Dramatherapy

The Nature of Interruption

Author: Richard Hougham and Bryn Jones

This book investigates the nature and phenomena of interruption in ways, which have relevance for contemporary dramatherapy practice. It is a timely contribution amidst an ‘Age of Interruption’ and examines how dramatherapists might respond with agency and discernment in personal, professional and cultural contexts.

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Summary

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This book investigates the nature and phenomena of interruption in ways that have relevance for contemporary dramatherapy practice. It is a timely contribution amidst an ‘age of interruption’ and examines how dramatherapists might respond with agency and discernment in personal, professional and cultural contexts.

The writing gathers fresh ideas on how to conceptualise and utilise interruptions artistically, socially and politically. Individual chapters destabilise traditional conceptions of verbal and behavioural models of psychotherapy and oﬀer a new vision based in the arts and philosophy. There are examples of interruption in practice contexts, augmented by extracts from case studies and clinical vignettes. The book is not a sequential narrative – rather a bricolage of ideas, which create intersections between aesthetics, language and the imagination. New and international voices in dramatherapy emerge to generate a radical immanence; from Greek shadow puppetry to the Japanese horticultural practice of Shakkei; from the appearance of ‘ghosts’ in the consulting room to images in the third space of the therapeutic encounter, interruptions are reckoned with as relevant and generative.

This book will be of interest to students, arts therapists, scholars and practitioners, who are concerned with the nature of interruption and how dramatherapy can oﬀer a means of active engagement.

Critic Reviews

‘The authors suggest that in the arts the unplanned or the interruptive can be the most arresting moment. They explore this hypothesis through examples presented by experienced dramatherapists, and through reference to significant writers, such as Jung and Levinas. The result is an intriguing, creative and original book that considers the causes and roots of interruptions in different contexts. A timely book, reflective, well-constructed and offering the reader the opportunity to consider in a new way the role of interruption in our daily lives.’ Diane Waller, Emeritus Professor of Art Psychotherapy, Goldsmiths University of London

'Among the most interesting of edited books are those offering a specific theme that contributors, like jazz musicians, riff on, explore, and expand. This prescient volume weaves ancient and modern thought to capture drama therapy’s potential for addressing the current moment, including reflections on living (and working) through a pandemic and welcome interrogations of therapeutic dogma. Readers will find grounding reminders and disruptively fresh ideas—a tension we need as we contemplate new horizons of practice.' Craig Haen, Ph.D., Private Practitioner and Co-Founder of the Kint Institute

About the Author

Richard Hougham is a Dramatherapist and Principal Lecturer and Course Leader of the MA Drama and Movement Therapy programme at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London. He is Chair of the European Consortium of Arts Therapies Education (ECArTE).

Bryn Jones is a Dramatherapist and Supervisor. He teaches drama on the MA Drama and Movement Therapy programme at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London. His current clinical practice includes working with adults on an addiction therapy programme and for a bereavement service.