challenges the field to reckon with its professional norms and expand its ethical imagination. Together, these works illuminate new paths for drama therapy to support inclusion, co-production and liberation across diverse settings.
This report examines a two-day drama therapy session, Passeggiate serene: Dialogo Silenzioso con la Terra, held during 25-26 May 2024 in Parco Increa and Bosco del Fontanone, Italy. The project was conducted with Legambiente and funded by Parchi Locali di Interesse Sovracomunale with participants aged 10-80, including a dog and a new-born baby. Participants engaged in non-verbal communication and sensory immersion in nature in sessions designed to foster self-expression and self-observation, while addressing emotional distress related to climate change
While drama therapy (DT) is used in substance abuse treatment (SAT), little is known about how therapists navigate the clinical tension between client-centred, process-oriented principles and the directive protocols of psychiatric settings. This qualitative study explores this dynamic within a specific SAT program in a Czech psychiatric hospital. Semi-structured group interviews were conducted with six drama therapists experienced in addiction treatment, and data were analysed using inductive content analysis to identify core practitioner strategies. The find-ings indicate that in response to the directive environment, therapists consistently prioritize the therapeutic relationship, using this alliance as the primary means to foster safety and support client autonomy. This study concludes that in such demanding clinical contexts, the strength of the therapeutic alliance is the most critical factor for effective DT practice, representing a key professional adaptation for navigating directive settings
The study explored the effects of a set of beginner-level actor training exercises on first-year theatre and psychology university students. Participants took part in an eight-session intervention, during which global and momentary stress, well-being and group closeness were assessed using self-report measures. Both groups showed reduced momentary stress and increased group closeness, with psychol-ogy students also experiencing reduced global stress and improved well-being. The findings suggest these exercises may promote stress management and social bond-ing, with further research needed to address limitations
Inspired by Christine Mayor and Britton Williams's (2024) Arts in Psychotherapyarticle, 'Dreaming of an abolitionist drama therapy', this clinical commentary explores drama therapy as a tool for resisting carceral logics in mental health. We provide the statement first presented at the 2024 North American Drama Therapy Association Conference, explaining how being grounded in collective healing, disability justice and harm reduction abolitionist drama therapy can reclaim narratives, challenge punitive models and foster accountability beyond policing and incarceration. By leveraging neuroplasticity and performance, it can cultivate internal liberation, offering pathways to justice, resilience and radical transformation. We conclude with our steps for embodying abolitionist practices through relational praxis, narrative reclamation and systems critique
Lifelong learning about anti-oppressive practice (AOP) is essential for clinicians, particularly in the current social and political climate, yet there are challenges associated with teaching AOP. This article offers a case illustration of aesthetic distance in clinical training through the use of the drama therapy tool of ancestral monologues, thus addressing some of the challenges that arise in AOP clinical training and supporting students to work with clients, colleagues and communi-ties with increased cultural humility
'Open my eyes' is a reflective essay on the collaboration between a group partic-ipant (or client) and a creative arts therapist who ran an LGBTQIA+ support group as part of a drug and alcohol prevention education program. This essay shines a spotlight on inclusion, collaboration and role-taking involving the roles of creator collaborator, artist, poet and lyricist. It also touches upon disability justice tenets, such as wholeness, shared decision-making, intersectionality, co-creation and proper attribution for creative work.
This clinical commentary examines the challenges faced by actors training in collegiate settings and how drama therapists can support them. Acting techniques are examined and critiqued for harmful practices, and the impacts of power differentials, vulnerability politics and competition between college-aged acting students are explored. The authors argue that drama therapists are ideally suited to help student actors and offer a template and techniques for drama therapists to use with this population
Research shows that activists as a population may be at high risk for developing symptoms of trauma, isolation, alienation and burnout due to a host of internal and external factors. This instrumental case study, originally undertaken in the context of a graduate research project, describes a ten-week intervention with a group of female social and environmental activists exploring the theme of self-care. The interventions were based on the integration of two frameworks: drama therapy methods and processes-including Jones's core processes, Salas's Playback Theatre, Emunah's Five Phase Model of drama therapy and Silverman's Story Within model-and an ecopsychological group process developed by Joanna Macy and her colleagues, known as the Work that Reconnects. Interventions are described and analysed in terms of the integration of methods and the development of self-care as a guiding theme. The study draws larger implications for activist self-care practice, including the role of honouring painful feelings as integral to self-care, and the potential for drama therapy to foster collective practices of self-care within activist movements. The study suggests that drama therapists may have a unique role to play in supporting activists to find tools to engage sustainably in their work. By integrating the Work that Reconnects and drama therapy methods, this research proposes an ecodramatherapy: a drama therapy practice that is rooted in the anticolonial perception of our fundamental relatedness with, and responsibility to, all peoples and forms of life. It is our hope that the lessons from this research, done over a decade ago now, may inspire therapists, facilitators and activists alike to create circles of safety and support for those engaging in the demanding work of fighting for climate justice for present and future generations.
