The Drama Therapy Decision Tree, 2nd Edition Connecting Drama Therapy Interventions to Treatment

A second edition of this practical guide for therapeutic decision-making, substantially revised and expanded.

Drama therapy is a dynamic creative arts therapy which brings participants into the here and now and supports them in using their strengths to work through problems in an embodied manner. Rather than using a standardized protocol that makes all the decisions for the therapist, the Drama Therapy Decision Tree provides drama therapists with questions they can ask themselves to think through client needs and decide on appropriate interventions. While drama therapists value intuition and thinking on their feet, conscious planning beforehand prepares them to make good therapeutic decisions in the moment during the session.

The Drama Therapy Decision Tree shows how drama therapy interventions align with diagnostic information, phase of treatment and psychological distance, in order to achieve global outcomes. The authors provide a common language for communicating what drama therapists do and how they do it in order to demystify drama therapy for other mental health and medical professionals. Using the decision tree as a guide, early career drama therapists can move forward confidently and ground their work with participants in an integrated system.

Paige Dickinson is associate professor in the Creative Arts Collegium at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, USA.

Sally Bailey is professor of theater and director of the Drama Therapy Program at Kansas State University, USA.

This substantially revised and expanded edition of the The Drama Therapy Decision Tree provides an integrated model for therapeutic decision-making by uniting drama therapy interventions with diagnostic information, individual and group processes, psychological distance, the drama therapy pie, and global outcomes.

This book is a practical guide in four sections, not a checklist. Rather than using a standardized protocol that makes the decisions for the therapist, drama therapy is based on dynamic, embodied, creative action with participants in the here and now. Conscious planning on the part of the drama therapist before the session supports spontaneity and creativity, preparing them to make good therapeutic decisions in the moment during the session.

The opening section guides readers through the foundational principles leading readers into Section Two, The Decision Tree, which is a series of questions for early career drama therapists to ask themselves as they prepare treatment plans for clients. Diversity, Equity, and Ethics are covered in Section Three from the point of view of creative arts therapy practitioners. Section Four looks at Integrating the Five Phases of Treatment with the Drama Therapy Pie, following different populations (diagnosis) of clients through the five phases of group therapy in order to illustrate how the Decision Tree supports intervention choice in the different phases of treatment.

The authors strive to provide a common language for communicating what drama therapists do and how they do it in order to demystify drama therapy for other mental health and medical professionals. Using the decision tree as a guide, early career drama therapists can move forward confidently and ground their work with participants in an integrated system.

An online searchable database of drama therapy interventions provides descriptions, therapeutic outcomes addressed, and other useful information provides a wealth of additional supporting material. There is also a separate online resource of deroling activities.

The online resources, here, can also be an asset for non-drama therapists who are wanting to incorporate a more active and embodied component safely into their work, particularly in terms of warm-ups, closure, and deroling.