Amanda Musicka-Williams

Amanda Musicka-Williams is a practicing Drama therapist and early career researcher with a special interest in using the creative arts therapies in educational and community settings. Amanda recently completed her PhD which focused on the use of dramatherapy in special education.

This research focused on exploring relational connection and interpersonal learning processes from the point of view of adolescents in special education, through group dramatherapy and creative interviewing. Findings illuminated aspects of dramatherapy which enable young people with intellectual//developmental disabilities to view the therapeutic experience as an imitative learning process which enables extended expressions of self and enhanced relational connection to others. Dramatherapy Techniques were embedded into the research process to enable participants for whom speaking and talking are not key strengths to actively engage with research processes. Amanda is interested in highlighting how dramatherapy can support people who are marginalized within the community to represent themselves and their needs in authentic ways. Her research therefore adopts a qualitative, sometimes performative approach, with an emphasis on collaborative research practice as a means to identify therapeutic needs.

As a Dramatherapist she has worked since 2005, across a variety of professional sectors both here and in the UK. These include education including mainstream, special education and flexi-learning programs, forensic services, community mental health and within homeless and domestic violence support services. Amanda is passionate about what the creative arts therapies have to offer people for whom traditional talking therapies are difficult to engage with, and for those maybe marginalized by more traditional approaches to research practice and public discourse.