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ACT: Taking Hurt to Hope – Drama and ACT therapy: similar processes
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How is writing stage plays similar to psychotherapy in general and ACT in particular? In general, all drama is telling a story about the adventures of a character who, in trying to achieve an aim, is faced with obstacles, he or she struggles with and in most cases, overcomes.
The hero?s struggles with the obstacles constitutes the drama. In psychotherapy, the client also has an aim or what we call in ACT for a valued direction, and is also faced with obstacles which most often pull him off track. A person comes to therapy for exactly this reason.
He or she is reacting to these obstacles or challenges in ways that often provide short term relief but which in the long run are self destructive. The job of the psychotherapist and ACT therapist is to help the person to react to these obstacles in a more flexible manner which helps him to learn from this challenge and get back on track with his life. This is exactly what the author does with his hero.
Today we are going to learn more about how these two very different professions actually share the same processes.
Our guest today is the prominent American playwright Michael Downend member of PEN, Dramatist Guild, Writers Guild of America, Playwright Center. Michael is the author of High Thin Cirrus, The Light fro Distant Objects . You can read more about Michael on his website [email protected] by clicking on his name on this week?s ACT taking hurt to hope on webtalkradio.net