NADTA 2024 Conference

As Dramatherapists we try to create spaces that offer hope and some respite from the ongoing oppressions of everyday life, inherited trauma, poor living conditions, dysfunctional relationships, the sheer struggle to survive which is experienced by so many people. Whilst we cannot take away those conditions, we need to make sense of them. We need to think about what causes mental and emotional ill health as well as treat its symptoms. Too often, in our ostensibly fractured societies, there is an emphasis on individual pathology and responsibility linked with minoritized identities. In this paper, which will include some participatory elements along with straightforward delivery, I will explore how our thinking and actions may end up colluding with the very conditions we seek to redress. Ideas that may start out with liberatory ambition may, over time, transform into conservatism. Drawing on political thinking developed through more than 40 years of activism; from the early days of second wave feminism to more recent struggles focused on the middle east; and the experiences of theatre making and dramatherapeutic practice; this paper will reflect on the intellectual and ideological landscape that Dramatherapy sits in. Whilst acknowledging the enrichment that engaging in the politics of identity has enabled, nonetheless, it will argue the abiding case for class as foundational to our understanding. There is much in life that we cannot control but what we can be in charge of are the thoughts in our heads and the ways we see the world.