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KEY CONCEPTS IN DVT

 

Embodiment is practiced by the use of constant physical movement, sound, and action, methods influenced by Jerzy Grotowski.

 

Encounter is practiced by engaging in intimate interaction among all participants, including the therapist or facilitator, methods influenced by Sanford Meisner.

 

Transformation is practiced by continuously allowing changes in the roles, scenes, and enactments, as in a dream, methods influenced by Viola Spolin.

 

Unique in this method is that the facilitator or therapist is a full participant in the dramatic action, serving as the client's/participant's playobject. No props, objects, or set exercises are used: the work takes place in an empty space through spontaneous interaction. The client serves as the therapist's text, who uses the client's actions as the basic material for engaging in dramatic interaction. The action of DvT occurs within the playspace, which is the mutual agreement among the parties that what is happening is at play. The playspace requires a restraint against harm, a simultaneous representation of reality and imagination, and mutuality. The aim of the facilitator is to maintain and deepen the playspace so that increasingly more difficult and unstable elements of experience can be played within it. This is accomplished in a gentle unfolding of developmental levels of play, to allow participants to feel comfortable in this journey. In the context of individual therapy, the therapist at times moves into a witnessing circle (a circular carpet), and watches the client as they continue to play by themselves, and then joins the client again.

 

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