Unit 11

How can drama be used as a tool to assist with mental health issues in society

Statics:
Statistics show 1 in 10 students suffer from mental health.Throughout the years,there has been a huge increase by 55% on students suffering anxiety and stress. Exams,body image issues and family breakdowns contribute to these mental health factors. Although there are numerous programs to assist this, the quality of Performing Arts should not be underestimated for its value in helping people suffer from mental health.Performing Arts can push these victims, motivating them to utilise their voice and communication skills in order to express a certain emotion their feeling instead of allowing it to build up inside.People which suffer from mental health issues have got to expresses themselves in order to receive help and in my perspective Performing Arts is the best way to achieve this. Doctor / therapists have studied a variety of different arts which can boost peoples confidence, resistance
and self-esteem.

After taking surveys, the results illustrate that 38% of people who participate in the acting industry whilst having mental health issues, have a positive outcome by having a positive attitude towards their illness due to engaging in art activities which in my perspective is a distraction and allows their mind to escape from thoughts and feelings which are causing these issues and project these emotions into some type of Art. In June 2016, a company named "Artis" were working on ways to improve the deliverance and service to mental health patience in order for them to feel their support. Therefore, schools and the NHS came together to discuss this with the government and came to the conclusion that the government will invest up to 1.4 billion in student mental health services over the next 5 years in the UK. Drama activities help build emotional resilience , problem solving abilities and allow people to feel self- confident . All these values help reduce mental health within people as these activities are seen as a form of expression .I feel by participating in the Arts can reduce social isolation. This is an effective way to aid positive mental health through performances and interaction with others.

Even Actors are expected to expose emotion therefore by someone suffering mental health doing so , is a form of relief . Methods like stanislavski emotional memory method , is a combination of your personal emotions and the cause of those, and then reconnecting these similar emotions for your character( this then creates empathy) . By embodying your emotion through your character on stage prevents anxiety and depression as you’ve released what your feeling without fully acknowledging. Not only can drama be used as a tool to assist mental health by acting but also in other ways within the performing arts industry: By becoming a writer , writing a script
Example – Thomas wrote a solo play star which focuses on a young woman’s suicide
He utilised this to express her frustration with hardly any understanding of mental health and used this platform to recall her own personal experiences of battling depression

Performing arts requires
-Talking.
-Meeting others.
-Not going through it alone.

Drama therapy :

Drama therapy is a type of therapy which helps people suffering from mental health through the use of a variety of  Dram techniques  such as Role play, voice work movement and story telling and therefore combining this with physiological training to understand the client . It can be seen as a treatment modality and can be used in a variety of setting ;Schools, Mental health clinics, Prisons and Hospitals. Drama therapy helps clients explore and solve both personal and social problems.Its unique combination of drama techniques within  experimental training allows people to express themselves in a different format, rather than sitting in front of a therapist and just talking.

Everybody suffers from mental health in a variety of ways and in order to defeat this illness, drama therapy has certain objectives and aspects to assist this.
-Promoting positive behaviour changes
-Improve personal skills and how you handle certain situations ( self harming etc)
-Interrogate physical and emotional well being
-Understanding the clients emotional state
-Personal growth

Drama therapy can be used as a treatment for mental health such as
-Anxiety
-Depression
-Rehabilitation
-Eating disorders

Playback theatre:

Play back theatre was established by numerous of Greek professional performers and physco-therapist. Playback theatre, is utilised as a good approach to address stigma of mental health disorders and illustrate social representations of mental illness. In order to teach playback theatre, you must have knowledge in certain aspects such as :mental disorders, drama therapy and psyche drama as it revolves around drama therapy and physco-drama .These are essential to know as its often used in rehabilitation settings( examples further on). Play back theatre is a frame of dramatic expression in order to decrease social disorders and help build confidence within the person. When performing , it gives the audience a chance to share real life experiences by watching the performances and then reflecting it on their own lives. Some life experiences and wounds are to painful to address through the the standard way of seeing a therapist/counsellor and using the verbal dialogue. Playback theatre utilises acting and metaphors to express emotion which is a lot easier for people to overcome their mental health issues, In addition to this, physical and verbal expression is used to highlight difficult issues( for example, dramatic actions are used to address actions and concerns). Its naturalism emphasises the framework of drama therapy and then combines it with the use of playback theatre.

Role therapy/ Role method
Role therapy is used in addition to this in drama therapy.It helps individuals achieve resolutions by illustrating how the past impacts the presents.Role play aims to bring the body and mind together.Its content is often; Stories, Myths, Plays, Masks and Improvisation. Its stories may be fiction or non-fictional or may even be based on the clients own experience. These contents provide a direct approach to help clients experience these difficult and painful events.Plays and improvisation can encourage clients to understand negative behaviours and  practice new ways reacting to these experiences.This empowers people who struggle with communication to express their needs and feelings, Help  relationships by enhancing confidence, self stress , gain control over conflicted situations.

 Instead of having the structure of just following scripts, the structure is this accord:
1)Practice
2)Learn it
3)Adapt to it
4) Try out different roles

In 2009, John sen made a valuable contribution to the performing arts sector, by introducing 9 core processes that all are all correlated to drama therapy.
-Dramatic projection
- Play and embodiment
-Personification
-Impersonation
-Interactive audience
-The life drama connection
-Therapeutic performance
-Drama therapeutic empathy
-Transformation

In the 1920's , a Romanian psychologist Jacob observed how role play freed peoples mind to reveal their thoughts and feeling which may be a burden on their shoulders. In 1960, A Brazilian theatre director, August Boal, focused on the concept of community theatre.His main focus was on the audience and involving them in order to feel like they can express themselves through the actors.By communicating their mental health disorders and negative experiences to the actors, and then watching the actors on stage retell their dilemmas/stories not only engages the audience but allows the person to see their story in more depth. This introduces new direction for drama therapy as you learn new skills and accepting different past. This method helps people in a wide range of contexts to achieve change and stability for the suffering. This indicates personal growth as well as promoting health.


Examples of Plays:

Equus

Equus is a play written by Peter Shaffer written in 1973. This play explores aspects of mental health based upon a true story. It tells the story of a psychologist who attempts to treat a young man who has a religious fascination with horses. The play is inspired by a crime( a 17 year old who blinded 6 horses in a  small town in suffox) which occurred before the play was written.By basing his play on the crime, peter was able to make a fictional account of what might've caused the incident. The play highlights a variety of themes such as;
-Conflict between personal values and satisfaction
-Expectations
- Institutions

His goal he set to achieve whilst writing this play was " To create  neutral world in which the dead and insane could be made comprehensible.The original plays stage production ran at the national theatre in London between 1973 to 1975 and then continued across to Broadway productions in order to gain more publicity due to its outstanding feedback . Broadway productions allowed more than 1209 performances on its one play due to its popularity.Although majority of the critics had great feedback, Many of these critics labelled this play as a physco-drama .

The play focuses on the use of physicality and the role it can play in mental health rehabilitation.By combining pharmacological realism with expressionistic theatrical techniques emphasises on mental health and how it is viewed in society as non-naturalistic and madness.Peter conveyed this by using masks, mimes and stylised movements within equus. In order to achieve how accurate he can convey mental health attitudes through the actors physicality, peter explore human physce and used this as the core to all problems which unravelled into madness through a humans dis functional problems due to problems being unsolved. These core problems often trigger all the way back to dark childhood memories which often have a huge impact on your attitudes and behaviours whilst growing up. By peter leading mental health issues back to childhood issues, creates awareness to the audience and encourages them to express and talk regarding these issues as he expresses the consequences of not doing so , throughout his whole play and the erratic behaviours the characters display .Peter takes you on a journey through the use of characters to explore the inside mind of a patients life, viewing peoples personal stress and highlighting social dysfunctions which stems from the negative influence of childhood events. Audience often view these realistic perspectives through the characters Pysant and Alan. 

In my perspective , the play as a social commentary on mental illness , in addition peter explores the social aspects meant health has on everyone. Each character represents a different extreme view on a mental health aspect which encourages the audience to take all these into consideration within themselves , or perhaps someone that they know.

Five Seconds of Silence:

Five Kinds of Silence is an unflinchingly honest and deeply insightful portrait of a family broken by both mental and systematic abuse. The play touches on mental health issues on a personal level as well as exploring it throughout the family. 

Founded in 1997, and with 39 productions to its credit, Stepping Out Theatre is the country’s leading mental health theatre group. It has produced a wide range of work on mental health themes and is open to people who have used mental health services and their allies. It offers mental health service users the opportunity to work alongside people with professional experience of writing, directing and acting, some of whom are service users themselves. The group has won two national awards in recognition of its high quality and groundbreaking work in mental health.

This particular play focuses on a family which has been victims of abuse by their father/husband Billy The play highlights mental health through the character Billy and his psychotic ways which has an effect on his family and there well being and mental state . Stephenson’s play is a brave expose of abuse which, as its title implies, too often remains hidden behind veils of silence. The father Billy is a abusive husband / father mentally and physically .He was abused as a child and utilised this pain into abusing his family to.The play explores the abuse presently and the journey of Billy becoming the way he is ( an abuser)as he, at one stage, was also a victim.

I analysed each character  feel individually as well as how the abuse affects the family as a whole and can In fact push the family so far that the consequence could lead up to drastic measures .At the end of this play, the 3 females shoot billy in his bed twice.this highlights that enough is enough and even though this is not the right way to handle these types of situations, the fact that abuse has driven these 3 victims into doing something which isn’t normal emphasises on just how damaging abuse can be mentally and physically . 

The play is to create awareness With mental health issues as its being so widespread in the population, it is extremely important to raise awareness, support those around you that are suffering from a mental health problem, and to seek help if you feel you are suffering from any form of mental illness or mental health problem.This play emphasises on how mental health can happen to anybody, dont be ashamed. By mental health being explored through a normal family living " normal lives" makes the audience feel like they can relate more to the play as everyone has family therefore its something they can relate to. Often when people are in a certain predicament , they dont realise it until they see it from a outside perspective. 

Both plays have had good critics as we all as raising awareness by illustrating significant message across to not only [people which suffer from mental health issues but also to the people who do not know that much information regarding this topic.In my opinion, plays are the most effective to get a message across as its informative as well as a source of entertainment.

In conclusion, I feel performing arts is an extremely useful strategy to help assist people who struggle from mental issues as well as people suffering abuse, I feel it allows them to receive the help they need without them even noticing. The strategies Drama therapy provides in order to link the human mind to the theory of acting is effective and subtle. People which suffer from mental health often find it hard to accept that. Role plays and playback theatre escapes you're mind from the negativity whilst having fun . You achieve both aims by participating in this .Not only is this a process , but a process which doesn't require so much pain and suffering

 References :

https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/your-mind-plan-quiz/?WT.tsrc=Search&WT.mc_id=MentalHealthGeneric&gclid=Cj0KCQjwpfHzBRCiARIsAHHzyZrw3hsLz9e2K0EMltnnrNYPFkE1SPK2xImXYTf-Sxyeyq89BSdY8iQaAk4DEALw_wcB
https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2018/apr/25/drama-performing-mental-health-may-contain-nuts
https://getintotheatre.org/blog/what-support-is-there-for-mental-health-in-theatre