Shakespeare- Healing the Troubled Mind A Dramatic approach to issues of PTSD, suicidal ideation, and substance abuse recovery Nancy Smith-Watson James Tasse William Watson 1 “If a person has been deeply impacted by trauma, it’s more than likely that he first needs to find an oblique route through the imaginal realm, using metaphor and symbolic language to help him manage his symptoms, find a sense of safety, re-contact his wholest self and make language a viable avenue again.” - Psychotherapist Belleruth Naparstek, LICW, BCD 2 1
The Feast of Crispian This day is called the Feast of Crispian He that outlives this day and comes safe home Will stand a tiptoe when this day is named. He that shall see this day and live old age Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors And say, Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.’ Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars And say, ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day This story shall the good man teach his son And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by From this day to the ending of the world But we in it shall be remembered. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. - Henry V Act 4, scene 3 3 The triune (three part) brain 4 2
Trauma in the brain: • Amygdala: perceives threat • Prefrontal Cortex is taken offline • Stress hormone released • Vagus Nerve sends message to the body • Cascade of effects: extra oxygen for fight or flight, eyes widen, digestion stops, etc. • PTSD: stress response stuck in the “on” position 5 Moving from stuck to full brain function: Top down regulation: Top down regulation relies on strengthening the [prefrontal cortex’s] ability to monitor the bodies sensations. Mindfulness meditation Yoga Bottom up regulation: Bottom up regulation involves recalibrating the autonomic nervous system… through breath, movement, or touch. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk 6 3
Meaningful Language Communicate the impact of war Articulate Thoughts and Feelings Begin the process of expressing one’s own feelings Be Heard and Seen Seeing and Being seen Work Collaboratively with Commitment Hearing and Being heard Safe Rigorous Keep open the “Window of Tolerance ” 7 Window of Tolerance 8 4
Foster a sense of accomplishment Having an experience Utilize the power of story and metaphor Tools to understand and communicate personal experience Explore and perform texts Tools to understand and communicate personal experience Teach a practice of emotional awareness Skills in calming traumatic activation More satisfying participation in personal relationships 9 DRAMA • To Communicate Experience • To Re-enact Experience •To Re-experience Experience Acting = Real Experience in the service of Fictional Circumstances 10 5
WHY ACTING? Shielded While Revealed Safe Space to Experience Feeling Allows contact with and communication of traumatic experience Accesses Obliquely – spirals up bit by bit Masks specifically personal with fictional otherness Is met by praise and applause 11 Why Shakespeare? The Properties of the Language 12 6
Spoken Vibration of Sound Somatic primarily – Ideational Secondarily • Personal Experience – Activation of sensation in the body • Connective Experience – To Self – through vibration in own body To Another – through vibration in other’s body To Both through activation of Physical/Somatic control centers of the brain 13 Dramatic Text Modern Text – The way we use language in our lives Ideational Informational Action oriented Function – To Hide the truth of experience 14 7
Dramatic Text Pre-Modern Text – Language as a path to knowing Lyrical – Verse text Somatic primarily – Ideational Secondarily Big Language – Holds big feeling Imagistic, Metaphoric, Hyperbolic Function– To reveal the truth of experience 15 Metaphor – The Language of Experience Language – An incomplete Symbol system Factual language is not “true” to experience The incompatibility of language and sensation “I Feel so guilty” “O full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!” - Macbeth III.ii Metaphor is a more authentic and honest expression of experience than Factual language 16 8
--S. Lacey, R. Stilla and K. Sathian. Metaphorically Feeling: Comprehending Textural Metaphors Activates Somatosensory Cortex. Brain & Language . (2012) 17 Poetic Text - Verse Meter – Pathway into deeper experience Rhythmic – Somatic Iambic – stress, unstress pattern Pentameter – five “heartbeats” (metric feet) to the line 1 breath per line = one thought 18 9
The Technique Collective Experience - “Small Unit Tactics” Group Work “Walkabout” – Seeing and being seen Vocal explorations – breath and voice Physical Mindfulness – Tai-chi – “Dancing the scene” Partnered, Supported Scene Work Feeding In Dropping In 19 After Action Reports “He’s scary, he’s spooky, he knows our stories” 20 10
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