Hospital Finds Drama Therapy Effective Tool

In Behavioral Health Healing

DANBURY — Far from a Broadway stage or even a community theater, drama has found a valuable role in health care.

This past spring, Creative Alternatives of New York (CANY) conducted a 12-week training at Danbury Hospital to demonstrate the effectiveness of “drama therapy” as an alternative tool in the healing process for behavioral health patients. CANY’s course of intensive drama therapy training involved both the staff and patients of the hospital’s Inpatient Behavioral Health Unit.

This training program introduced participants to the basic principles and practice behind drama as a healing modality. The staff who participated in the program explored the basic tenets of the CANY model of drama therapy with a specific focus on its practical application in groups, learning concrete creative skills for therapeutic use.

Drama therapists who train staff in psychiatric units or outpatient mental health settings often help patients who have a wide variety of clinical diagnoses, including eating disorders, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, addictions, or Alzheimer’s disease.

Heidi Landis, registered drama therapist (RDT), licensed creative arts therapist (LCAT), certified psychodramatist (CP/PAT) and certified group psychotherapist (CGP), program manager CANY, and Lucy McLellan, RDT-BCT, LCAT, program director CANY, led the training on the Inpatient Behavioral Health Unit.

Throughout the program, Behavioral Health staff experienced the drama therapy process in action, and learned the rationale behind the therapeutic use of metaphor and its practical application in healing dramas.

Every week, back-to-back sessions were held. The first group focused on direct service and included both patients and psychiatric staff, allowing patients to experience a CANY group and the staff to see the work in action.

The second training session was for staff only, and explored the choices made and interventions employed during the earlier group, as well as other ways that the CANY model might be used within the patient groups.

“The thrilling reality of drama therapy is the incorporation of biology, psychology, and creative expression and how it facilitates mental health and rehabilitation,” said Halana Finnie, MS, PMHNP, CNS-BC, FNP, clinical director, Behavioral Health Nursing, who helped bring this program to fruition. “Drama therapy can benefit and assist our patients in achieving symptom relief, emotional and personal growth.”

Behavioral Health inpatients at Danbury Hospital are now participating in “drama group” interventions aimed at improving their self-esteem, emotional expression and self-regulation, spontaneity and the capacity to play a diverse range of life roles. They are also learning how to increase their sense of hope through creativity.

Peggy Tuiach, RN, MSN, nurse manager of Danbury Hospital’s Inpatient Psychiatry Unit, said, “This experience has been exciting for the entire staff. For them to be part of a very creative, patient-centered intervention is amazing. We have fully incorporated ‘drama group’ into our inpatient schedule and the patients truly enjoy it. Drama group has also been specifically mentioned in a very positive light on our patients’ Press-Ganey survey responses.”

The drama therapy program training was made possible by a generous donation from Tom Pepin and family of Danbury. Looking for the right opportunity to do something for Danbury Hospital, the Pepin family felt that drama therapy was the perfect program for their philanthropic interests.

The family’s grant included the 12-week patient group and staff training, three consecutive months of clinical supervision for the staff, and again at the six-month mark.

For more information on Danbury Hospital’s Behavioral Health Unit visit the website www.danburyhospital.org.