Drama-Therapy | Drama Therapy India

What is Drama-Therapy?

"Drama therapy is the intentional use of drama and/or theater processes to achieve therapeutic goals."

- North American Drama Therapy Association (NADTA)

"Dramatherapy is a form of psychological therapy in which all of the performance arts are utilised within the therapeutic relationship."

- British Association of Dramatherapists

(BADTh)

Drama-Therapy in India

Across communities, castes, and socio-religious practices, dance-dramas and storytelling through folklore have often facilitated deeper emotional and spiritual states for the artist and their audiences (Bhishagratna, 2006). Drama-therapy is only recently gaining formal recognition as a distinct field of practice and research in India. Practitioners in major Indian cities are increasingly employing drama-therapy techniques—such as role-play, puppetry, and storytelling—for counselling and rehabilitation. Additionally, allied theatre modalities like Playback Theatre, Psychodrama, Theatre of the Oppressed, and Nukkad Natak (street theatre) are being utilized in both clinical and community health settings to reduce social isolation, enhance mental health literacy, and address broader social determinants of health including gender, caste, class, and education (Seshadri et al., 2025; Singh et al., 2012; Hoff et al., 2021; Khanna, 2021; Pehere & Yadavalli, 2021; Gopalakrishnan et al., 2024).

Notably, a petition for the formal recognition of drama-therapy as an allied healthcare profession is currently under review by the Government of India.

Why “Drama-therapy”?

At DTI, we have separated “Drama” and “Therapy” with a hyphen to acknowledge that both drama and psychotherapy have had healing roots in India for many years prior to their integration as “Drama-Therapy.” It also acknowledges the two different theoretical frameworks that DTI professional members represent. Most of the internationally trained and accredited members are either UK or USA trained and both countries have very different ethos when it comes to the training. But all practitioners who returned had a common goal of adapting their training to their local contexts. The hyphen is representative of that attempt of bridging this gap. It allows also for UK trained “dramatherapists” and USA trained “drama therapists” to engage with decolonising through reflexive dialogue and centering their contexts whether in client work, advocacy, supervision or building training material. The hope is that as more evidence based research emerges from India, we are able to build drama-therapy into a robust discipline of its own.

How does Drama-Therapy work?

A drama therapist first assesses a client's needs and then considers approaches that might best meet those needs. Locating fundamental “core processes” (Frydman et al., 2022) can help break down how a drama therapist arrives at these considerations - from assessment, to intervention and to establishing continuity of care. Understanding how drama-therapy works is foundational for drama-therapy researchers, practitioners, and educators in practicing and advancing the field.

Please note that these empirically driven “core processes” have been articulated by practice based researchers located in the UK and the U.S. One of our current areas of inquiry at DTI is to identify core processes that are most contextual to drama-therapy practices in India and how they differ (or not) from those identified by Frydman et al, 2022 below:

Drama Therapy Core Processes	Definitions
Dramatic Reality	Participating in a transition from external reality to a liminal state, bringing the imaginal realm into outward expression; an in-session departure from ordinary life.
Multi-dimensional Relationship	The inter-relationship between the participant(s), drama therapist(s), and dramatic reality.
Active Witnessing	The process by which participants notice aspects of themselves, others in a group, or the drama therapist. At the same time, participants are seen by the drama therapist, other group members, or an invited audience.
Aesthetic Distance	A process of titrating emotion and cognition through engagement with dramatic media.
Dramatic Embodiment	A physical, vocal, or emotional inhabiting of the body; attending to sensations; touch; the spectrum of physicalized expression of emotions, thoughts, reactions, impulses, and inner experiences.
Dramatic Play	Engagement in a co-created improvised relationship with reality, utilizing imagination and spontaneity. Typically, there is a sense of experimentation and engagement in experiential processes that are expressive and collaborative.
Dramatic Projection	The process of outwardly expressing and representing aspects of oneself, others, social forces, feelings, and experiences onto dramatic material (e.g., puppets, props, masks, text, role, story) and engaging with that material.

Frydman, J. S., Cook, A., Armstrong, C. R., Rowe, C., & Kern, C. (2022). The drama therapy core processes: A Delphi study establishing a North American perspective. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 80, 101939. 10.1016/j.aip.2022.101939

Who benefits from Drama-Therapy?

Drama-therapy is for everyone across the lifespan! You do not have to be “good” at performing to benefit from drama-therapy. In general, target populations can include persons recovering from addiction, dysfunctional families, developmentally disabled persons, abuse survivors, prison inmates, homeless persons, people with AIDS, older adults, behavioral health consumers, at-risk youth, and the general public.

Below are some studies that demonstrate how drama-therapy is supportive across the lifespan, community and health systems:

CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS:
- Reduce emotional distress, including symptoms of anxiety, depression, and trauma (Keiller et al., 2023)
ADULTS:
- Support recovery and empowerment for survivors of violence and sexual assault (Miguel & Pino-Juste, 2021)
- Enhance social functioning and reduce psychiatric symptoms in adults with psychosis and other serious and persistent mental illnesses (Melvin et al., 2024)
- Linguistic and speech benefits with patients with aphasia (Wood et al., 2020a, Wood et al., 2020b)
ELDERLY:
- Improve mood and cognitive functioning in older adults with dementia and parkinsons (Li-Wie et al., 2022; Savage et al., 2021).
COMMUNITY AND PUBLIC HEALTH CARE PRACTICE:
- Increase health literacy and reduce anxiety, stress, burnout and vicarious trauma in healthcare workers (Rothman et al., 2022)
- Increase vaccine promotion and improve public health communication during the pandemic (Seshadri et al., 2025)