Can offering clients more than one therapeutic approach help meet their needs?
Here are clinical practice examples of how Dramatherapy can be combined with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for greater psychological health
This is useful when there is an identified need for
- choice of psychological therapy within the treatment programme
- opportunity for different forms of self-expression (verbal and non-verbal/symbolic)
- exploration of life story material emerging, unconsciously and consciously, from different time zones (past, present and/or future)
The benefits of attending this half-day seminar are:
- New understanding of how Dramatherapy can integrate with CBT
- Expanded creative skills and confidence in describing Dramatherapy’s potential within Combination Therapy (therapy that uses more than one modality)
- Capturing Quantitative and Qualitative Evaluation Outcomes to demonstrate Clinical Effectiveness
- Shared Learning from different workplaces
The seminar will cover four main areas:
1. Defining Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
2. A Combined Approach to Assessment, Treatment and Evaluation
3. Case Study Examples from Clinical Practice
4. Sharing Experience of Therapeutic Approaches in different work settings
This course is facilitated by dramatherapist Genevieve Smyth. As well as teaching on Combination Therapy approaches, Genevieve will invite participants to explore and share their own training or professional experience. This shared learning arena is designed to help equip participants with more knowledge and confidence to capitalise on Dramatherapy’s capacity to join with, and expand on, another psychological therapy. In this way participants can further resource themselves as clinicians and/or educators. The seminar includes facilitator input, practice examples, creative-experiential activity and group discussion.
Genevieve Smyth has worked in dramatherapy across the statutory, third and private healthcare sectors for 30 years. In 1994 she established the UK’s first theatre-based service which today employs 3 dramatherapists. She has contributed to dramatherapy texts and lectured in 17 countries. In 2019 she received from BADth an Outstanding Contribution Award for promoting dramatherapy in Scotland and internationally. In 2021 she became BADth’s first Policy Officer while continuing NHS work in Primary Care. This year she has also been helping to recruit Scotland’s first dramatherapy masters degree students.
Further information
According to NHS Inform, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) aims to help you think more positively about life and free yourself from unhelpful patterns of behaviour.
In CBT, you set goals with your therapist and may carry out tasks between sessions. A course typically involves around 6 to 15 sessions, which last about an hour each.
Like counselling, CBT deals with current situations more than events in your past or childhood. CBT is available on the NHS for people with depression, anxiety and other mental health problems that it has been proven to help. In particular, CBT can help with depression, anxiety, panic attacks, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and some eating disorders.