The Lexicon of Pain: Highlighting the advantages of applied theatre in paediatrics through the lens of psychodynamic therapy

Applied theatre for health and wellbeing suggests itself as an effective tool for social and emotional interaction and communication of emotions, developing creativity, imagination, and regulation of emotions during hospitalisation. In this article, we define it as a therapeutic complex artistic practice. This paper aims to explore the therapeutic value of communicating emotions through applied theatre and storytelling in paediatrics and its potential in clinical practice in a discussion through the lens of psychodynamic therapy. We will explore the intersections, synergies, and possible collaborations between the theatrical form as a condition for openness and verbalizing pain and therapy as a method of processing and dealing with emotions. We discuss fictional stories told by children during applied theatre and storytelling research interventions in hospitals as case studies through the lens of psychodynamic therapy with children. We explore these stories by using interdisciplinary, synthetic, and dialectic analysis between the researcher-artist and the psychodynamic therapist. We ask if the stories that hospitalised children create within theatrical interventions can help adults and clinical staff understand better the children's lexicon of pain, leading to sensitive healthcare. The rich narrative discussion of the case studies indicates that applied theatre in hospitals enhanced well-being support in children and gateways for improved care. The core themes that emerged include empowerment, synergies and exchanges of emotions, emotional reassurance, and imagination. This analysis of hospitalised children's stories from a psychodynamic therapist's point of view has scope for informing alternative, non-medical activities with children in the hospital and those who would benefit from clinical therapy and the performing arts.

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