Abstract

For the field of drama therapy, research pertaining to its efficacy, although beginning to grow, is still desperately lacking. Indeed, there are many drama therapists working in the environment of the public high school and, although it has been documented that drama therapy is an effective therapeutic method for the adolescent population, there is very little research proving that it is effective within the high school, itself. Moreover, it seems that there is a desperate need for change within the high school system; with atrocities such as the shootings at Columbine as glaring indicators. Thus, through a phenomenological investigation of a drama therapy program conducted within a public high school, this study sets out to secure drama therapy's presence within this context. The facilitator of the drama therapy program, the head teacher at the school and the five girls who participated in the program were all interviewed in an attempt to ascertain the experience itself. This study highlights, then, how one might develop and facilitate a drama therapy program within a public high school so that both the needs of the school as well as the therapeutic needs of the participants might be adequately met