Stealing the Show: Dance, Theater and Music Facilitating Creative Arts Therapy
Creative Arts Therapy is a type of expressive therapy that focuses on improving a person’s emotional, mental, and physical well-being using the creative process of producing art.
Art, music, theater, dance/movement, poetry/creative writing, bibliotherapy, play, or sand play can all be used in Creative Arts Therapy in so many different ways.
The Creative Arts Therapies are research-based interventions that tap into the intrinsic human desire to participate with, react to, and identify with the arts, whatever they may be.
Creative Arts Treatment is, for that reason, a preferred style of therapy for individuals who find it exceptionally difficult to talk about past or current experiences or concerns. Some truly traumatic events are difficult to verbalize, and this might provide a different communication platform for the client, one that allows for the person to open-up in a safe environment created through the arts.
The American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA) defines dance/movement therapy (DMT) as the psychotherapeutic use of movement to develop emotional, social, cognitive, and physical integration of the individual in order to improve health and well-being. It works on the premise that movement is a form of communication, and it is our primal language. Nonverbal and movement communication starts in the womb and continues throughout life.
Nonverbal language is just as important to dance/movement therapists as verbal language, and both are used in the therapeutic process.
Functional, communicative, developmental, and expressive movement are all possibilities. Dance/movement therapists look at movement as it emerges in the therapeutic interaction in the therapeutic session through these lenses to monitor, assess, and intervene.
Theatre in a Creative Therapy space employs a variety of techniques to assist people in making meaningful changes, including play, embodiment, projection, role, storytelling, metaphor, empathy, distancing, witnessing, performance, and improvisation. A drama therapist assesses a client’s needs before recommending a variety of strategies to meet those goals. Individuals can use it to express themselves, communicate with others, and improve their skills. Drama therapy attempts to give people a safe place to connect with one another, share their stories and experiences, and develop self-expression by giving them a healthy outlet for their emotions.
Music therapy is the application of music in a way that achieves specific goals such as the reduction of stress, or alterations in mood, and it even aids the expression of self. It is a well-known evidence-based therapy. Listening, singing, playing instruments, and composing music are all examples of the kinds of activities that take place in music therapy. It is not necessary to have any musical abilities beforehand to participate in this! Music therapy affects the mind, body, brain, and behavior in many ways. Music has the ability to divert the mind, slow the body’s rhythms, and change our mood, all of which can influence behavior.
Psychologically, emotionally, physically, spiritually, cognitively, and socially, creative arts therapies can be very beneficial.