Working with Liminality: A Dramatherapeutic Intervention with Immigrants in a Day Care Centre in Greece

Abstract

Immigrants and refugees face many and consequent losses in their lives. Most display a remarkable degree of resilience in coping with the new difficult and often discriminatory circumstances. Some, however, are unable to deal effectively with the new reality and experience a fractured sense of self, even a loss of identity. This article examines how working dramatherapeutically with a group of women from different countries offered them a safe place where feelings could be shared and a sense of belonging experienced, where the disconnected aspects of the self could be addressed and a context created for ritualistic practices to enable them to move on from the past. Art-making and theatre provided the grounds for expansion and community, where identities could be re-discovered and ‘thresholds’ created to assist the participants deal more effectively with their daily lives. The paper concludes with some personal thoughts and questions arising from working with this vulnerable population.