Research Projects

current research projects:

R-ITT research project for 2025 with call for practitioners to participate:

“WOW moments in theater therapy practice”

The first presentation of the research project took place on November 11, 2022 at this year’s WFKT conference “Evidence of Art – Art of Evidence” as a poster presentation: download poster here.

Further Research Projects

This title refers to a resilience project using drama therapy supported by the Dr. Hans Riegel Foundation (former HARIBO co-owner) in cooperation with the DGfT, the HKT Nürtingen and the Alanus University in Alfter.

The flood events in July 2021 in the districts around the Ahr valley (Ahrweiler / Euskirchen) provided the reason for this project. The Dr. Hans Riegel Foundation, based in Bonn, is located in the middle of this area.

The task is to develop a concept based on drama therapy to strengthen the resilience of children, which can then be put into practice in daycare centers and elementary school. The focus should not be on the event itself, but on individual situations and coping strategies.

Johannes Junker (Chair of Drama Therapy HKT Nürtingen) will provide scientific support for the project.
Documentation and evaluation will be carried out by Alanus University in Alfter.

Further information on the project can be found on the DGfT website here

Poster Research Project ‘“Strong children”: Drama therapy to build resilience in children after the Ahr Valley flood disaster’
(In German, there is currently no English version available)

#DIGIARTHE opens up a forum for the necessary, critical examination of the digitalization of artistic therapies, bringing together interested parties from various areas of artistic therapies, from research and practice. With two participatory formats – the forum and the barcamp – the #DIGIARTHE team would like to explore this question together.

Further information on the project

A drama-therapeutic and trauma-sensitive research project on collective identity formation through the mediation of stories and images about the Holocaust among young people of different origins in Berlin.

Further information about the project

Artistic therapies in the context of flight & migration in Europe
From 2016 – 2018, a team from the Institute for Drama Therapy (ITT) of the DGfT participated in the Erasmus+ KA2 project “CREATE”. Here, seven organizations from Great Britain, Ireland, France, Italy and Germany worked on the development of method collections and training modules for the use of artistic therapies in working with refugees and migrants.

Documentation of the results

The results of the CREATE working group are presented under the link: https://create-eu.com 
You can find practical and experience reports from the individual groups, as well as recommendations for working with refugees and migrants, at the link: https://createeu.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/io4-create-toolkit_de.pdf

Sabine Hayduk (from page 44) and Patric Tavanti (from page 64) write for the ITT team.

You can find further information at http://www.create-project.eu

Current  doctoral students in the field of drama therapy & therapeutic theater/performance:

  • Simone Klees, lecturer at HfWU Nürtingen:
    Grounded theory study / “How do patients/clients of an inpatient, general psychiatric theater therapy group experience theater therapy play situations?”
  • Ilil Land-Boss, ITT teacher:
    Liminal and ritual spaces in participatory performance – The use of embodied ritual structures and principles and therapeutic elements to create transitional and liminal experience