METAPHOR: HANDLE WITH CARE – Drama Therapy in Uganda

When I first started working with newly arrived refugees at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), one of the English teachers who was participating in the weekly drama therapy group said to me “You know, you really need to be careful when using metaphor with this population.” Now, I assume she was speaking of the difficulty non or new English language speakers might experience in understanding metaphor, but the phrase has stuck with me ever since: “Be careful when using metaphor.” 

The use of metaphor as a healing tool is a core principle behind the Creative Alternatives of New York (CANY) model and a basic ingredient of drama therapy as a modality. Sometimes life’s challenges take on an abstract and perplexing form and making sense of it all can be a challenge. In working with trauma populations, metaphor can give symbolic form to, transform and make meaning out of chaotic and adverse life events, providing the distance that is required to play with unplayable material and lessen the risk of re-traumatization.

The possibility for healing and transformation requires artful implementation, echoing the need for a sense of respect and care. We can’t predict what metaphors our clients will be drawn to or invoke in telling their stories or what those metaphors will mean to group members. To me, it seems essential for the therapist to protect and preserve the true meaning of chosen metaphors for our clients, recognizing and transcending our own cultural associations and making space for alternative possibilities. Thus my reminder “Be careful when using metaphor.

Heidi at the GWED-G headquarters in Gulu, Uganda

Last year, Meredith Dean, CANY Program Director, and I traveled to Gulu, Uganda to work with the Gulu Women’s Economic Development and Globilization (GWED-G). A grassroots non-profit, GWED-G was founded in 2004 in response to the pervasive effects of the Ugandan war, and focuses on empowering women and youth to create sustainable change through psychosocial support and economic empowerment. CANY was invited to train GWED-G staff in therapeutic drama techniques that can be applied with children and adults who have experienced high levels of war-related trauma. The group was incredible and the members were ready to jump in from the very beginning. The thing that stood out was their use of metaphor.

 According to Pamela Angwech Judith, our host and director of GWED-G, “every single person in Gulu has been affected by the war.” Certainly the scale and impact of atrocity felt palpable in our interactions with staff and others we had the privilege to meet as they shared stories of children abducted, families slaughtered, repeated rape, and other brutalities. Alongside accounts of trauma and loss, however, were narratives of hope and expectation, reflecting a resilience of spirit that was inspiring and, honestly, sometimes shocking. This capacity for hope was threaded through the metaphorical dramas that the group created and enacted: the story of people lost at sea who found a small boat to carry them to a new land; the story of a storm that threatened to destroy all the animals until the animals learned to swim; the story of a wise, rooted tree that gave hope to weary travelers; and the story of a family who had to say goodbye to their son as he travelled to NYC to go to school.

Meredith with members of the GWED-G team

Each metaphor became the container for difficult feelings and experiences, allowing the group to access emotional truths that were buried in the war as well as imagine new possibilities. For the group the metaphor became something sacred, a healing tool and something that needed to be handled with care. As facilitators, it was our job to support the creation of metaphors that could give form and meaning to real life experience at a safe distance, providing the creative structure required for each metaphor to be enacted through a drama therapeutic process.

Members of the GWED-G team in action

During the closing ritual that ends each CANY group, participants are invited to reach into the circle and take out a feeling or moment they want to leave with. Often group members will be invited to place their chosen experience in a safe and meaningful place – their heart, head or pocket even. With the people of Gulu, the sacredness of metaphor was powerfully brought into focus in a way that Meredith and I had not experienced before during this closing ritual. One group member reached into the circle and took away with him “a new energy” but he placed this energy in the soles of his feet saying “I put this in the bottom of my feet so every step I take will be infused with this newness”. Another took a new way to communicate and said “ I will put this in my fingertips so everyone and everything I touch will communicate better” and another took the group experience saying “ I will put this in my right side, my left side is where my wife lives so my left side is open to hold community”.

Heidi with members of the GWED-G team

As a drama therapist, I have long understood the value of metaphor in providing safety and distance. In Gulu, however, I experienced metaphor as a sacred vessel, one that allowed for a sense of reverence and ritual around the sharing of the most difficult life events, as well as offering a sense of hope through transformation. The limitless ability of a metaphor is the essence of the journey a person can make to understand themselves and this I will keep this in my fingertips, the soles of my feet, my right side…and in my heart.

Heidi Landis, RDT-BCT, LCAT, TEP, CGP  

CANY Associate Executive Director

     

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