This paper provides the results of a questionnaire constructed to solicit information about the creative structures that dramatherapists and psychodramatists are using in therapy with Looked-After children (LAC) and young people. After a brief account of the research itself the results are presented; this starts by defining the assessment and evaluation tools that are used by the practitioners. The particular needs of this client group are examined and what follows is the analysis and explanation of the creative ways in which the practitioners meet the needs of LAC and young people.
Joan Moore describes an innovative drama therapeutic approach to facilitating attachment between adoptive parents and their children who suffered abuse and neglect in their family of origin. Children of hostile parents often display fear of adults' proximity. Play is proposed as the most natural way to increase empathy between these children and adoptive parents. Their joint engagement in ‘make-believe’ invites discovery of new perspectives and heightened self-awareness. The child's life story is explored, initially using metaphor as fictional contexts provide the privacy of distance that allow us to confront what may otherwise be too disturbing or painful. It is argued that working in the child's home, using sensory materials, assists transfer of learning from the therapeutic play space to daily life. Children begin to reassess their survival of adversity as ‘heroes’ rather than ‘victims’. Released from blame for events over which they had little control, children explore continuing troublesome patterns and, through theatrical enactment, create new ways of being. Parents' direct involvement in performance of the child's story (both fictional and real) leads to improved mutuality. The shared emotional experience brings parent and child closer, and parents gain improved confidence to support their children.
This paper discusses the use of a dramatic narrative approach with adoptive and foster families, involving the parents in enactment of their child's life history for the purpose of changing unhelpful patterns in working towards enhanced mutuality. Research on outcomes finds adoption to be mainly successful, however the likelihood of disruption increases with age from approx 20% at age 7 to 50% at age 11, identifying therapeutic support as of critical importance (Dance 2005). The families (mainly White English) referred for this Dramatherapeutic intervention, characteristically struggle with some form of cultural divide, the parents (often in professional employment) having different life experience and expectations to those of the children, many of whom expect their placement to be temporary, being already accustomed to many changes and associated losses experienced as rejection. For black children, being of different race and appearance adds yet another dimension. The article will evaluate the use of ‘water games’, clay and doll's house play and a candle ceremony as part metaphor/part physical life drama structures for exploration.
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