The use of dramatic activities to facilitate dance therapy with adolescents

Abstract

Groups of conduct-disordered adolescents certainly pose a challenge to the dance therapist who is familiar with group cohesion, synchronous movement, and an ongoing flow of images. In our experience, dance therapy groups of adolescents more often resemble either chaotic school recesses or highly structured exercise classes. The dance therapist is faced with the choice of tolerating disruptive limit-testing behavior or structuring the group like an army sergeant. Clinically, we have found that this leads to frustration and doubt about one’s competency as a dance therapist, rather than to one’s questioning the appropriateness of the basic structure of the therapy session. However, enough information is now available both to articulate with greater precision the nature of these difficulties, and to suggest modifications that will improve the effectiveness of dance therapy with this population. Foremost among these modifications is the addition of dramatic structures, which provide the interpersonal structure adolescents need in order to feel more comfortable, while allowing for the development of meaningful images of inner life.