Your Life as Theatre

a model for implementing change in therapy.

My lifelong interest in theatre and literature and the manner in which stories are told has led me to develop a theatre model as a vehicle for understanding and implementing change. What follows is a simplified version as we are not actually writing a play from scratch but working with existing material, usually an isolated incident or situation that's often part of an ongoing process.

There’s a familiar expression that we’ve lost the plot, meaning we’ve got confused, lost our way etc. Although in real life, there wasn’t really a plot in the first place, just an assumed direction based on agreements with others that may change sometime without warning. We are creatures of habit, and generally prefer to avoid change and disruption until life forces it upon us, losing a job, the ending of a relationship, someone close to us goes away or dies – events we have no control over as much as we’d like to have. In this theatre model, these challenging events are delineated and become a play, or sometimes just a scene, in their own right, even when part of a much larger picture with its own history. The idea of a play isn’t intended to trivialise these important events, but make them more manageable with a clearer focus.

Depending on the intensity of the challenge, we can become overwhelmed. When we are overwhelmed, we can regress, sometimes to a powerless child-like condition, losing our self-confidence, skills and knowledge or become angry and aggressive, verbally or otherwise. The sense of overwhelm can be countered by taking a step back to develop an observer stance using mindfulness of breathing to support our recovery. From an observer position, we can create the space for managed change, even when the change at hand is irreversible

In the traditional three part (or act) structure, Act I sets up the action, sets the stage (the environment) in which the protagonist (the client) lives, some insight into their story and what’s happening at the moment to drive the story. We begin to learn something about what they would like to change (or it might not yet be quite clear) and what they think their challenges and obstacles are.

Naturally, as we are operating in the human realm, and no human being is perfect, we have what in theatre terms are ‘character flaws’ those legacy traits from our background and embedded adaptive behaviours etc that keep us in apparently stuck patterns. Usually associated with a fear of change contrasted with a desire to live a different life probably at a cost to self and others

By looking at the story in this way, we have taken a step back to gain an observer status, and the client begins the process of writing or re-writing their story – creating a play and being our own author thereby beginning to gain or re-gain agency in their lives. By writing, I mean it’s not necessary to actually be writing anything but keeping a journal does help. Human beings are reflective beings (witnesses to our lives, essentially, we become our own audience) and keeping a journal can support our understanding of the changes and help to integrate what we are learning. By keeping a journal, we’ll have a reference point to observe our progress and what stands in our way. We begin to map out our journey. By being our own audience, we can re-formulate the idea of the ‘inner critic’ usually framed as a negative voice, in this model we are giving feedback to ourselves.

To summarise Act I:

· Background description and in therapy terms, identifying the issue

· The inciting incident; the catalyst that creates the desire for change sets the story in motion

· Plot point one that gets the action going – the point of no return

Act II

What is known as the rising action begins as the therapy proceeds; blocks and obstacles along the way are identified. This is not just an internal process but also identifies who else will be affected, such as children or other parties in this situation. There are always consequences to change.

At the midpoint, the need to change is asserted as really the only choice; it’s that or staying with the status quo that brought you to therapy in the first place. The challenges mount as the cost of what needs to be let go of emerges.

At this point, the protagonist can change from being passive and reacting to what the story brings to being proactive, making choices that give more agency.

This can be also where we discover we have what playwright David Mamet describes as ‘second act problems’ we get stuck and don’t know how to move the action forward. My hunch here, in the case of therapy, is that we know, possibly only sub-consciously, that we are deeply invested to what we need to let go of? That what brings us pain and dissatisfaction has been a part of us for so long, is familiar and is paradoxically comfortable – can the profound change that is needed be imagined? After all, we have yet to know our future self. Here we can relapse to old behaviours, return to the situation that doesn’t fulfil us, Or we can take a step into the unknown, and if we allow it, get a glimpse of how that might be, how that might feel, and to do so recognise the fear that precedes change.

To summarise Act II:

· Identify the obstacles, the emotional and possibly financial cost of moving forward.

· Shift from being passive and reactive to becoming proactive.

· Identify our investment in our past behaviours and work to imagine an unknown future.

 

Act III

There really is a choice here, give up or let go, embracing the fear that letting go often entails and approach the secretly longed-for transformation with courage, determination and a sense of having freed ourselves from the old restrictive patterns. The next step is about learning to integrate the changes that have been achieved. If you did keep a journal, then you have a map to look back on and see the inner workings of your journey, how things panned out and how you managed and transcended the difficulties.

The situation of your play will have created a character for you and to create a strongly-integrated outcome in your favour, it’s important to stay with the character as you move through the arc of your story. Try and avoid using diversions, like drugs, alcohol and sex, as this can spin you off into other unhelpful directions. Short-term or immediate relief won’t support your character development in the long-term, it will just be a distraction. Staying with difficulty and the emotional pain of that builds resilence and underpins your growth in a positive way.