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Play Paradigm
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THE PLAY PARADIGM PRESENTS : An Encounter Between Mental Health and Drama Therapy
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Transcript of Play Paradigm
THE PLAY PARADIGM PRESENTS:
An Encounter Between Mental Health and Drama Therapy
PR
ES
EN
TER
Dov BlumDrama therapist and clinical criminologistDoctoral student in psychoanalysis & hermeneutics
IsraelEmail: [email protected]
SUBJECTIntroducing a platform for the practice of drama therapy using a group therapy model.
PLACE & SETTING Sha’ar Menashe Mental Health Center
(psychiatric hospital), forensic ward, maximum security.
Duration of group: One year. Group leaders: Co-led by a clinical
criminologist - drama therapist and a clinical psychologist.
GROUP PARTICIPANTS Patients hospitalized in a locked ward under a
court order for committing crimes while in a psychotic state.
Patients with mental illnesses in remission and
able to differentiate between self and the character they role played.
Offenses ranged from drug trafficking, to
domestic violence, to manslaughter.
DIAGNOSES
Dual diagnosis patients suffering from substance abuse and chronic schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, or personality disorder.
GROUP OBJECTIVE
To learn to cope constructively with anxiety and personal issues when interviewed by the multidisciplinary committee for potential changes in status.
WHAT IS THE COMMITTEE?
•A multidisciplinary group of medical and legal professionals and patient’s family.
•It assemble at least once each six months to interview patients and decide issues of patient leave, release, placement, and degree of independence and freedom.
o The committee’s impression of the patient’s interview, along with the ward report, determines the patient’s future.
THE PLAY PARADIGM A THERAPEUTIC PLATFORM FOR DRAMA THERAPY
This drama therapy group used a role play technique in which patients assumed the roles of the committee members which allowed them to connect with their authentic selves, their crimes, and their relationships with the role models via seeing themselves through the eyes of others.
Patients also experience roles that do not include violence or aggression.
THE THERAPEUTIC PROCESS Each group therapy
session was a scenario of a committee meeting in which one patient acted as himself going before the committee and the other patients role played the various committee members, such as psychiatrist, physician, attorney, and representatives from hospital and family.
The role play allows patients a deeper understanding of themselves as viewed through the various committee roles and a deeper understanding of others’ intent toward them.
THERAPEUTIC ACHIEVEMENTS
The group was a realistic scenario of the committee process. The different committee roles represented various dimensions of the patient’s life from internal thoughts and feelings to relationships with others and his community. He had to face personal issues in relation to roles in the committee as they raised issues and asked questions he had to answer and discuss.
Patients assumed different roles to enable them to see themselves through the perspectives of others and to reach diverse insights.
THE PLAY PARADIGM A Therapeutic Platform
The Play Paradigm was born out of my personal therapy, my clinical work in the field and in private, clinical supervision given and received, being a student and a lecturer, reading case studies, being a human being, etc., where I noticed there was a big gap between theory and practice.
In light of the power discrepancy between therapist and patient; this gap concerned me.
The Play Paradigm emerged to address this gap.
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The Beginning
Although this is the era of post-modern psychology and humanism, the use of play therapy still involves the use of force via the manipulation of patients to accept a specific idea or viewpoint.
The practice of classical psychology is essentially unchanged despite the new clothes.
This problem is difficult to change mainly for
two reasons. The first difficulty is that there is a perception in the Western world that there are many truths or that truth is multi-faceted. The second difficulty is the Western concept of duality or the either/or schema.
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The Problem
The purpose of the Play Paradigm framework is to provide a solution for the difficulty in implementing force-free treatment in this post-modern and humanistic era.
The Play Paradigm is not a technique but a platform for implementing force-free such as play therapy.
This framework views the concept of truth as a dynamic variable and the theoretical model as non-dual.
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The proposed solution
THE PLAY PARADIGM IN ACTION
Connecting the individual to his unique self
via a humanistic and phenomenological approach in which the therapist does not intervene but, rather, is vividly present, experiencing, allowing, breathing, mirroring, and undergoing parallel processes to the patient.
This is done under the premises that connecting with the patient’s pre-verbal stage is essential to group dynamics and that the activity of play is an existential component of our lives both in infancy and adulthood.
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The Objective
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Work platform The Western world’s practice of this
paradigm operates in accordance with a binary model, taking into consideration Western ways of thinking and the dynamics between play, language, and cognition.
Dialogue This platform invites mental health
professionals to become aware of the Eastern world’s philosophy based ways of thinking and encourages a dialogue.
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Rational
Truth is not static.
This paradigm is responsive to patient’s changing dynamic truth. It reviews and questions again and again our perceptions of mental health and the basic premises by which we provide mental health treatment. It invites a new and refreshing outlook.
This paradigm is not static, but rather regenerating, though its core elements remain the same.
