How Do We Know Dramatherapy Works?

 

The question of whether therapy works or not could be argued to be a subjective one; How can we quantify the way a person feels? This is an argument that has troubled the therapeutic community for years. Over the last decade particularly, therapists have found themselves increasingly having to justify their presence within organisations and to the medical communities at large. This is where evidence based practice has come into play.

 

Evidence Based Practice (EBP) is defined by Marks (2002:5) as “an adaptation of epistemology and methodology derived from the natural sciences and applied to fields of clinical medicine, health care and education.” It takes a problem based approach and encourages clinicians to critically evaluate existing research and integrate the findings into their own work. Due to the scientific nature of EBP it is held up as a template for researchers to provide evidence of the quality, success and value of their work, particularly with regards to large healthcare organisations such as the NHS. Although it has been developed from positivist and realist studies, the EBP scope has since been widened by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) to include:

 

a)      evidence from meta-analysis of randomised control trials

b)      evidence from at least one randomised control trial

c)      evidence from at least one controlled study without randomisation

d)      evidence from at least one other type of quasi-experimental study

e)      evidence from non-experimental descriptive studies

f)        evidence from expert committee reports or opinions and/or clinical experience of respected authorities

 

Dokter (2011) references Gilroy (2006) in her discussion regarding EBP in the arts and the suggestion that the NICE guidelines were still too exclusive of Arts Therapy research. Therefore Gilroy has widened the scope still further to include:

 

g)    evidence from other research, for example case studies, phenomenological, ethnographic, anthropological, art-based or collaborative studies.

h)      evidence from other academically rigorous tests.

i)       evidence from local consensus or user representatives.

 

Also according to Dokter and Winn (2009) EBP within Dramatherapy is now systematically reviewed by the British Association of Dramatherapists in order to ensure synthesis with existing Dramatherapy research and other arts therapies.

 

 

REFERENCES:

 

Brooker, J. et al. (2005) in Dokter, D. Holloway, P. and Seebohlm, H. (2011) (eds.)

Dramatherapy and Destructiveness: Creating the Evidence Base, playing with Thanatos. London: Routledge.

 

Dokter, D.  and Winn, L. (2009) Evidence Based Practice: A Dramatherapy Research

            Project. Dramatherapy Journal. 31(3): 3 – 9.

 

Marks, D. (2002) Perspectives on Evidence-Based Practice. London: Health Development

            Agency, City University Press.

 

National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (2013) EBP guidelines. [online] available at: http://www.nice.org.uk/ [accessed on 14th March 2013]