Course Reflection
The use of drama and play techniques in therapeutic situations has always intrigued me. The opportunity to experience a drama therapy course was too much for me to miss. Although my daughter is in the drama therapy program, I was not prepared for the weekend workshop. According to the course title the subject would be about how to create a playful connection with the therapist. I assumed that I would learn how to use play and specific techniques in a therapeutic setting. Although I was exposed to some play techniques, the course lacked a foundation for therapists who are not already grounded in the creative arts. Lacking even a minimal theoretical background left me wondering what, as a marriage and family therapist I could ethically use in my practice.
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The day began with some physical warm-up exercises that were followed by a group discussion of a reading entitled Spitting in the Client’s Soup. The exercises were a series of interactive play that I believe could be used when joining with young children. Tossing an imaginary ball to someone in the room while making random sounds served as an effective ice-breaker. The group quickly moved into dyadic exercises of imaginary gift giving and mirroring each other’s facial expressions and movements. Personally, it was more difficult for me to engage in the dyadic work.
Whenever I begin a new course, I try to team up with people I have not met before. Therefore, when we were instructed to pair up, I chose to work with a young woman whom I had not met. She was small framed, physically fit, and much younger than me. While we were working on the mirror exercise, my partner began to pose in physical positions what were difficult for me to execute. I felt awkward and became very self-conscious of my shape and physical abilities. It was a relief when the activity ended and Heidi transitioned the group into a discussion of the
Both lesson plan days include think-pair-share strategies, which permits students to engage with a partner using age-appropriate literacy skills and eventually with the whole class. The students are also given multiple times throughout the lesson to engage as well. By using KWL charts students are also able to share their own experiences with the class and this permits the students to contribute their own individual insights.
Woolway, Joanne. Drama for Students. Eds. David Galens and Lynn M. Spampinato. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1998. 292-94. Print.
Rye N. Child-Centred Play Therapy. In: JH Stone, M Blouin, editors. International Encyclopedia of Rehabilitation. 2010.
Wehrman, J. D., & Field, J. E. (2013). Play-Based Activities in Family Counseling. American Journal of Family Therapy, 41(4), 341-352. doi:10.1080/01926187.2012.704838
Experiential family therapy would work best for children ages 3-11, because it involves using techniques like role playing, which will uncover the child hopes, fears of what presently is affecting them. Play therapy technique that will incorporate puppets, finger painting, drawing, and any form of media that will allow the child to show their feelings and excitements. Family art therapy that is used for either adults or children for self-knowledge and recognize what emotional issue they have which in turn can be used in the healing process
Through guided participation, parents informally teach children skills during shared activities. The parents, children and sibling responses to one another
O’conner, K. & Braverman, L. (2009) Play Therapy, Theory and Practice; Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, New Jersey.
This skill stuck with me through my elementary, middle, and high school years as I tried out and acted in plays and musicals, which eventually lead me to becoming the president of the Drama club. The skills that I learned through theatre work helped me with working with kids to create imaginative games on the spot. It also taught me to not worry about looking silly; if you and the kids are having a good time, that’s all that matters. After creating and experience these games with the children, I realized how great of a tool it is for teaching valuable lessons; like taking turns, politeness, and self-help skills. Instead of sitting down with the kids and just talking about these concepts, we would experience them first hand my actually acting out scenes. Because of the positive outcome that I have seen by using play as a teaching tool, I am very passionate about using play in my everyday work as a speech-language pathologist to teach my clients in a fun and relaxed
Play is such an important part of the learning and growing, especially for children. Children engage in many different types of play, but the play I saw the most when I observe the children of my daycare is sociodramatic play. The book Understanding Dramatic Play by Judith Kase-Polisini defines sociodramatic play as “both players must tacitly or openly agree to act out the same drama” (Kase-Polisini 40). This shows that children play with each other and make their worlds together as equal creators. Children also work together without argument. There is also some personal play involved in their sociodramatic play. The children involved in the play worked to make a family having dinner, which is great example of how this will prepare them for
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” William Shakespeare may have written these words in As You Like It in 1600, but Erving Goffman truly defined the phrase with his dramaturgical theory. Dramaturgical analysis is the study of social interaction in terms of theatrical performance. Unlike actors though, who use a script telling them how to behave in every scene, real life human interactions change depending upon the social situation they are in. We may have an idea of how we want to be perceived, and may have the foundation to make that happen. But we cannot be sure of every interaction we will have throughout the day, having to ebb and flow with the conversations and situations as they happen.
Both types of therapies had the specific elements that PCIT wanted to convey. One element was an emotional calm that play therapy produced in work with children. However, the calm play that the therapist and child do inside session, is far from the relationship that the parent and child may have outside therapy. By training the child’s parent to provide behavior therapy, enables treatment benefits to be longer-lasting. The use of play therapy in parent-child interaction strengthens the parent-child attachment and provides the child greater exposure to the calming therapy with their own parent. However, play therapy is not the only appropriate intervention when it comes to disciplining children. Parents get the skills need to deal with the behavioral issues by the live parent training, for setting limits and drawing back from tough discipline (Funderburk,
Wehrman, J. D., & Field, J. E. (2013). Play-based activities in family counseling. American Journal of Family Therapy, 14(4), 341-352. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01926187.2012.704838
A very important experience a child can have throughout the course of preschool and even elementary school is the chance to use dramatic play. A child in this setting has the wonderful opportunity to create a world of their own that they have power over. A child can participate in this alone or participate with a group of children. This gives the child an opportunity to play with different types of communication, whether they are role-playing as Mommy or Daddy or the family pet. The knowledge they have at that point of the world they live in will show during this play; if the teacher walks by while the children are playing, it is possible that she will hear a conversation that happened in the house when they overheard their parents talking. Overall, this type of play teaches children how to make friends, how to communicate with those friends, and how to maintain those friendships.
Applied Theatre work includes Theatre-in-Education, Community and Team-building, Conflict Resolution, and Political theatre, to name just a few of its uses. However, Christopher Balme states that “Grotowski define acting as a communicative process with spectators and not just as a production problem of the actor” (Balme, 2008: 25). Applied Theatre practices may adopt the following “theatrical transactions that involve participants in different participative relationships” such as Theatre for a community, Theatre with a community and Theatre by a community Prentki & Preston (2009: 10). Whereas, applied theatre one of its most major powers is that it gives voice to the voiceless and it is a theatre for, by, and with the people. However, Applied Theatre practitioners are devising educational and entertaining performances bringing personal stories to life and build
Historically, drama, and indeed all areas of the arts, have been seen to make an unimportant contribution to society as a whole. As recently as the mid to late 20th century, the arts were seen as a luxury, and a purely leisure exercise or hobby, with only gifted children having access to classically defined art forms such as music or art. This ideology still exists in some form today, although the arts are beginning to be recognised as an integral part of our everyday and working lives. Many drama practitioners and educators consider the arts to be a growing power within the economy, and that drama has benefits to society, culture, and a person’s inner development. These benefits have shaped the incorporation and delivery of drama within Queensland schools. This essay will examine how, by teachers delivering a rich aesthetic experience to students through drama in schools, students are provided with opportunities to develop self identity and equipping them with a skill set that is transferable across a variety of learning areas.