Drama Therapy

By Lopa Mukherjee - Jan 15, 2021

This article discusses the many personalities each individual possesses that makes him act as though he were many actors, switching roles seamlessly during the course of the day. When this acting is done consciously and for the purpose of healing, it is called drama therapy. It is a form of expressive arts therapy that draws out repressed emotions to the surface for cleansing purposes. A repressed affect causes pathology in other layers of the being and can be an invisible drag on the person’s well-being. The process of expressing it releases the repressed emotion’s hold on the psyche. Trauma victims enact the scenes of their trauma and socialise the crime to heal their own wounding. Those in the audience who may have suffered a similar fate also find solace. In the safe container created by the therapist the drama can be acted out, repeatedly if needed, with new and positive endings. Many festivals and rituals in pre-modern cultures addressed this need to dramatise, to play-act, to externalise, to transcend one’s ordinary reality.