Long before there was a field of psychology, people went to the theater to learn about themselves and experience catharsis and healing. In the great Greek tragedies, the Shakespearean dramas, and classic theater of cultures throughout the world, the great themes of human existence are played out in larger than life dimensions. What is it that makes the experience of theater speak to us so powerfully? Theater gives us the opportunity to watch characters who are enough like ourselves so that we can identify with them — but also not us — go through experiences that are enough like ours so that we can identify with them — but different enough so they are not ours. This place of balance between the “me” and the “not-me,” between too much closeness and too much remove, is the place in which catharsis and healing can spontaneously take place.

Esthetic Distance: Finding the Balance

Drama therapy, the discipline that borrows theatrical techniques and concepts and applies them therapeutically, has a name for this magical aspect of theater: esthetic distance. Esthetic distance is that place of balance between too much distance from our experience, on the one hand, which leaves us feeling alienated and shut down, and too little distance, on the other, so that we are overidentified and overwhelmed.

An example is in order here. Years ago I worked with a client who had spent many years living in Africa. While there, she had had a traumatic experience in which she was nearly mauled by a wild animal. Years passed and my client assumed she had gotten over this trauma. One Sunday she took her child to see the movie Jurassic Park, which was popular at that time. She reported that, while watching a scene in the movie that evoked her experience, she had an enormous, spontaneous release of trauma that had been stored in her body. The passage of time from her original trauma afforded her one layer of distance; the medium of film added another. By watching characters and situations that were enough like to her for her to identify with them—but also clearly not her—from the safe distance of the screen, a cathartic release could occur.

All of us are familiar with the concept of esthetic distance, even if the name is new; that’s what the therapeutic frame is all about. If the frame is too rigid — if there’s too much distance — we lose the client. If the frame is too loose — so that there’s not enough distance—therapeutic change cannot occur. The therapeutic frame, the frame around a painting or drawing, the stage and proscenium arch in theater, all function in the same way: to create a special boundary through which esthetic distance can be regulated and maintained, so that the viewer, or audience, or client, can have the optimal experience possible.

The Drama Therapy Continuum

Drama therapy includes a range of techniques that use vocalization, movement, characterization, imagery and props as ways of inviting clients to give concrete expression to their inner worlds. Drama therapy techniques can be thought of as being arranged on a continuum, depending on the amount of distance they provide the client from their experience. At one end of the continuum are those techniques that provide maximum distance — the projective techniques — in which the person projects their experience onto something outside themselves, and then gets to stand back and observe. Examples include sandtray, the use of objects, photographs and artwork, characters from films and books, and seeing oneself on video. At the other end of the continuum are the techniques that provide a sense of immediacy — the psychodramatic techniques — in which the person is invited to embody or enact their inner world, and to experience it more directly and intensely. Examples include roleplay and role reversal, “empty chair” and gestalt techniques, sculptures, the huge range of psychodramatic enactments and, at the extreme end, self-revelatory performance.

So how do we know which techniques to use with which clients? The concept of esthetic distance provides the key. Drama therapy describes clients as being either over- or under-distanced, depending on their ability to “be with” their feelings and inner reality. So, for example, a person who is very cerebral, repressed, or emotionally remote can be said to be over-distanced. With such a person, we might want to work our way towards using more psychodramatic, physicalizing techniques, so as to bring them into their bodies, and closer to their emotions. At the other extreme are those people whose boundaries are porous, who are easily overwhelmed and flooded by emotion. These people can be described as being under-distanced, and require more projective techniques that offer them greater distance, safety and perspective. In either case, we as therapists are working to bring the person to the place of esthetic distance, the place of balance where therapeutic change can occur.

A client I’ll call Gena provides a case in point. Gena entered a women’s group I was leading with great trepidation and fear. She had a history of severe sexual abuse in her youth and, now in her 40s, was still struggling with trauma and shame. Although Gena had been in individual therapy, this was her first group venture, and it represented a courageous step forward. I wanted Gena to soak in the love and acceptance of the group, and needed to find a way for her to begin to open up at her own pace, and within a comfortable distance. I didn’t want to do anything that would feel invasive or retraumatizing but, on the other hand, I felt that if I did nothing and simply waited for her to be ready, she would leave the group. I asked Gena to choose an object in the room (I like to have many evocative objects around) and she chose a large, craggy stone riddled with crevices and protrusions. I invited her to describe the stone and asked her what each of the protrusions represented. Gena began to share some of the personal details of her life, by projecting them onto the shapes and shadows of the stone. The stone provided a vehicle through which she could speak about herself indirectly. Because she was under-distanced from her traumatic past, the projective technique gave her the distance she needed to bring her into a place of esthetic distance.

Working with Esthetic Distance

Another client I’ll call Brandon came into therapy because he had a decision to make. Brandon and I had been working together for some time, addressing issues of codependency and self worth, learning to trust his own inner wisdom. Brandon had come to the Bay Area to attend college and now, at the point of graduation, had to decide whether to stay here or return to his home in the Midwest. He loved the Midwest but wondered if he should leave the exciting Bay Area, with all the promise it seemed to hold, and return to a quieter life and the possibility of a more limited future.

In drama therapy terms, Brandon, too, was under-distanced from his feelings. He was confused and overwhelmed, feeling the sway of peer pressure and having trouble accessing his own truth. I wanted to give Brandon more distance, so that he could get some perspective on his dilemma, but I also wanted him to let his body speak, and reveal truths his mind was having trouble accessing. I took two throw-pillows off the office couch and set them down on the floor, asking Brandon to imagine that one pillow represented the Bay Area, the other, the Midwest. I asked him to literally step back and position himself in relation to the pillows/choices (giving him control over his physical relationship to them), and to simply notice what he felt. I also watched his body to see what gestures or positions arose spontaneously, and invited him to exaggerate them. Brandon immediately became aware of feelings of relaxation and ease as he faced the Midwest pillow, and tension as he faced the Bay Area choice. I asked Brandon to move towards each pillow, noticing how his body wanted to approach and how the journey felt. Finally, I asked him to stand in/on each choice. To heighten the experience, I asked him to take a position with his body (a “sculpture”) that expressed how he felt in each place, and to say a sentence that gave the sculpture a voice. Brandon became aware that the tension he felt in being in the Bay Area actually blocked him from being able to focus, relax, and take advantage of opportunities. He realized that he does not function well in such a competitive place. His body was tense and closed and the sentence that emerged was: “This is the wrong turn.” As he stood in/on the Midwest spot, he felt free of worry, more hopeful and relaxed. His body opened up and the sentence that emerged was: “This is my path.”

Could Brandon have come to the same decision through talk and careful reflection? Certainly, but the dramatic interventions gave him a way to externalize and make concrete his jumbled feelings, to bypass his mind’s intellectualizing and ‘shoulds” and go straight to the deeper truth that lay within him. The dramatic work allowed him to simultaneously have greater distance from his mental confusion, alongside heightened contact with his emotions, as revealed through the vehicle of his body.

Caveats and Conclusions

Whether we are using verbal, expressive arts, or other approaches to therapy, the concept of esthetic distance can offer an exquisite guide to help us stay attuned to our clients' needs. When are we honing in too close and when are we backing away too far? When are we re-enacting the invasive parent and when the neglectful one? As we try to remain in the balanced place, we are instinctively making little adjustments all the time, giving our clients the experience of being mirrored and held, at once contained and allowed to be free.

Although this article illustrates the use of drama therapy techniques, sometimes any technique itself can be counterproductive, a departure from the esthetic balance point. Sometimes we are asked to be silent and simply be there, to wait and do nothing. Sometimes we are required to stay away from the urge to “do” anything. Even too many words or questions can unbalance the relationship and alienate the client; too few can be experienced as abandoning.

Esthetic distance, then, is a concept that transcends the theatrical roots from which it springs. It reminds us that psychotherapy is truly an art, and speaks to the parallels between esthetic and psychological principles. In art as in psychotherapy, finding the place of balance between closeness and distance releases the healing and expressive power inherent in each experience.

Malka Weitman is in private practice in the Rockridge area of North Oakland. She works with individual adults and couples, and sometimes integrates expressive arts techniques and EMDR into depth psychotherapy. She graduated from the psychology and drama therapy program at the California Institute of Integral Studies in 1994 and has a background in dance and improvisational theater. She can be reached by phone at (510) 841-0206.

Note: This article reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily those of
East Bay CAMFT.