This book is the first to examine the performance of autobiographical material as a theatrical form, a research subject, and a therapeutic method. Contextualizing personal performance within psychological and theatrical paradigms, the book identifies and explores core concepts, such as the function of the director/therapist throughout the creative process, the role of the audience, and the dramaturgy involved in constructing such performances. It thus provides insights into a range of Autobiographic Therapeutic Performance forms, including Self-Revelatory and Autoethnographic Performance. Addressing issues of identity, memory, authenticity, self-reflection, self-indulgence, and embodied self-representation, the book presents, with both breadth and depth, a look at this fascinating field, gathering contributions by notable professionals around the world. Methods and approaches are illustrated with case examples that range from clients in private practice in California, through students in drama therapy training in the UK, to inmates in Lebanese prisons.
Chapter 1. The Self In Performance; Susana Pendzik, Renee Emunah, and David Read Johnson.- Part I. Influences and Concepts.- Chapter 2. Influences of Experimental Theatre on the Emergence Of Self-Revelatory Performance; Stephen Snow.- Chapter 3. From Behind the Scenes to Facing an Audience in Self- Revelatory Performance; Renee Emunah.- Chapter 5. Surprise and Otherness in Self-Revelatory Performance; David Read Johnson.- Chapter 6. Relational Aesthetics in the Performance of Personal Story; Nisha Sajnani.- Chapter 7. Intersubjectivity in Autobiographical Performance in Dramatherapy; Jean-Francois Jacques.- Part II. Applications and Approaches.- Chapter 8. Autobiographical Therapeutic Performance as Individual Therapy; Armand Volkas.- Chapter 9. Embodied Life-Stories; Sheila Rubin.- Chapter 10. Restoried Script Performance; Pam Dunne.- Chapter 11. The Performative; Gideon Zehavi.- Chapter 12. Heuristic Methodology in Arts-Based Inquiry of Autobiographcial Therapeutic Performance; Drew Bird.- Chapter 13. A Retrospective Study of Autobiographical Performance During Dramatherapy Training; Ditty Dokter and Alida Gersie.- Chapter 14. Personal Theatre and Pedagogy; Anna Seymour.- Chapter 15. Autobiographical Therapeutic Theatre With Older People With Dementia; Dovrat Harel.- Chapter 16. The Unheard Stories Of Those Forgotten Behind Bars In Lebanon; Zeina Daccache.- Chapter 17. Reflections On Terrorists Of The Heart: A Couple's Performance On Loss And Acceptance; Jules Dorey Richmond and David Richmond.- Chapter 18. The Play As Client; Maria Hodermarska, Prentiss Benjamin, and Stephanie Omens.
