The therapeutic aspects of theatre have been demonstrated throughout history.
The concept of catharsis was introduced by Aristotle to express the peculiar effect that the Greek drama had on its audience.
The term catharsis derives from the Greek katharsis, derives from kathairein, "to purify": the liberation of the individual from a contamination that damages or corrupts the nature of man.
He states: "Tragedy, therefore, is a mimesis of a serious and accomplished action in itself, with a certain extent; in a language embellished with various species of embellishments, but each, in its place, in different parts; in a dramatic and non-narrative form; which, through a series of cases that arouse pity and terror, has the effect of lifting and purifying the soul from such passions".
In his poetics he argues that the purpose of the drama is to purify the viewers through the artistic excitement of certain emotions that functioned as a kind of relief from their personal passions.
The "traumatic" scenic event is the implementation of a conflict and its consequences to the point of extreme laceration.
To assist you would allow both an involvement and a distance taken that would make possible a more conscious observation.
An important forerunner of theatre therapy is the Marquis De Sade (1740-1814) who, locked up in the asylum of Charenton, prepared theatrical works, some written by himself, in which he recited the patients.
Also in the Hospital of Aversa, in the same period, the abbot Giovanni Maria Linguiti in his "moral care" gives great importance to the theatrical performances.
According to him, acting a character whose "passion" or "fixed idea" is opposite to that which afflicts the patient allows the latter to free himself from his original "fixed idea" and thus becomes a real therapeutic tool.
The real encounter between theatre and psychology took place around the 1960s, favoured by some new resonances: the birth of theatre workshops and a new training of the actor; theatre anthropology; a renewed way of working in the psychotherapeutic setting and the birth of new psychological and psychotherapeutic theories.
The research theatre, based on the reflections of the greatest masters of the twentieth century, offers an anthropological vision of artistic practice (Grotowski, Brook, Barba).
Starting from the historical avant-gardes that had provoked a radical renewal of the theatre (in the dramaturgy, in the scene, in the acting, in the preparation of the actor, in the social role of the theatre), a shift of interest no longer focused on the product but on the process was outlined in the second half of the century.
The "laboratory", in which actors and director work together on the training and preparation of the show is proposed as a setting for research and experimentation.
In 1959 Jerzy Grotowski founded the Teatro Laboratorio, which later received the status of "Institute for Research on Acting".
He proposes poverty in the theatre, the removal of all parasitic elements to reveal the unexplored riches of this artistic form.
"The theatre, thanks to the technique of the actor, this art in which a living organism fights for superior reasons, presents an opportunity of what we could define as integration, the rejection of masks, the manifestation of the true essence: a totality of physical-mental reactions.
This possibility must be used in a disciplined way, with a full awareness of the responsibilities that it implies.
It is in this that we can see the therapeutic function of theatre for humanity in today's civilization" (Grotowski, 1968).
At the same time as the publication of Grotowski's book "For a Poor Theatre", another fundamental work for contemporary theatre culture was published: Peter Brook's "The Empty Space", which contributes to proposing an idea of theatre that is alive and really necessary for today's man.
For him the theatrical act is a letting go, a renewal, a purification both for the actor and for the audience.
It's a liberating experience "... laughter and intense emotions free the organism of part of the waste..." (Brook, 1968).
In these new settings we try to reconstruct the unity of the experience through a new aesthetics and new methodologies able to integrate the subjective and the objective, mind and body, real and imaginary, discipline and spontaneity, art and life, individuality and collectivity, tradition and research of the new.
The setting of the theatre workshop is proposed as a space-time separate from everyday life.