How can creativity help us to heal?

Seeking therapy is brave, usually out of most people’s comfort zone and can be frankly downright scary.

Talking to a complete stranger about your innermost thoughts and feelings although daunting, can actually be quite a cathartic experience, as some of my clients have expressed feeling as if ‘a weight has been lifted’ from their shoulders.

But what about those times when no matter how hard you try, you just can’t seem to express exactly what you are feeling?

Or perhaps you feel as though the more you talk the more you keep getting caught in the same loop, speaking about the same thing over and over again but not feeling as if you’re really getting anywhere?

There might be instances where the words to describe how you’re feeling haven’t even been invented yet!

Imagine feeling this way AND being a teenager?

I’m sure you can cast your mind back to those times…times where emotions were heightened, mood swings were regular and above all: it seemed as if NO ONE understood how you felt.

Teenage years

Being a teenager can be a turbulent stage of our life, a tricky period of ‘in-between’ when we are making the transition from childhood to adulthood.

A period where self-image is unstable, friends are the centre of our universe and the pressure to ‘fit in’ is immense.

Alongside all of this, adolescents nowadays have the added pressure of social media influences as well as academic pressures which seem to have greatly increased since I was at school many moons ago.

Adolescents are trying to figure out who they are – the way they think, what they believe; how they act and view the world around them is going through a complete overhaul during this time – it’s no wonder there’s so much turmoil.         

Change is rarely comfortable.

Getting creative

So where does creativity fit into all of this?

Creativity is known to have profound positive effects on our mental health.

Whether we’re singing, dancing, painting, creative writing, drawing or playing, using our imagination can have huge benefits on our state of mind.

Taking part in creative activities can help lower stress levels, decrease feelings of anxiety, depression and overwhelm.

As a dramatherapist, I offer people I work with the opportunity to free themselves from overanalysing their story by delving into the imagination and working directly with the unconscious mind.

Working creatively has the power to allow clients to explore the most significant parts of their story without getting stuck in it.

 Dramatherapy

What exactly is dramatherapy?

Often when people ask me what I do and I tell them I’m a dramatherapist, I’m usually met with either a head tilted to the side, a puzzled look and the question ‘What’s dramatherapy?’ or a response such as ‘Interesting, that sounds really cool!’.

During one client’s first session she asked me ‘How does it actually work though?’ & in all honesty I found it difficult to answer.

I usually reply to complete strangers by telling them that dramatherapy is a type of therapy that uses creative tools such as storytelling, artwork, music, improvisation, movement and play, but I responded to this particular teenager by telling her that we’d explore whatever she brought into the sessions with creative tools that I felt could help her see her concerns from a new perspective.

And that’s a key part of dramatherapy – there are no hard and fast rules about what each session should look like, and interestingly this particular client preferred to spend a lot of the sessions verbalising her thoughts and feelings and only using imagery from time to time.

Others prefer to using creativity for the majority of the session and using talking to reflect on their creations, the beauty being that each session is shaped by the client and they usually know what they respond well to.

Sometimes sessions may have more of a focus on mindfulness based activities, as some adolescents simply enjoy feeling more grounded and present, which they can then practise outside of the therapy room in their everyday lives.

If I feel there’s a particular story that could help a client view their problem from another lens, I may bring that into the session which tends to generally spark up a conversation and can help increase self-awareness.

It’s important to note that no previous experience of acting or theatre is needed to take part in dramatherapy, absolutely anyone can benefit.