Patterns in theory-based drama therapy publications: A snapshot of peer reviewed literature from 2000-2022

In recent years, the North American Drama Therapy Association (NADTA) has been working to establish and disseminate research to the drama therapy and wider creative arts therapies communities. Much of the research has focused on empirical studies within drama therapy. The NADTA Research Chair formed a subcommittee aimed at identifying, investigating, categorizing, and disseminating theoretical research articles in an effort to continue to grow the profession of drama therapy as well as to explore the question: what theories are present in current peer reviewed drama therapy scholarship? As there is already an NADTA empirical spreadsheet established, and following the research trajectory logic that theoretical scholarship precedes empirical research, an eventual aim of this research initiative is also to connect the theory publications to the empirical publications, leading toward a fuller understanding of the drama therapy field. The research study reported here is the initial step of this path. In this initiative, theoretical scholarship was defined and inclusion and exclusion criteria were established. After locating and investigating articles from the years 2000–2022, 121 articles were included. An analysis of year of publication, author, journal, and category were conducted. The categories identified were: 1) established and emerging theories and 2) integrated theories, with 24 identified subcategories within these two main categories. A discussion of the patterns is presented.