10 BEST DRAMA THERAPY TECHNIQUES
For the main activity drama therapists can use a range of different techniques and activities including the following:
1. Role Play or Role Method:
This technique of drama includes the acting of a specific role, either purposefully (as a technique in psychotherapy or training) or unconsciously. In this act, a person considers himself or herself in the role asked. One of the most common activities used in drama therapy is role-playing. This is when you act the part of a certain character in a certain situation. An example of this would be to act the part of a child or parent and to explore any emotions this takes to the surface. Be it the role of a teacher, doctor, or any other role. This is assisted by putting on specific costumes and make-up to give the act a realistic touch. It is one of the finest and easiest kinds of drama therapy techniques available.
2. Piece Story-Making Method:
Piece story-making is another widely used drama technique. It is a bit different from the story narrating methods. This often takes place by adopting a 6 piece story-making method in which the following 6 questions are considered.
1. Who is the main personality?
2. What is the main motive of this story?
3. Who/what can assist them in the process?
4. What is the hurdle in the process?
5. How does the character overcome the obstacle?
6. How does it finish? Or is it to be continued?
Here, all the people perceive the instance differently. All the people consider the situation differently and provide different solutions for the same. This develops physical, emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Determining advantages include building an individual's self-confidence, imagination, compassion, teamwork, concentration, communication, physical fitness, and memory skills. Drama training and a personality development course can provide a suitable medium for positive and negative feelings.
3. Use of Props and Masks:
Sometimes using props and masks during drama therapy can help you to take and stay in different roles at the moment. These can be extremely important when acting with young children…….to help them identify the character they are acting on or simply to help them express emotions. For example, giving them a Santa Claus outfit to resemble and understand the traits.
This helps a person to explore emotional difficulties through the drama. This could include a diversity of activities including writing and learning stories, improvisation training, or workouts using puppets and exciting masks. This induces a level of excitement and fun.
Visit: benefits of presence of mind
4. Group drama therapy session technique:
This involves different steps
- Keeping a check
Here, the drama therapist tries to understand how the person is feeling today. For younger kids, we can use flashcards also.
- Introduction
The step can start with a simple name game where all the members of the group would introduce themselves by telling their name and miming an action telling how they are feeling at that moment.
- The main activity
This is when the therapist will help the group explore issues a person is going through and all the bottled-up emotions that are not let out. Usually, the fictitious story will be your own story re-told through different characters. Developing this room between yourself and the emotional issues will help them be explored. This would help in gaining clarity and a solution after that.
- Closing
At the end of the session, the therapist asks for an idea or thought about how the session went.
Visit: drama games for kids
5. Improvisation:
To improvise in acting is to make up a strategy and conversation on the spot. This technique may require an individual to work with others and prepare him to think differently.
6 Mime:
Miming is almost acting without the use of voice. This suggests that the person will need to be sure of his body language alone to show a certain emotion or scenario. This can cause an individual to think in several ways.
7 Speech:
Using speech in drama therapy could involve speaking differently. (for example if one has low self-confidence, your therapist may ask you to shout rather than a whisper) or it may involve using language to describe the way a personality is feeling. The use of speech in drama therapy could involve the development of confidence considerably.
8 Movement:
Similar to mimic, movement therapy calls for a chance to express emotions through your body rather than just speaking. You may find yourself dancing to do this, or indicating a mental situation or action by action.
9 Acting out:
In some cases, your drama therapist may ask you to re-act behaviors and situations that have caused a certain level of pain in the past. This can be a tough task also because it can cause you to remember and rewire these difficult emotions of the past. The idea here is to help in learning how you improve the situation if it occurs again. It somehow prepares you for future events. This can also be done by taking aid from the best soft skills coach.
10 Being the audience and the witness:
In this technique, the person who undertakes it...is made an audience of a previous past event of his life. This helps in identifying the situation and working on it by detaching yourself from it. It is one of the most intense forms of drama therapy techniques offering confidence-building and mental stability.
