| dc.description.abstract | This research project examines the impact of therapeutic performance-making within
Dramatherapy practice for clients with schizophrenia. "Dramatherapy Performance",
a specific model of therapeutic work which is defined and presented here, consists of
the clients' construction of a performance through a therapeutic process and its
presentation to an invited audience of their Significant Others. The context of existing
evaluation methods in Dramatherapy concerns either the development of the clients'
abilities within a group process, such as role-playing or dramatic involvement, or the
change of the clients' symptoms after a groupwork as measured by existing
psychometric scales. However, no specific method of evaluation of performance-making
to be used within clinical practice has been constructed yet. For this reason a
new instrument for evaluating this model of work was formulated, namely the
"Dramatherapy Performance Evaluation", which derives from a combination of
psychiatric and theatre semiotics. This instrument is inspired by Aristotle's "Poetics",
used for the first time for assessment in Dramatherapy and analyses the structural
elements of a performance in relation to the clients' schizophrenic psychopathology.
Furthermore, this project examines the effect of a "Dramatherapy Performance" on
the clients' overall psychopathology, and their relationship to self and others. A
clinical trial conducted in a Day Hospital for young adult clients with schizophrenia
allowed a qualitative evaluation of the therapeutic process as well as quantitative
measurements of the clients' symptom change. The outcomes of this project suggest
that "Dramatherapy Performance" has a significant effect on the clients' dramatic
involvement within the group process, on the decrease of their overall "negative
symptomatology", on increasing their "competence and efficacy" and on changing
their perceived support from their significant others. The "Dramatherapy Performance
Evaluation" showed the importance of the performance's unifying cathartic structure
as well as demonstrating how non-verbal therapeutic processes reinforce the impact of
verbal processes. It also distinguished the usefulness of collective techniques- such as
participation in a chorus- for the less functional clients as opposed to character work
for the more functional clients. This research confirms the value of "Dramatherapy
Performance" as a treatment for specific schizophrenic symptoms, in addition to
medication, and provides Dramatherapy practice with a new and useful instrument for
the evaluation of both the therapeutic process and the progress of clients with
schizophrenia. | en_US |
