Dramatherapy – (M.A.)

This course provides professional training in dramatherapy, with an emphasis on clinical placements. It introduces students to various dramatherapy approaches with an emphasis on a developmental and psychodynamic orientation. The course aims to train suitably experienced actors, performance artists, therapists, teachers and other practitioners as professional dramatherapists at Masters level; successful candidates will be eligible for registration with the Health Professions Council.

Drama at Anglia Ruskin has been recognised as excellent for learning and teaching, and the related discipline music therapy, which is well established here, has been rated world leading for research in the recent Research Assessment Exercise. Some shared learning with music therapy students will make for a multi-disciplinary approach but with dramatherapy remaining a discrete professional training. The course is situated within a thriving Music and Performing Arts Department.

You will be expected to involve yourself in self-reflective learning through small and large group processes. Lectures, workshops and seminars will involve dramatic activity, case discussion and theoretical analysis. A significant component of experiential learning is through tutorials and supervision groups, embracing a central teaching style. Clinical placements are key to the experience.

You will benefit from learning about the most recent effective dramatherapy approaches with adults and children. Connections between the body and mind will be emphasised and you will draw on your previous training/experience in theatre, drama and the clinical field. Through this experience you will learn about how dramatherapists create methods to engage clients in effecting psychological, emotional and social changes.

Additional course information
Dramatherapy uses working and playing actively to facilitate imagination, creativity, learning, insight and growth. The dramatherapy training is full time, and attendance at the university in the first year is on the basis that students are four days in college, of which two days are spent in placements for 6 months of the year. In the second year you will attend not more than one day a week and attend placements one day a week, with the rest for private study for your Dissertation/Major Project.

Key features are:

* infant observations where you will observe a parent and baby
* role play skills in small groups
* focus on own dramatic autobiographical process
* dramatherapy theory
* links between theory and practice
* block clinical placements in at least three fields, including in the community, schools, hospitals, and hospices
* university-based small clinical supervision groups
* managerial supervision at clinical placements by qualified therapists
* experience within multidisciplinary teams
* bi-weekly experiential dramatherapy groups throughout the two years, where students reflect upon their clinical experiences and upon the process of becoming a dramatherapist
* supervision and teaching by leading researchers in the field, to prepare for the Major Project/Dissertation in the second year. Your Dissertation may be research or more clinically oriented, depending on your particular choice.