Wednesday, 14 February 2018

Adults with an anxiety disorder or with an obsessive-compulsive disorder are less playful: A matched control comparison

an article by Benthe Versluys (Research Institute Innova, Ermelo, The Netherlands; Zuyd University of Applied Science, Heerlen, The Netherlands) published in The Arts in Psychotherapy Volume 56 (November 2017)

Highlights
  • Playfulness is part of drama therapy and is related to accessing more varied coping skills.
  • This study hypothesized that adults with AD or OCD are less playful.
  • Three scales measured the playfulness in a control and an experiment group.
  • Findings indicated that adults with AD or OCD are significantly less playful than adults without AD or OCD.
  • Therapies which aim to increase playfulness in adults with AD or OCD may be indicated to reduce symptoms.
Abstract

Playfulness is an important component of drama therapy. For adults with an anxiety disorder (AD) or an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) playfulness might be an unconsciously missed component in life.

Therefore strengthening a client’s playfulness could be a major aim of drama therapy with these disorders. Where less playfulness is identified, drama therapy based interventions could be applied to strengthen playfulness.

Therefore providing a contribution to treatments available to the client suffering from AD/OCD. Using drama therapy interventions would be less probable to cause negative side effects.

In an online-survey both Group 1 (34 adults with AD/OCD), and Group 2 (34 adults without AD/OCD), filled in three scales assessing their level of playfulness. On all three scales the playfulness in Group 1 (M = 77.88; M = 62.00; M = 69.12) was significantly lower (p = .000 at all three scales) than the playfulness in Group 2 (M = 92.09; M = 80.24; M = 81.21). The relationship between having an AD or OCD and being less playful is statistically significant (Pearson’s Correlation of respectively −.458; −.639; −.464).

A difference in playfulness within Group 1 in specified AD/OCD could not be distinguished. The results indicate that playfulness could specifically be part of treatment through drama therapy with adults with AD/OCD.

Graphical Abstract




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