Anxious teens gain confidence by performing 'off script'

Authored by news.umich.edu and submitted by mvea

ANN ARBOR—Improvisational theater training can reduce fearfulness and anxiety among teens struggling with social interactions, a new University of Michigan study suggests.

School-based improv theater—performing without a script or preparation—may be effective for social phobias and anxiety disorders because it offers a low stigma, low cost and more accessible context for help in reducing these symptoms, say U-M researchers.

Participating in improv can enhance a student’s well-being and reduce their anxiety, says lead author Peter Felsman, a graduate student in social work and psychology.

“In addition, the mutual support that improvisation rewards builds trust, helping group members feel safer taking risks and more willing to make mistakes,” he said.

Felsman and colleagues say this is the first study to examine whether improvisational training can be linked to reduced social anxiety in a school setting.

For the study, nearly 270 Detroit high school and middle school students participated in a 10-week school improvisational theater program offered by The Detroit Creativity Project. The students completed questionnaires before and after the program, allowing them to assess statements such as, “I am comfortable performing for others” and “I am willing to make mistakes.”

“These findings show that reductions in social anxiety were related to increased confidence in social skills, ability to figure out how to achieve goals and take action to do so (hope), creative ability and greater willingness to make mistakes,” said co-author Colleen Seifert, professor of psychology.

While the findings contribute to research on therapies for mental health, the study’s authors note that the study sample focuses on participants from poorer, lower-performing schools where barriers to accessing standard treatments for social anxiety are greater than in better-resourced contexts.

“For adolescents at wealthier, higher-performing schools with access to more traditional treatments, participating in improvisational theater training may predict different outcomes,” said co-author Joseph Himle, professor of social work and psychiatry. “Future research can examine this further.”

The findings appear in the current issue of The Arts in Psychotherapy.

Prometheus720 on December 17th, 2018 at 15:45 UTC »

Some parts and kinds of social anxiety can have roots in poor understanding of one's conversational partners. Misreading faces and posture, missing social cues, and so on.

Theater, especially improv, offers people a chance to roleplay as different kinds of people from who they normally are. Perhaps that offers a way to more easily understand others.

Or perhaps it allows people to exaggerate and play with social cues. I think I noticed many exaggerated cues among this population when I was in school. I use that word play in the biological sense. It's safe practice for real life--something which is all too difficult to achieve when young lives are dominated by the twin peaks of schoolwork and electronics.

And perhaps the safety is the most important thing. When someone mistakes a cue or misreads something during improv, they can just make it part of their character. If you do that during your every day life, you need counseling, fast. That's probably a personality disorder.

But improv is a special place where it is allowed and encouraged--it's part of the game. Every single mistake can be like water off a duck's back--it is explained away by a constantly morphing character. And learning can happen away from fear.

That's my experience of improv, at least.

BubbhaDunkh on December 17th, 2018 at 14:52 UTC »

Aren't most social interactions basically improvisation?

SWaspMale on December 17th, 2018 at 14:48 UTC »

OK, but isn't scripted theatre supposed to be therapeutic also? What was the control group?