While traditional talk therapy is key to helping clients process troubling emotional experiences, verbal methods have their limitations, particularly for adults with developmental disabilities. For clients warranting alternative means of communication, more creative interventions are needed—and resources for therapists who work with this challenging population are scarce. In this video, Stephen Snow of Concordia University’s Centre for the Arts in Human Development combines unique theatre and creative arts therapies approaches to demonstrate how a group of adults with developmental disabilities can access and transform their inner experience.
Over the course of a three-year project, Snow and his colleagues employ a range of therapeutic techniques to engage his group members, leveraging their talents to promote healing. Snow, with the aid of art therapists, guides the group through powerful mask-making and performance art, helping them publicly reject the stigma of childhood taunts and name-calling. A music therapist and a social worker help Puja and Cheryl describe the pain of not being allowed to ride city buses, and the dance therapy team encourages Matthew to express his dreams using dance and poetry. You’ll watch the project evolve over time, with commentary detailing the ways in which Snow incorporates playback theater, expressive arts, and performance to elicit the stories of the group members.
Using Snow’s development of a model called ethnodramatherapy—a dynamic combination of ethnodrama and drama therapy—all of the actors find ways to convey the challenges and joys of their lives. Not only does ethnodramatherapy support the expression and growth of the group, he maintains, but also it facilitates social change through direct contact with the experience of “people who don’t often get a chance to tell their own stories.”
If you’re working with people with developmental disabilities or are interested in learning more about creative arts therapies, you’ll be thrilled to add this heartwarming video to your library.
