Dramatherapy and Learning Disabilities: Developing Emotional Growth, Autonomy and Self-Worth

Dramatherapy and Learning Disabilities demonstrates the power of dramatherapy to help clients with learning disabilities, addressing current research, evidencebased work, and methods in the dramatherapy and learning disabilities fields.

Featuring contribution from 19 dramatherapists with a range of clients of all ages who have moderate to severe learning disabilities, this book presents ways in which dramatherapists are innovating new approaches to their work in the field. The authors demonstrate their expertise but also acknowledge their limitations. They explore what it is like to work in multidisciplinary teams and with parents and carers of children and adults with learning disabilities. Each chapter provides detailed vignettes of client/therapist experience and enables the reader to gain insight into therapists’ thinking and the process that guides their clinical judgement. Structured accounts of sessions and outcomes, tracking clients’ progress and the use of evaluation tools evidence the effectivity of dramatherapy and creative therapies’ practice.

This book will be a significant resource for trainee dramatherapists, arts therapists and professionals interested in incorporating creative methods into their practice. It also provides examples of burgeoning arts therapies research within the field and lays the foundations for future projects.

Helen Milward is a Drama and Movement Therapist, who has worked with vulnerable, disadvantaged and disabled children and young people in various settings. She has managed teams of therapists both in special education and for the NHS and is currently developing a service for birthing people experiencing trauma and loss.

Anna Seymour is Emeritus Professor of Dramatherapy at the University of Roehampton London and an HCPC registered Dramatherapist.