1st Edition
Dramatherapy and Learning Disabilities Developing Emotional Growth, Autonomy and Self-Worth
Dramatherapy and Learning Disabilities demonstrates the power of dramatherapy to help clients with learning disabilities, addressing current research, evidencebased work, and methods in the dramatherapy and learning disabilities fields.
Featuring contribution from 19 dramatherapists with a range of clients of all ages who have moderate to severe learning disabilities, this book presents ways in which dramatherapists are innovating new approaches to their work in the field. The authors demonstrate their expertise but also acknowledge their limitations. They explore what it is like to work in multidisciplinary teams and with parents and carers of children and adults with learning disabilities. Each chapter provides detailed vignettes of client/therapist experience and enables the reader to gain insight into therapists’ thinking and the process that guides their clinical judgement. Structured accounts of sessions and outcomes, tracking clients’ progress and the use of evaluation tools evidence the effectivity of dramatherapy and creative therapies’ practice.
This book will be a significant resource for trainee dramatherapists, arts therapists and professionals interested in incorporating creative methods into their practice. It also provides examples of burgeoning arts therapies research within the field and lays the foundations for future projects.
List of contributors
Introduction
HELEN MILWARD
Chapter 1: Dramatherapy and Learning Disabilities
HELEN MILWARD
PART 1: Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
Chapter 2: Family Ties: Supporting Sibling Relationships
JESSIE ELLINOR AND SOPHIE RIGA DE SPINOZA
Chapter 3: ‘May we speak for you?’: Thoughts on a Multi-Vocal Approach When Working with Clients with Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties (PMLD) within an Education Setting
LUKE SIMONDS
Chapter 4: How Can We Track and Aid Emotional Development in Children and Young People with Learning Disabilities?
HELEN MILWARD
PART 2: The Journey through Adolescence
Chapter 5: Meeting Maddy Where She Is: A Figurative and Literal Journey
AMEE FREYONE
Chapter 6: The Hero’s Journey and Learning Disability: A Case Study
ROSALIND DAVIDSON
Chapter 7: Finding Sameer: A Client’s Journey to Self-Discovery
HAYLEY SOUTHERN
Chapter 8: "We are lots of things": Exploring Dramatic Imitation with Adolescents in Special Education
AMANDA MUSICKA-WILLIAMS
PART 3: On to Adulthood
Chapter 9: Yes I am, Here I Am: Using Confirmation as an Antidote to Cultural Shame
MELANIE BEER AND GILLIAN DOWNIE
Chapter 10: Attunement in Dramatherapy: Working Intuitively and the Importance of the Co-Working Relationship
TIM GOLDMAN AND LINA IB
Chapter 11: Meeting the Challenge: Co-Producing a Presentation as an Evaluation Process
SEREN HAF GRIME
Chapter 12: Roots to Grow: The Development of Dramatherapy in a Low-Secure Service for Men with Learning Disabilities
JENNIFER PULLAN
PART 4: Coping with Change
Chapter 13: The Get Going Group: Dramatherapy Groups Supporting Adults with Learning Disabilities and Mental Ill Health after Discharge from Hospital
JANE BOURNE AND SIMON HACKETT
Chapter 14: Making Connections through Life and Death
JESSIE ELLINOR AND AMY KEENAN
Chapter 15: Emerging from That Storm: Reflections on a School-Based Arts Therapy Team’s Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic
REBECCA BLAKE AND GEORGINA HARRIS
Conclusion
HELEN MILWARD
Index
Biography
Helen Milward is a Drama and Movement Therapist, who has worked with vulnerable, disadvantaged and disabled children and young people in various settings. She has managed teams of therapists both in special education and for the NHS and is currently developing a service for birthing people experiencing trauma and loss.
Anna Seymour is Emeritus Professor of Dramatherapy at the University of Roehampton London and an HCPC registered Dramatherapist.
Endorsements to be formatted in this format.'Endorser Name, their affiliation, and Book Name, if any
Mandy Carr
This enriching book opens with a helpful overview of the development of dramatherapy theory and practice with people with learning disabilities. It includes examples from a wide range of contexts and from individual and group work, with engaging descriptions of dramatherapy sessions which focus on the individuality of the clients themselves. It is packed with significant discussions and vivid examples for practitioners such as supporting a child with the birth of a new sibling, working systemically, addressing mental ill-health and bereavement needs. It is infused with a passion for equality of access, giving rise to genuine inclusivity for people with learning disabilities.
Mandy Carr, former senior lecturer in dramatherapy, dramatherapist and clinical supervisorDimpi Hirani
The many voices in this book shed light to the depth and attention that dramatherapists afford their clients of diverse abilities and how, in return our clients offer riches back to the profession itself. It’s an effective snapshot of the life of dramatherapy with people with learning disabilities. The reader will enter the unknown, and experience the carving of an empowering story of how the exploration of the imagination and its healing powers is open and accessible to all humans. The therapeutic practises outlined here are as kaleidoscopic as our client group.
Dimpi Hirani, MA, MSc., a Dramatherapist & Clinical Supervisor, qualified from Central School of Speech and Drama as a Drama & Movement Therapist in 2003. In 2004 she set up a therapy service in a special needs school in N. W London and continues to work there. She served as a co - convenor for the BADth Education Sub Committee between the years of 2005 and 2012 and wrote the Foreword for the book “Dramatherapy with Children, Young People and Schools” (2012), Routledge.
Dr Emma Ramsden
This timely publication is a valuable resource for a wide range of professionals, trainers and trainees working in the field of learning disabilities across the life cycle in education, heath and Third Sector settings. Accounts of dramatherapy practice include advocacy interventions with non-verbal clients and together the contributions show that the presence of client voice and agency is strong in this publication which promotes a good number of first time authors. Evaluating outcomes and the impact of dramatherapy in a specialist child service and the range of multi-disciplinary collaborations across specialist settings are strengths of this publication. A valuable contribution to the field of dramatherapy research, practice and theory.
Dr Emma Ramsden is a Practitioner-researcher (dramatherapy)Tessa Watson
This is a magnificent book! A welcome addition to the series, of value to practitioners, service users, carers and colleagues and a book that will become a key text for this important area of practice. We venture with the authors into the therapeutic space, reading compelling examples of Dramatherapists’ work to construct creative, safe spaces for deep therapeutic work. We share the joy and the challenges of their work and - importantly - hear service users’ voices speak powerfully. This book shows commitment to valuing and learning from difference, to empowerment and activism; it encourages reflective, creative, authentic dramatherapy and interprofessional practice. An invaluable addition to the literature that comprehensively fills the gap on our bookshelves, and that I highly recommend.
Tessa Watson is a Music Therapist who works in higher education training students, and in supervisory and clinical practice. Tessa has supported people with learning disabilities to use music therapy and has worked alongside carers and colleagues from Dramatherapy and other disciplines for over 30 years.
