Review of: Creative Care: A Revolutionary Approach to Dementia and Elder Care, Anne Basting (2020)
New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 280 pp.,
ISBN 978-0-06290-617-5, h/bk, $27.99
This qualitative case study examined how the therapeutic aspects of drama teaching artistry was conceptualized at an urban lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) senior centre by observing and/or participating in 31 creative arts education sessions and conducting two focus groups with the centre’s older adult members. Additionally, 34 semi-structured interviews were held with the centre’s teaching artists (TAs), older adults and administrators. Using constructivist grounded theory, emergent themes led to two primary findings: (1) the conceptual category therapeutic teaching artistry articulated how TAs’ practices promoted health and wellness; and (2) a provisional major concept Being Alive captured how members’ quality of life were perceived to be enhanced by the creative arts education programming. Beyond facilitating reminiscence, preventing decline or merely stimulating older adults, TAs helped older adults internalize a greater sense of agency, affirm their own humanity and improve vitality without unethically conducting creative arts therapy.
Review of: Living Well and Dying Well: Tales of Counselling Older People, Helen Kewell (2019)
Monmouth: PCCS Books, 157 pp.,
ISBN 978-1-91091-941-5, p/bk, £11 ($14.61)
Witness Theater is a year-long intergenerational drama therapy program that brings Holocaust survivors and adolescent students on a therapeutic and theatrical journey of telling and listening that results in the most unlikely and meaningful relationships. The program utilizes drama therapy in Holocaust education and remembrance, with an emphasis on repairing historical trauma through embodied storytelling and fostering empathy. This article will offer an overview of this unique approach to Holocaust education, a description of the program’s protocol, and the connections between this approach and the existing drama therapy theory and research. Case vignettes have been integrated to illustrate the model and potential impact of the program.
Integrating life-story work with drama therapy creates new opportunities for the psychological development of older adults. In this conceptual article we suggest five qualities of dramatic reality by which this integration can promote psychological development in old age: its ability (1) to evoke a story, (2) to bring together the personal and the collective, (3) to help in processing unfinished business, (4) to create an integrative view of the self and (5) to open the way to imagining the future. We illustrate each of the five qualities using vignettes from our previous research in the field and show how exploring the life stories of older adults through dramatic reality provides opportunities for active self-exploration in the ‘here and now’ of the group process in a way that goes beyond verbal life-story work.
Empirical research about using drama therapy (DT) for people who have Parkinson’s disease (PD) is absent in the literature despite growing, worldwide prevalence of the disease. This article presents an intrinsic case study involving a concurrent mixed-method design within a social constructivist framework that explores the benefits of a short DT program designed for a small group of people who have PD in Vigo, Spain. Two Spanish drama therapists and eight research participants co-designed and co-created material for analysis during five DT workshops that took place once every two weeks over ten weeks. In addition to this, psychometric instruments to assess self-esteem, quality of life (QoL), depression, and purpose in life were administered prior to and after the five-week intervention. Findings are supported by qualitative analysis and are not statistically significant, but suggest an amelioration of depressive symptoms as well as other benefits.