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Drama, Psychotherapy and Psychosis

Dramatherapy and Psychodrama with People Who Hear Voices

• By John Casson

• Price: $31.95 $28.76
• Binding: Paperback (also available in Hardback)
• Pages: 304
• Published by: Routledge
• Publication Date: 11th March 2004
• Illustrations: 2 line figures, 6 half tones
• ISBN: 978-1-58391-805-0

About the Book

Drama, Psychotherapy and Psychosis explores the use of drama and theatre in the challenging area of working with people who hear voices, focusing especially on survivors of abuse and those diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia. In examining the often baffling and frightening world of psychosis the book offers alternative models of madness and the self, which form the basis for therapeutic interventions.

Illustrated by case histories and examples of practice, this book provides a description and analysis of voice hearing. Chapters cover areas including:

* historical perspectives on psychosis and hearing voices
* group psychodrama
* dramatherapy with individuals.

Drama, Psychotherapy and Psychosis demonstrates how creative action methods can be helpful to those who hear voices. It provides guidelines for good practice; essential to all those interested in promoting the safe use of these methods in therapy.

Reviews

In this impressive book, the author has more than realised the promise hinted in the title, that is a very thorough consideration of the particular challenges that are implicit in dramatherapy and psychodrama psychotherapy research... this volume is certainly a significant and valuable contribution to the field. If you want to read a well-edited account of how to conduct a research project that is ethically constructed and philosophically sound, then read this book. It should be on every dramatherapy and psychodrama psychotherapy students' desk and all training programmes' core reading booklist. I thoroughly recommend it. - Michael Barham, Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, March 2005

Table of Contents

Zerka Moreno, Foreword. Introduction. Psychosis and Hearing Voices 1: A Historical Perspective. Psychosis and Hearing Voices 2: Making Sense of Voices. Psychosis and Hearing Voices 3: Models of Madness. Theatre, Madness and Healing. The Twentieth Century: Theatrotherapy, Psychodrama and Dramatherapy. Dramatherapy with Individuals: Finding a Voice and Telling Stories. The Wave and the Whelm: Distance and Empowerment. Individual Dramatherapy: Cheryll. The Theatre Model of the Self. Group Dramatherapy. Individual Psychodrama: Harry. Group Psychodrama. What is Helpful and Not Helpful in Dramatherapy and Psychodrama. Guidelines for Good Practice. Jennings, Afterword.

About the Author(s)

John Casson, psychotherapist and supervisor in private practice, and senior trainer in the Northern School of Psychodrama.