Text

Drama therapy (in german: Theater- und Dramatherapie) represents a rich therapeutic approach both in psychiatric as in psychosomatic complex treatment. In inpatient acute therapy, patients tend to have a limited “role repertoire”. This is often shaped by rescuing, controlling, anxious or helpless personality traits. These have to be regarded as one-dimensional solutions for dealing with early fears which have led to long term structural fixations.

Drama therapy, as an activating, body and action-oriented group therapeutic approach, aims to encourage patients to develop new ways of accessing previously rigid self-images and negative social role concepts. It uses the wide range of playful and acting exercises to improve self and external perception, interaction and communication. Working with fairy tales is an integral part of the repertoire of dramatherapeutic methods. This approach will be demonstrated by using the fairy tale “The Seven Ravens”. The fairy tale symbolizes how determination, courage and committed action can, over time, help overcome obstacles and conflicts. The workshop aims to give an impression of how fairy tales, as well as myths and literary texts, are used in dramatherapy to create shifts in perspective and how, within the safety of the fictional role, new experiences can be explored.

The “aesthetic distance” ensures that even difficult and intolerable feelings can be expressed in a fictional and at the same time clearly structured situation, so that new means of expression emerge in the process and emotions can be creatively processed.