Aaron Krasner MDThe digital age and Covid have brought much loneliness and disconnection to our lives, not that they were all that convivial and connected to begin with. In particular for kids and teenagers, whose developmental needs to belong are so strong, this new paradigm of estrangement is very important – and dangerous. We are all aware of the rise in pediatric psychiatric illness related to these trends. On the other hand, when kids and teens find even a few friends and feel a true sense of belonging, there are a lot of protective, lifelong benefits. While psychological, psychiatric, and other allied forms of treatment are crucially important for kids and teens with problems often they skitter along the surface, helping but not solving core problems of insecurity, loneliness, and mis-belonging.
Ridgefield is a town where options for belonging are tight. Sports, religious institutions, and friends and or extended family associations are typical avenues that offer that sense of belonging that empowers the kind of positive risk taking necessary to build mastery. By the way, mastery is where it’s at for human development. When kids and teens feel courageous to seek and develop mastery, that positive cycle predicts security in other realms with real mental and physical health benefits. But not all Ridgefield families or kids fit into these mastery building frameworks. Not all kids like sports. Not all families feel strong religious affiliations. Not all families have supportive, extended families that facilitate connection. In this town, these ‘misfit’ families are the at-risk families where problems fester and where adversity derails development ultimately leading to significant mental health problems.
This is not a paper about psychopathology but suffice to say the risk factors of loneliness, estrangement, disconnection, and their implications are not trivial. Instead, this is a paper about community theater as medicine. This is a paper about investing in community theater as a means of diversifying avenues for meaningful connections for our kids, teens, and families. This is an easy sell because community theater is among the few spaces in which the heart and soul of its primary mission – to present quality theater for the community – is highly synchronous with psychological treatments. The magic of this synergy occurred to me yesterday when I attended my daughter’s play at the theater barn. I was struck by the subtle infusion of psychological training in the simple act of pulling together a musical production. I hope to portray this in the next couple of paragraphs.
The easiest jumping off point is the concept of the ensemble. Kids have to learn how to get along enough to work together in a delicate, and therefore substantive way to preserve the fourth wall. This means they have to use psychological skills to overcome interpersonal conflicts, manage emotions, and tolerate frustrations that are all expected elements of putting on a production. Dialectical behavior therapy – a common and empirically supported treatment modality for teens – literally identifies these key ingredients for the treatment paradigm: interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, mindfulness, and distress tolerance. It’s as though the pioneer for that treatment, Marsha Linnhean, spent part of her life in the theater! Without calling it treatment, the directors, teachers, and mentors that steward the production scaffold the kids’ creative processes with these key psychological skills without even knowing they are doing so. And frankly that’s important, too – kids don’t like to be ‘in treatment’ – who does? Kids like to learn, to grow, to achieve mastery, and they are willing to accept the kind of psychologically relevant help they might need under those auspices! Ensembles must listen to each other, learn to say ‘yes-and’ and find ways to cover for each other when things go wrong – the show must go on! Are these not key elements for mental health in the workplace?
In addition to the ensemble, creativity is a key element for art and community theater. We have studied creativity carefully and we have learned that true creativity represents oscillations between daydreaming states (officially, the default mode network) and highly concerted effort (the central executive network). Most people recognize this precious oscillation and its products – humans creativity – to be the very highest form of human achievement whether we are talking about a community theater production or a feat of engineering talent. Finding that delicate balance between these brain states and promoting creativity in community theater is among the most precious and important benefits of any human behavior.
While ensemble work and creativity parallel psychological medicine, the greatest synergy can be found in promoting mastery. Like in sports, kids and teens that develop competencies in a specific area truly go on to do so in other domains – and with a little swagger. But not all kids are athletes! Mental health treatments often reiterate the value of the self and its merits but kids are very attuned to each other and when mastery is validated among peers, it is enduringly important. The hardest part of developing mastery is overcoming resistance to working individually to practice and prepare – the famous 10,000 hour framework that Malcom Gladwell introduced us to 20 years ago is so very true. Most people don’t love doing math so much that they spend 10,000 hours – or even a fraction of that – developing mathematical mastery that is then recognized by parents, teachers, and the community such that mathematics can catalyze – like being a good goalie could – a sense of security in mastery. In theater, one has to work. To be a part of the ensemble, individuals have to commit time to learning lines, learning songs, remembering blocking, mentally rehearsing, etc. A lot of individual work goes into preparing a show and when that individual work is validated by peers in an ensemble, that magical fit of work, achievement, and a sense of accomplishment really takes root. While the motivation to memorize lines and work individually is catalyzed by the ensemble, it is also informed by individual longings to stand out and achieve. Now back to mental health treatments – motivation is everything. We spend much of our time wondering why people do what they do…. Why do people use drugs and alcohol to their own detriment? Interestingly, and after a lot of treatment, many addicts will report that a strange alchemy of motivation to belong, a fear of rejection, and embodied relief in substances played a signficant historical role in the development of an addiction. When people are put off from committing their talents to the kind of required individual work to then participate in an ensemble we are reminded of a classic psychological construct: it’s called approach/avoidance. When people feel daunted they avoid, and when they avoid, they cannot approach problems and in avoidance, the capacity to achieve mastery and meet with success is low. When the ensemble, the possibility of community recognition, and the allure of success conspire to help kids approach – not avoid – the medicinal role of community theater again manifests.
There are also some very specific neurocognitive and physical benefits for participating in theater. The first is dance because it has been proven that dance is the best form of human exercise – it integrates movement, thought, feeling, and emotion seamlessly. Next we have the development of working memory, diction, and the ability to project one’s voice – all concrete skills that also correspond to specific mental health metrics. These basic skills undergird the psychological skills of interpersonal effectiveness, mindfulness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance that I referenced above. Better intelligence and emotional quotients are correlated with superior long term mental and physical health benefits. Song is among the primary and elemental means of human communication and the development of one’s confidence to sing predisposes a more natural and higher competence in human communication lifelong.
Community and family involvement is another crucial dimension to community theater. Much like when families attend sports events, the coming together of the community to celebrate artistic achievement, positively reinforces all of the aforementioned processes, thereby contributing to the motivation to successfully engage. Again, in an era of disengagement, cross-linking, engaging, motivations and promoting community and positive reinforcement is an obvious and valuable commodity to explore and support. When kids and teens are recognized as having done a job well, the applause stay here resonates not just in the moment, but over the course of a lifetime. Our lives are difficult to say the least, and moments of celebration and recognition of accomplishment, resonate prominently, and can function actively, as an antidote to self doubt and fears throughout the lifespan. Here we are again, recognizing the importance of mastery, self-esteem, and community recognition as it relates to lifelong mental health.
There are many additional positive elements for community theater to be considered from a mental health standpoint, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the content of the art as an important dimension. Bertolt Brecht taught us many years ago that art has an edgy responsibility to question and, therefore shape our realities. But he is a latecomer in that. The role of theater in ancient Rome, in Stratford upon Avon, in 19th century, Europe, and throughout history has been to help us to evaluate how we live, how we think, and what values truly matter. The riveting emotional experience of catharsis among audiences has served as an emotional touch point unifying, sometimes dividing, but always stimulating communities. There is nothing quite like feeling alive at a good performance and when that good performance happens with our own children in our own communities, our sense of belonging is enhanced in ways that we simply cannot easily put into words.
Now is the time to invest in community theater. Now more than ever. Now is the time to contribute to the infrastructure of an institution that is capable of delivering psychological treatment without ever having to call it such. Now is the time to invest in the kind of diversity, equity, and inclusion, that is truly at the heart of functioning societies; not in name, but truly in spirit. Now is the time to invest in our children and our teenagers who have been pulled apart by technology and isolated by sickness and stuck in homes where trouble has brewed. The biggest problem with allopathic medicine is our failure to prioritize primary prevention. We have become a system of care that responds nimbly to crisis, but fumbles the ball in practice. If it is so clear that community theater is community medicine then let’s invest right here right now in ourselves.
Now is the time to invest in community theater, for all of our benefit.