Therapy Definitions.

Drama therapy, also known as the single word Dramatherapy outside the US, is the intentional use of theater techniques to facilitate personal growth and promote health. Drama therapy is an expressive therapy modality used in a wide variety of settings, including hospitals, schools, mental health centers, prisons, and businesses. Drama therapy (Dramatherapy) exists in many forms and can be applicable to individuals, couples, families, and various groups.

The use of dramatic process and theater as a therapeutic intervention began with Psychodrama. The field has expanded to allow many forms of theatrical interventions as therapy including role-play, theater games, group-dynamic games, mime, puppetry, and other improvisational techniques. Often, drama therapy (Dramatherapy) is utilized to help a client:
Solve a problem
Achieve a catharsis
Delve into truths about self
Understand the meaning of personally resonate images
Explore and transcend unhealthy patterns of interaction

Drama therapy (Dramatherapy) is extremely varied in its use, based on the practitioner, the setting and the client. From fully-fledged performances to empty chair role-play, the sessions may involve many variables including the use of a troupe of actors.

Play therapy (Playtherapy) is generally employed with children ages 3 to 10, play provides a way for children to express their experiences and feelings through a natural, self-guided, self-healing process. As children’s experiences and knowledges are often communicated through play, it becomes an important vehicle for them know and accept themselves and others.

Play Therapy (Playtherapy) is the systematic use of a theoretical model to establish an interpersonal process wherein play therapists use the therapeutic powers of play to help clients prevent or resolve psychosocial challenges and achieve optimal growth and development. A working definition might be a form of counseling or psychotherapy that therapeutically engages the power of play to communicate with and help people, especially children, to engender optimal integration and individuation.

Play Therapy (Playtherapy) is often used as tool of diagnosis. A play therapist observes a client playing with toys (play-houses, pets, dolls, etc) to determine the cause of the disturbed behaviour. The objects and patterns of play, as well as the willingness to interact with the therapist can be used to understand the underlying rationale for behavior both inside and outside the session.

According to the psychodynamic view, people (especially children) will engage in play behaviour in order to work through their interior obfuscations and anxieties. In this way play therapy can be used as a self-help mechanism, as long as children are allowed time for 'free play' or 'unstructured play'. From a developmental point of view, play has been determined to be an essential component of healthy child development. Play has been directly linked to cognitive development.

One approach to treatment, is for play therapists use a type of systematic desensitization or relearning therapy to change the disturbing behaviour, either systematically or in less formal social settings. These processes are normally used with children, but are also applied with other pre-verbal, non-verbal, or verbally-impaired persons, such as slow-learners, brain-injured or drug-affected persons. Mature adults usually need much "group permission" before indulging in the relaxed spontaneity of play therapy, so a very skilled group worker is needed to deal with such guarded individuals.