What to Expect from a Drama Therapy Session

The first thing you should know about drama therapy is that you should enter without any expectations.

I know, I know. If the question is, "What can I expect from a drama therapy session?" the answer can't be: "Don't expect a thing." Right?

But the truth is, every session is different depending on the folks in the room and the exercise that's presented.

What Is Drama Therapy?

Drama therapy is the use of performance and role-playing to facilitate personal growth, cope with trauma, overcome addiction, and other therapeutic benefits. Drama therapy is offered by licensed and certified mental health professionals around the world for its effectiveness, approachability, and adaptability.

Who Is Drama Therapy For?

When I first started as a Drama Therapist, I assumed most clients would have more creative, kinetic personalities. But in reality, most people that come in are analytical, Type A personalities who can especially benefit from the sessions. And it made me realize how I myself was drawn to the profession because it takes me out of my usual analytical self. Drama therapy forces us into our bodies, to form sensory experiences that provide a new way to access what we're dealing with.

In the group work that I do, the attendees don't choose who's present, which gets everyone out of their comfort zone. That's especially true when everyone walks in assuming that we'll be acting or role-playing. But when we ease into it, and hesitant folks see how things work, it's incredible how quickly people open up and allow themselves the opportunity to play. Because that's what it is: playing. We're allowing ourselves to be creative and explore something that we couldn't access if we simply sat down and forced ourselves to think about it.

So, drama therapy is for everyone. More specifically, it's for anyone hoping to unlock the freedom to explore themselves in new ways.

Group Drama Therapy

Typically, group drama therapy is very activity-oriented. The group leader (likely a Drama Therapist) will likely begin with a warm-up exercise. For example, each person in the room thinks of their three more prominent feelings of the week. But rather than say them aloud, they act each one out. Other members of the group might guess what they're showcasing, and by the end, it makes us more comfortable and gets us in a performance headspace.

We then graduate to a more in-depth exercise. If the group drama therapy session is for addiction, I might ask them to personify what they're addicted to. What gender, how old, what do they look like? The goal is to imagine the addiction as something outside of themselves, someone they can have a relationship with. This is in juxtaposition to internalizing the addiction and thinking of it as something that controls who you are. That way, we can start to live a healthier relationship with the addiction rather than a toxic one.

From there, we would perhaps have dialogues with our addictions to discover what makes it tick. But the possibilities are endless, as each session will adapt around the group as a whole.

One-on-One Drama Therapy

An individual drama therapy session is less structured. The best way to put it is that the counselor is approaching the therapy through the lens of a drama therapist. You may role-play and act as you would in group therapy, but the focus is on what roles you're playing in your life and in your relationships.

For example, a question might be: "If you could be a different type of person, who would you be and what qualities would you have?" You wouldn't be surprised to hear the same question in a traditional therapist's office. But we might (literally) dialogue with that ideal sense of self, or role-play as if the patient is that other person.

What should you expect from a drama therapy session? Whether it's group or one-on-one, expect to walk out of the session with the feeling that something shifted. You might not identify it immediately; perhaps it's just a shift in energy. But that's the intent of each session – and the outcome for the vast majority of those willing to give it a try.

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