Drama therapy postgraduate personal statement example

Personal statement example

My interest in drama therapy grew out of a joint degree in Drama and Psychology, where I spent three years moving between rehearsal rooms and research methods seminars and gradually noticed how much the two had in common. Both are concerned with what people do when they cannot say something directly. My dissertation looked at the use of structured role-play in a community theatre group for adults, drawing on interviews with six participants about how playing a character affected what they felt able to disclose. Several described the mask of a role as making difficult material approachable rather than hiding it, which shaped the way I now think about distance in therapeutic work. Reading Sue Jennings on embodiment, projection and role helped me put language to what I had observed, and Robert Landy's writing on role theory gave me a framework for thinking about how people hold several versions of themselves at once.

Alongside my degree I took an optional module in developmental psychology, which was more useful than I expected. Studying play as a developmental process changed how I saw drama games I had used casually for years: warm-ups that I had treated as icebreakers turned out to have a logic to them, moving from group rhythm to individual choice at a pace people could tolerate. My practical drama modules involved devised work rather than scripted performance, so I am used to building material collaboratively, negotiating disagreement in a group and abandoning ideas that are not working. I found the improvisation assessments genuinely difficult at first because I wanted to plan; learning to stay with uncertainty in front of other people is probably the most relevant skill I took from the course.

For the past two years I have worked weekend shifts as a support worker's assistant in a residential home for older adults, including several residents living with dementia. My role is practical, mainly helping with meals, activities and company, and I am careful not to overstate it. Even so, it has taught me things a degree could not. I have learned that a conversation can be meaningful without being coherent, that singing and movement often reach someone when questions do not, and that my own discomfort with silence is something to manage rather than fill. One resident and I developed a routine of sorting through a box of old postcards and inventing journeys for them, which she enjoyed on days when direct questions about her past distressed her. That experience made me think seriously about how imaginative work can hold memory safely.

I also volunteer fortnightly with a youth drama group for eleven to fourteen year olds, where I assist a lead facilitator. I plan short warm-up sequences and help manage the group, which has given me a realistic sense of how quickly a session can shift and how much structure young people need in order to take risks. I have seen quiet members contribute through movement or sound before they speak, and I have learned to notice who is opting out and why rather than pushing for participation.

I know that training in drama therapy will require me to examine my own responses closely, and to work under supervision in placements where the material will be more demanding than anything I have met so far. I expect the personal development elements to be uncomfortable at times. What I bring is a solid grounding in psychological theory and dramatic practice, patience gained from care work, and a habit of reflecting in writing after sessions. In the longer term I would like to work with older adults or in community mental health settings, where I have seen how much can happen through play.

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