Transience, transition, temporality and trauma: How can Dramatherapy support the homeless women’s population through use of aesthetic distance and the concept of the ‘magic bridge’? A Narrative literature review.

Abstract

This narrative literature review explores the possibilities of Dramatherapy within the population of women experiencing homelessness with specific reference to aesthetic distance and the magic bridge from the Sesame approach. Reflexive thematic analysis was used in the main to analyse the literature, but the author accepts that autoethnography is also present in the approach.

There is currently little if any research in this area, so this study examines the literature around 3 broad areas: Dramatherapy with adjacent groups such as women who have experienced trauma, other types of therapies with women experiencing homelessness and women and homelessness – social policy, practice and a gendered approach. The study considers the uses of Dramatherapy and explores its possibilities and potential with women experiencing homelessness and its hypothesised efficacy.

The findings are presented using 4 key researcher identified themes from the literature: A Gendered Approach, Therapist Attributes, Body as Home: Creative Arts Therapies as Shelter and The Therapeutic Group. They can be viewed through the larger frame in 2 broader areas of Groundwork and Process.

The study points to the assumption that Dramatherapy specifically using aesthetic distance and the magic bridge could be useful with this population so long as a trauma informed, gender based and client led approach be taken.