Course Overview

The MA Dramatherapy program at Roehampton offers a ritual theatre form of drama therapy. Influenced by key theatrical figures and explored from anthropological, political, and psychological perspectives, the program offers a clearly structured developmental learning process mirroring the clinical application of drama therapy at various levels. 

The program offers theatre skills, movement, working with stories and myths, Grotowski’s paratheatrical techniques, crafting theatres of the psyche, working with our own internal dramas, and the use of ‘rites of passage’ within the ritual theatre. There are opportunities to work with other art forms and to learn different theoretical perspectives through embodied learning.

In this program, you will learn to facilitate an in-depth therapeutic process for a range of client groups, and devise therapeutic performances and workshops. You will also undertake an original piece of research into drama therapy practice. The course is approved by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and leads to a nationally-recognized professional qualification.

The program consists of three stages, which offer a clearly structured developmental process for the clinical application of drama therapy. In Stage One, you will be introduced to basic theatre skills and use these creatively to work with established stories and characters. This progresses into an exploration of the personal identifications that we have with stories and myths, and an understanding of the deep foundations within many cultural traditions of using ritual, drama, and performance for the enhancement of health.

In Stage Two, the focus moves on to employing drama and theatre processes as vehicles for exploring our own interpersonal and internal ‘dramas’.

Stage Three is where you will conduct your own piece of practical investigation or research into the literature and theory-based drama therapy practice. The Dramatherapy program will provide you with a broad range of skills enabling you to pursue your own research interests across a wide spectrum of drama therapy practice and theory.

Our research areas include individual drama therapy in schizophrenia; perception and evaluation of therapeutic outcomes from therapist and client perspectives; the role of race, culture, and gender; drama therapy and “mentalization” with borderline personality disorder and complex trauma; therapeutic scenarios and resistance; creativity and destructiveness; the drama therapist; and the multidisciplinary team.

Alongside the experiential focus of the training, the program also aims to develop the necessary understanding and reflective capacity required to practice as a professional aromatherapist. This is achieved through workshops, lecture series, and clinical application seminars, as well as through assessed clinical placements.

General Eligibility

You should usually hold a second-class honors degree (certain programs may require a 2:1) from a recognized British or overseas university.

Part Time Work Details

20 hours of work permit weekly for international students.

Language Requirement

• IELTS 6.5 overall with a minimum 5.5 in each component.