Drama Therapy in Prisons: The Effectiveness of Trauma Healing on Incarcerated People of Different Age Groups

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-460-0_11How to use a DOI?

Keywords

drama therapy; incarceration; trauma; prisoner; aggression control

Abstract

The incarcerated offender is a special group that takes up a large proportion of the mentally disordered population but is rarely investigated or discussed by society. However, the rapidly growing imprisonment rate has raised people’s concerns about social security and the effectiveness of institutionalized prisons. To address this problem, diagnosis of mental abnormality and intervention are needed. Recent studies have shown that mental disorders are prevalent among prisoners, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is one of those overrepresented disorders. This review aims to delve into the rehabilitation of traumatized prisoners, especially through drama therapy. Under the prison context, drama therapy, a common form of creative therapy that integrates psychological guidance through drama simulation and theater, was selected to delve further into the topic of prisoner trauma rehabilitation. In the review, previous studies on drama therapy on refunding positive self-image and aggression control were collected and analyzed. The validity of psychodramatic trauma therapy was examined in different age groups of prisoners, which is proved to show a generalized enhancement in mental well-being and mitigation of trauma.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Zihan Guo
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/08/31
TI  - Drama Therapy in Prisons: The Effectiveness of Trauma Healing on Incarcerated People of Different Age Groups
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 6th International Conference on Mental Health, Education and Human Development (MHEHD 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 81
EP  - 90
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-460-0_11
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-460-0_11
ID  - Guo2025
ER  -