Have you noticed that when you feel happy you feel present in your body and experience pleasurable feelings in it? Have you also noticed that when you feel upset you feel disconnected from your body or experience unpleasant feelings in it (e.g. nausea, tension, pain, sweating, or heaviness)?
The first sentence describes the idea of embodiment, which refers to feeling present in, safe in, and in control of your body while also experiencing pleasure in your body.
Disembodiment, on the other hand, refers to the following: feeling as if you are not present in your body (such as spacing out or feeling that you are observing your body from outside of it), unsafe in your body, out of control of your body, or experiencing unpleasant feelings in your body.
Because feeling embodied means that we have a healthy mind and body connection, embodiment is worth seeking and attaining. Drama therapy, as an action psychotherapy, offers opportunities for embodiment.
The Causes of Disembodiment
Disembodiment occurs when we experience upsetting feelings. Examples include hyperventilating when nervous, having tense muscles when angry, or feeling heaviness in your chest when sad.
Or perhaps instead of experiencing these intense feelings in your body, you space out unconsciously because it is too difficult to deal with the feelings. You may experience inattention and memory loss because it is too difficult to focus in the present moment and run the risk of experiencing the aforementioned unpleasant feelings.
Whether you experience uncomfortable feelings in or detachment from your body, in either situation you do not feel at peace with your body.
Trauma also causes disembodiment. People respond to traumatic stress in one of three ways: fight, flight, or freeze. Some people become hyper aroused and use the rush of energy to fight or flee a stressor. Others freeze and may mentally escape the stressor through spacing out or daydreaming. All three reactions are normal responses to trauma, and it is not known why people experience any of these particular responses.
Without going into too much detail about brain science, here are some other ways that trauma impacts the brain. Trauma decreases activity in the area of the brain that is responsible for language, which causes memories to be stored without language (causing visual or visceral memories) and affects the ability to verbalize feelings. It increases activity in the area responsible for assessing threats and assuring survival, which as mentioned above causes hyper arousal. It also disrupts the right hemisphere of the brain, which is responsible for regulating feelings, sensations, and perceptions. The latter two impacts may cause people to misperceive threats.
Because of these impacts, traumatized people are sometimes unable to express themselves verbally and may overreact to what others might perceive as neutral situations. Sometimes these reactions last beyond the time of the trauma, especially if the trauma was ongoing. Whether one’s brain gets stuck on hyper arousal or dissociating, one will experience disconnection from one’s body.
In these ways, trauma impairs the emotional, social, cognitive, and physical aspects of peoples’ lives.
Understanding Action Psychotherapy
Action psychotherapy refers to types of psychotherapies that are experiential as opposed to only talking during sessions, meaning that one explores feelings through action (e.g. drama, art, music, or dance/movement).
Action psychotherapies tend to have a holistic point of view. They tend to view human beings as a combination of physical, emotional, cognitive, social, spiritual, and aesthetic dimensions.
They tend to define illness as having in imbalance in any of these dimensions. Thus, having an imbalance in the body and mind by feeling disembodied is one view of illness.
Drama Therapy as an Action Psychotherapy that Addresses Embodiment
Drama therapy is able to address all of the aforementioned dimensions and any imbalances that one may have in them. It addresses the physical dimension through the act of dramatization, the emotional dimension through expressing feelings verbally and non-verbally, the cognitive dimension by using problem solving and creative thinking, the social dimension through intrapersonal and interpersonal interactions, the spiritual dimension through role play and rituals that helps give meaning to one’s life, and the aesthetic dimension through creativity.
One way that drama therapy offers opportunities for embodiment is because it always involves non-verbal communication. Even when there is speaking during drama, there is also non-verbal communication through body language and facial expressions.
While both verbal and non-verbal communication express feelings and thoughts, non-verbal communication sometimes offers deeper meaning through subtext. The subtext reveals underlying feelings and thoughts that motivate behavior.
Projective techniques in drama therapy (such as puppetry, mask exploration, and sound/movement activities) allow for exploration of such subtext.
For example, while doing mask exploration with a teen survivor of sexual abuse, feelings of shame were discovered through the subtext of the work. The client was asked to create masks to represent how she presents to the world and how she really feels inside. The former mask was colorful, with a rainbow and a butterfly. The latter mask was grey and had flames on the mouth. In describing the masks verbally, she was able to share that she feels powerless and angry because of it but presents as cheerful and “fine”. However, it was only through exploring some of the visual details and then drama with the masks that underlying shame was discovered. We would not have been able to get to this deeper meaning by only talking.
Another way that drama therapy offers opportunities for embodiment is through drama allowing people to overcome feelings of helplessness through taking action. Instead of feeling stuck in feelings by only expressing them through talking, drama allows people to express feelings physically. This allows people to share personal experiences and be witnessed (by the therapist or group members, which was addressed in this prior article), to overcome the feeling of defeat by actively changing their narrative (since they can change their life story however they would like to do so), and to find new perspectives and resolutions through role play which was written about in this prior article).
Regarding finding resolutions through role play, drama therapy is influenced by psychology theories that believe children use play as an unconscious way to reflect, rehearse, and revise experiences. Such theories, including drama therapy, also believe that playing with unfinished business is healing.
For example, children who are abused often feel powerless and display this in play. They often focus on themes of good guys fighting bad guys or of authority figures abusing their power. They may repeat these themes in play in order to express and make sense of their experiences. What tends to happen in therapy is that such children eventually are able to process the experiences and resolve them. An example of this is when such a child’s play shifts to themes of appropriate caregiving, such as acting in a nurturing parental or other caregiver role towards toys or the therapist. This demonstrates that the child has shifted into feeling empowered. By reenacting unfinished business in a physical manner, children are able to resolve their issues and are connected in mind and body.
Although psychologists first noticed this in children, it is now believed that the same holds true for adults. While adults are better able to process feelings and thoughts verbally, they still benefit from exploring feelings and thoughts in non-verbal ways because of the reasons mentioned above.
Since traumatic memories are often visual or visceral as opposed to verbal, as mentioned above, drama therapy offers opportunities to process such memories in a way that traditional talk-based therapy does not do.
Drama therapy also helps people feel embodied because it involves being present in one’s body in the moment. Like yoga, dance, and other physical activities, the act of drama has the ability to help people be more attuned to their bodies and to focus on the present moment as opposed to the past or future.
When talking about feelings, one may physically feel overwhelmed or detached, which as mentioned above leads to disconnection between body and mind. However, when exploring feelings through drama, one has the opportunity to connect the mind and body through application of the concept of distance that was explored in the prior article. The drama therapist is able to help the client gain distance from overwhelming feelings or get closer to pleasurable feelings.
Summary
Because drama therapy is an action therapy that allows people to express themselves both verbally and non-verbally, it offers opportunities for people to heal any imbalances they may have between their minds and bodies. Thus, it offers opportunities for embodiment.