Theater as Therapy: Syrian Refugee Women Connect with Greek Tragedy

Twenty or so Syrian women—refugees from their war-torn country—sat facing a camera in the middle of the night in Amman, Jordan, speaking via live-stream to an audience of Columbia students and faculty.

The unique conversation, organized by the Columbia Global Mental Health Program under the direction of Kathleen Pike, Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry and Epidemiology, not only bridged distance, but also history and cultures.
The women spoke of their involvement in Syria: the Trojan Women, a dramatic performance adapted from Euripedes' "the Trojan Women" that weaves together present-day tragedies of the Syrian conflict and the ancient drama, which describes how women lose their husbands, families, and homes when the Greeks invade their city.

The parallels between the two are striking, explains Epidemiology student Amina Foda, who works with Pike and helped plan the event. "One of the women said that she felt like Queen Hecuba in the Greek play who lost everything. The destruction of the Syrian war took everything she had."

Originally performed last spring at a conference on women's mental health sponsored by the Columbia Global Mental Health program in Amman, Jordan, the play was conceived as tool to help refugees recover from trauma. The concept draws on "dramatherapy," which uses drama and theater processes to achieve therapeutic goals. In this creative form of psychotherapy, participants are encouraged to express their feelings and struggles by acting them for an audience.

For the Syrian women, the experience was transformative and allowed them to overcome their feelings of helplessness and isolation. It also gave them an opportunity to contextualize their trauma by sharing their stories and spending time with other women who had gone through a similar ordeal.

Speaking to the aims of the project, one of the Syrian women said: "We want to be able to communicate to the world our suffering, but we also want to show them our resilience."