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[0:00] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Welcome to the Drama Book Show! My name is Mark-Eugene Garcia.

[0:22] David Rigano: My name is David Rigano.

[0:26] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Our episode tonight covers the book, Stuck in a Role: Releasing Trauma in Teens through the ENACT Drama Therapy Method by Diana Feldman. Diana Feldman is a board-certified drama therapist and a licensed creative arts therapist and the author of the book, and brought in actors with her to demonstrate some of the ENACT Theater Method. It was so cool to see because I have limited experience with drama therapy.

[0:49] David Rigano: I have some, and I think it's really cool, but I think it was fairly new when I was in college and I was in theater ed classes, and so I had just started to hear about this thing and we were learning about it from an educator, like this book, Working Kids and Teens, and that's some of my only real experience with it. I always imagine in that, and there was some of it in that role in role play. I think about my own therapy sessions where role play becomes part of it and it's just, hey, wait, we're just doing improv, and it stops being about the therapy internally. I stop feeling like I'm in therapy and more just like I'm having fun or exploring something, and a lot of this felt that way, watching them up there.

[1:39] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Are you watching the new season of Ted Lasso?

[1:41] David Rigano: I've never seen a season of Ted Lasso.

[1:43] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Really?

[1:44] David Rigano: It's Apple TV, right?

[1:45] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yes, it is.

[1:46] David Rigano: I don't have it, so all of those Apple TV shows that people want me to watch, and every I get it, but it's a wonderful show, and I've been thinking, especially because of this last episode, I'm like, oh, this is a sports show for theater kids, and one of the coaches of the women's football team, European football, has just learned, she's got a self-help tape trying to get her to say yes to more things, and she has now just learned the concept of yes and, and the team is like, can we take a water break, and she goes, yes, and the last five back on the pitch have to do three laps, and Ted is this beautifully well-rounded coach who's very much into the arts as well, and he talks about something with a former coach of his sending the whole team to an improv class for something, and they're like, you can't just say yes, and the other coach goes, yes, and, baby, and after she does that, like, and the last five back on the pitch have to do three laps, she goes, I love yes, and, baby.

[3:04] Mark-Eugene Garcia: It's interesting because we use improv as a tool for so many things. We use it in the workplace. There's times where you're doing a training in a corporate setting, and it's, oh, let's do a little improv of how this sale's going to go, and we use these techniques. I've been hired for corporate improv to do an improvised HR meeting where I'm given all of the details of what I'm being called into HR for, and then these HR reps in training have to interview me. It's other skills for acting that we have Susie who does. The standardized patient. There's so many things where you're using this improv skill that it makes sense to bring it into the therapy world because you're thinking on your feet. You're thinking quickly. You're dealing with your emotions in the moment. It's really interesting. I know our friend Doug Shapiro does that as well, and I think does a standardized juror for practice.

[4:00] David Rigano: Oh, wow.

[4:01] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Role playing. It's not just for the stage in the bedroom.

[4:02] David Rigano: Too true.

[4:02] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yes, too true on that note. It is interesting to just explore that side of using it for different purposes more than entertainment for using it for health.

[4:19] David Rigano: Using it for health and using it for empathy because you have to put yourself sometimes into what-if situations. That's the beauty of theater because that's one of the reasons that theater should be taught as to our youth. Growing up, those kids who grew up in theater have that first-hand account of dealing with being somebody else, dealing with putting themselves in someone else's shoes. It would make the world a better place, I think, and our world is rough right now, so I think if the world had more theater kids—

[4:52] Mark-Eugene Garcia: As a theater teacher, I am very well aware that the majority of the kids in my classes are not going to go on to a professional career, so I am constantly thinking about what are the things that they can take out of my class and still use every day in their real life. This is just one more example of how to use the power of theater to make the world a better place. Please welcome Diana Feldman.

[5:28] Diana Feldman: Thank you so much for coming. Can you hear the sound? Do you want me to? Okay. It's really very meaningful to see friends, family, and colleagues. People say writing a book is isolating, but I actually found that it took a village, and I had a lot of support writing this book from several mentors, and I must truly thank Stacy. Would you mind standing up? My editor, how she put up with me, I don't know. Amazing. Yeah, and just great, my coach Amy, and just a lot of terrific help.

[6:14] Diana Feldman: I want to tell you why I wrote this book. I wrote the book because after 30 years of working in the public schools with students labeled vulnerable, at risk, acting out, unreachable, we didn't find that they were unreachable at all. We created a method that used actors, and you'll learn all about this in the book. The book teaches the method, but the book focuses on what we discovered, was that students themselves were playing roles, that students were covering up their very, very difficult feelings, and that their behavior was a form of unrecognized trauma, which now the world is discovering trauma. We knew it 30 years ago, and we always felt great respect for the creativity of these adolescents that they were really able to create their roles, which you'll also learn about in the book.

[7:22] Diana Feldman: What I'd like to do is say that over 30 years, we reached over 250,000 of the, quote, most unreachable kids, all who were very reachable, many who ended up on stage and performing and communicating beautifully given the chance. While I'm grateful for all my support and friends here, I'm extremely grateful for the students that I had an opportunity to work with, and I learned about resilience in a way that I never understood, and the way they overcame their obstacles was just amazing. So it's with great thanks, and they're all here in spirit. I'm going to read a little bit, I'm going to read three brief anecdotes about three of the different youth that I worked with to represent some different symptoms of trauma, so as I speak about their behavior, you're really hearing about symptoms of trauma that are disguised in what we call behavior costumes, all right, and you'll learn about it step by step. The book begins explaining all different kinds of trauma that start at a very early age, so you'll learn about this. I'll begin.

[8:39] Diana Feldman: Aisha collapsed. She was sent to the hospital when her gym teacher told her to stop bothering me. Each day, Aisha showed up early in her teacher's office, earlier and earlier, and she would refuse to leave. Before that, Aisha had pursued the school principal for months on end, trying desperately to get her attention and telling all of her classmates that the principal was her loving aunt. She even announced it on the loudspeaker, but guess what? She was not her loving aunt. Aisha desperately wanted a connection with an adult, but she didn't know how to get it. She alienated them with her obsessively needy behavior when all her attempts to connect failed. One day, when I was there, she gave out and fainted.

That's another symptom of trauma. After you've tried everything else, we'll learn about fight and flight and all of these other defenses, but when none of them work, what else is there to do but faint? That was the last time that I saw Aisha. She was taken away to a hospital. You know what? Aisha was needy for a reason. Her mother died when she was just an infant. She was shuffled from one foster home to another foster home. She never had her own place to call home. Aisha was motherless. She never had an opportunity for the early attachment that she sought to fill a void, a deep void for love that she never experienced.

[10:23] Diana Feldman: Then there was Jason. He dealt with his emotions with a different kind of behavior. "Don't look at me. I'll kill you," he would say over and over again. He was talking to Lisa, his sweet classmate in a hospital school program for students who could not function well in public school. Lisa would keep her head low, barely look up. She was so afraid of Jason, who would threaten her life basically every day, and he continued to do so. It was really interesting and hard because we were called in ultimately to work with Lisa, but we could not ignore Jason, whose face was covered with throbbing pimples, causing him to feel so self-conscious. Jason was teased. Jason was bullied regularly by his peers, and guess what?

Jason had a terrible, scary, unstable home life. His dad was in prison. His mom worked two jobs, so this tough guy attitude or role, as we call it, it was really designed to protect him, but what did it do? It caused isolation. Trauma causes isolation. It's one of the key symptoms, so when we see kids sitting by themselves or shut down, telling them to get up and get to work doesn't generally work, but this book will tell you techniques of how to do that.

[12:55] Diana Feldman: Okay, then we have James, our favorite. James was called into the principal's office almost every single day because of this attention-seeking, clown-like behavior, and it just made it impossible for the teacher to instruct, and he knew it, and he knew his peers enjoyed every moment of it with his boisterous, over-the-top behavior, so he kept it up day after day, gaining more and more and more and more positive feedback from his friends and negative feedback from his teacher. Why? He wanted feedback. He wanted attention, negative or positive, and he got it, but unfortunately, he would continue to be sent to the principal's office, unable to manage the teacher who would become so frustrated with her own feelings of, who knows, maybe her early trauma, she would get so triggered that she'd relegate him to the principal's office. Well, come to find out, James struggled with severe depression, and he had an impossible home life, so acting like a clown is a really good defense to cover up those feelings.

[13:12] Diana Feldman: So, I just want to tell you a little bit of what it was like for the teaching artists. ENACT grew from having six teaching artists. And we would practice and try all different kinds of techniques over and over again to reach the students. And it grew to be an organization of 60 teaching artists, drama therapists, social workers, and counselors. And we were very, very lucky to have gotten Ford Foundation, to have gotten City Council funding, and other funding that we hope will remain in the schools. So, it's our first day with a new group of students. My partner, Charles, and I, oh boy, we know we need to grab their attention and we need to engage them immediately. So, what do we do? We play our typical award-winning teacher-student scene.

It works every time. The students really resonate with it. Hi, Betty. I enter first, playing the role of the teacher. My classroom is total and complete chaos. Only a few students are sitting at their desk, very few, maybe one. Most are roaming around the room, talking, laughing, throwing paper, and they barely notice me. Good morning, class. I'm so glad to be here today. I'm so glad that you're here. Can you please open your books on page 24? And I hope that you all did your homework. Troy? The Knicks have to win tonight because if the Knicks don't win tonight, it's over for us, guys. Okay, that's enough. Troy, did you do your homework? Troy? Did I do my homework? Yes, did you do your homework?

Did I do my homework? Get it? Homework. Very funny, very funny. Class, ignore him. Please, ignore him. Cool. You know, sit. Hi, Jesse, how are you? Good to see you. Sit down, Troy. Okay, class, ignore him. Ignore him. Sit down. Ignore me. Yes, ignore him. Sit down. Don't you touch me. Freeze. What does she think she is, my mother? If she puts her hands on me, I'm going to hurt this woman. Did I do my homework? I don't have time to do my homework. I don't know where my father is. My mother works all night. At night, I have to think about everything. I don't want to wake up in the morning. I have to take my brother to school. We live an hour and a half away from school, and I have to drop him off first.

Who knows if I even get deported, asking if I brought my homework in. Who has time for that? I swear, if she puts her hands on me, I'm going to hurt that woman. I'm going to fail anyway, so who cares? I don't care if I pass that class. No, I'm not going to pass it. So I don't care about the class, and I hate that class anyway. What is it about this that you think gets people to respond? Do you think it reminds them of themselves? I mean, the kids are not going to remind you of you, but when we do this with teachers, they're like, that's me. And when we talk to the kids, they feel that that's them. This scene is really just a hook, a mirror to have people safely see themselves, and they reveal their story through these inner monologues.

So in the book, I begin by talking about trauma and something called triggers. So for those of you people that know what triggers are, did you see any? Did you see triggers in the student? Where did you see it, and what was it? That was a trigger for him. Scott, what's a trigger? The touching was definitely a trigger. Finger was a trigger. Just coming into the classroom, disrupting everything. Yeah, don't touch me. So triggers are emotional responses that just could be an old memory, an old feeling, and they're from trauma. And so this is the behavior that we would see. I know I see a hand there who's a teacher. Do you want to say something? Hi, Debbie. Hi, thank you. It was also, by asking him for his homework, he knew he didn't have it.

He was already feeling the guilt and the shame and all of that. And so she thought that was a trigger for him to respond and say, well, yeah, I can't do the homework. And for whatever excuses he's given himself to try and feel better. Right. Shame is a really big aspect. It could be the biggest. Why is it the biggest? And maybe you were told that a lot. Yeah, terrible. So this book talks about very common triggers, and it's very helpful, whether it's for teachers or therapists or parents who work with kids with severe behavior. What they're seeing is triggers, old memories. And that way my hope is to open up and gain compassion rather than labeling, et cetera. I know that we're under time, and I have a wonderful person coming up to ask me some questions.

She will be asking you some questions, and you'll have a chance to ask questions as well. So, Sandra, do you want to join us? She's a smarty. She's the smart one. So, again, good evening, everybody. So first, congratulations on this wonderful book. I really appreciated the opportunity to read it. So I thought we would start with, as Diana said, you'll have an opportunity to ask some questions on your own. So I'll just ask a few questions to get it going. Okay. When I think about developmental trauma, there are so many ways to think about it. What is the one thing that you want this audience to understand about developmental trauma? Oh, good. Well, it seems to be a pretty new word now in the trauma world.

I think that it's growing and growing. It's childhood trauma and complex trauma. And I think we want them to understand that it causes all kinds of symptoms and to try to release judgment when you're with someone and think, you know, that woman in the supermarket who's yelling as she's packing her bag, maybe she is developmental trauma. We all have it. There's not one person, and there's a study called the ACEs Study, which you'll probably get to. It's very helpful. Are you going to ask about that? No, you can go ahead since you're talking about it. That's in the book, too. And it's a little test that asks questions about your childhood, and you come to find there's like nobody gets away with not having small traumas, big traumas, and it's actually a really good thing to take and to help you with yourself and help you with other people.

This is a little bit of a diversion, but we had these wonderful actors here, and I'm wondering what the importance is of using real actors in this process. Good question. So what we discovered, you know, we really honed this method over many, many, many years, trial and error, what worked, what didn't work. Well, the first thing was we had to catch their attention because these students were so dysregulated and all over the place. Sometimes we would bust in the way Fidel, and immediately the way he came, it breaks their pattern. So you have to be highly engaging, which actors are. But the big part of the method here is that we're trying to create a lot of emotional distance and work very indirectly with people who've experienced trauma because you'll find for anyone, you know, they don't just love to spill out their trauma.

They have worked really hard, and especially our kids, to hide it, and even hide it from themselves. So what's really cool about the actors is they're a mirror to the kids. They play the defenses that the kids already have. So I think I didn't tell you that after the scene there's a whole inquiry phase where we'll say, does this look familiar? Have you ever seen anything? Tell me about their behavior. What were they doing? What were they feeling? What were they thinking? So it's never initially about them. And then little by little we'll say, oh, have you ever felt that way? I felt that way. Let's talk about it. And, you know, we're able to get through to students who can take a year. Number one, these kids don't go to therapies.

They don't want to. And it would take a very long time. And in a day, in a session, they open up. They feel safe. And the actors are engaging, and they're nonjudgmental. They're funny. So the kids see themselves also in a very fun way. So I've got two more questions, and I'll turn it and go to the audience. You talked about a lot of trial and error. You learned a lot along the way. How do you know, what evidence did you gather along the way that this actually works? That's a really good question. Of course, we thought it worked. I mean, we knew when it didn't work, which is really something I love about adolescents. They'll tell you, this is boring, this sucks, get out. That you have not attuned with them.

You haven't forged a bridge with them. So how are you going to do that? So we would experiment, and they would tell us. We would say, does this look realistic? And they'd say yes, or they'd say no, not at all. And we'd say, well, what is realistic? And by the way, another thing I didn't tell you, because, again, this is supposed to be about the book, not the method, but I'm so used to talking about the method, that the kids ultimately are up replaying the scene. So we're always working towards solutions, and we would say, what was going to happen with this student? What could he have done? How was he feeling? And then ultimately, the schools like the word social-emotional education, so they would come up and practice these newfound skills would be maybe talk to the teacher.

The kids would tell us. However, we actually did receive a Ford Foundation grant, which was a five-year study that worked with 60 classes, and then they had what's called a control group, so other classes that didn't have ENACT. And apparently, and we have the study if anybody wants to see it, that ENACT made an 80% improvement, 90% improvement in social-emotional skills in classroom climate, so going from a totally chaos classroom to suddenly total engagement and community, and being able to express their feelings. So this study was really helpful for us because then we didn't think we were the only one that thought it worked. And then we were able to get funding to disseminate the program, which we did.

Great. Thank you for that. And last question for now from me. This notion of you've laid out this process, you talked about all the planning that it takes to make this really work, and I'm wondering what would I need to do as a facilitator of a session to get myself ready to be able to do this work? Good question. Now, you're a facilitator, so you've already got what it takes. A little bit. Let's start there. Why if you could hire an actor? And if you can't, then you'd be the actor and you'd get someone else to do it with you, but there's so many places. You can go to a school, a college, the drama bookstore. The most important part, as any good facilitator does, is the assessment. You need to find out very specific things, who you're working with.

When ENACT did the work, and this is all written in the book, the assessment is the first thing you do. You ask questions. What are the students like? Where are they from? What are their ages? Because you want to create a mirror so they see themselves. That's the first thing.

[26:23] Diana Feldman: Right? So, there's a sheet in the book that gives you, teaches you how to do an assessment because it's different for each group. So, the assessment is key. You throw in stuff like, we would ask the principal, what do they think of the food in the cafeteria? And she'd say, oh, they hate the macaroni. So, we'd throw that in the scene. And that would make them feel seen. They know we hate this macaroni. Okay, we're going to listen. Trust is a really big thing when you're dealing with trauma. They rightfully so don't trust many adults. But when you tell them that you too hate the macaroni, they like you and you're building trust. So, these little details that they just had a test in school or that somebody treated them wrong on the street or in some cases, we were called in to deal with what's called collective trauma and that would be kind of what we're all going through now sadly.

You know, as a community, we're traumatized by many things. Okay? We know what they are, but I can't go there. So, just to say that after September 11th, for example, they brought traditional therapists in to speak to the students that were in a school that had to be evacuated. No way. The kids would not speak to the teachers. Impossible. Or to the therapists. So, we came in and when we did the assessment, the amount of details that we had to find out were so important that because we found in our work, the more trauma, the more you have to be indirect. So, we would never do a scene that dealt directly with the World Trade Center. We would do a scene, what Betty, who was an actress, would enact for us for 30 years.

We would deal with the core feeling and what were the core feelings, do you think, you know, in the World Trade? Fear? Shock? So, we would create a scene from the core feeling. That's the way the scene work is developed. You find out the core feeling, you nail it down, then you create a parallel scene. And what we did was have two people bump into each other at a bus stop and one freaks out and the principal also asked us to deal with the fact that Muslims were being really made fun of and tortured by the other kids in the school. So, we made one of the characters Muslim. And we would say to them, what kind of feelings do these people have? You know, do you ever feel that way? Why do you feel that way?

When the World Trade Center, you know, and then they tell the story. They tell the hidden story with the right pieces in the scene. Do you know what I mean? We plant these things. So, we teach you, in the book, there's what we call distancing. There's three levels of distancing. Based on the amount of trauma is the amount that you create parallel scenes. So, if you create it too parallel and you made the characters on Mars, they're not going to relate to that. If it was about the World Trade Center, they're going to feel pushed away. So, we figured, well, what do you do the scene about? The core feeling, not the issue. Like you noticed here, we're all dealing right now with the collective trauma of what's going on in the world.

We threw it in very subtly. Maybe I'll get deported, but that's not the main thing, but it's there. So, if people want to talk about it, it's there. They saw it, but it's never about the issue. It's about the feeling.

[30:10] David Rigano: Yeah. One of the things that stood out for me in the book is the degree to which any facilitator would have to be a real empath, someone who could really put themselves in the shoes of the other. And would you say that's true?

[30:27] Diana Feldman: That's absolutely true. It is 100% true. And while this method can be taught, because we taught many, many people the method, it's interesting, the people that are drawn to the method, like Betty, highly empathetic, be with it. We had teaching artists that stayed with us for 30 years. They just get it on an intuitive level. However, actors tend to be empathetic because they play characters anyway. So, that's why it's very helpful to have an actor. And therapists are highly empathetic. So, the combination is very good, but empathy is key, and we talk about that in the book. Yep. Big part of it.

[31:02] David Rigano: So, I'm then going to turn to you, audience, and ask you what you're curious about. And you know, if you guys want to join in, in case you have questions for the actors, you can pull over. Any questions?

[31:14] Audience Member: Yes. Can you please stand up and make sure we hear you?

[31:44] Audience Member: Does the teacher have the tools to sort of continue with the kids? So, if she sees something happening, if she's engaged in some kind of aggressive or disruptive behavior, how does she, how can she use the ENACT method to manage it?

[32:10] Diana Feldman: Yeah, that's a really good question. People ask us that a lot. That's why the first part of the book teaches about trauma. So that, number one, the teachers become educated. Oh my God, that was a trigger. Oh my God, he's not trying to do it to me. So, it's not personal. They really begin to start to observe behavior and create what we call, and a big thing now, is trauma-informed classrooms where we talk about something called neuroception. There's a guy named Stephen Porges who talks about that kids that are constantly growing up startled in the world about everything because they've been traumatized, that their receptors get all screwed up. So, you need to create the safest environment. So, I would say that other people that are doing it will learn in the beginning of the book the concepts, right?

And then those that want to actually learn the ENACT method, the role play, and you, it's good if you're an actor, but if you're not, people are actors anyway, you know, you can do it, or you can, then you, then we teach you the method. And a part that everybody loves are the theater games. And we begin every workshop with about 10 or 15 minutes of interactive theater games that are very specific to behavior and to trauma. So, it's all games for emotion regulation, calming, or if they're too out of it, you know, getting them up. So, the games, everybody can learn pretty quickly. And in the book, there's also lesson plans and a whole bunch of games. And you'll know if they work because you'll, if the kids say, fuck you, that was boring, it didn't work.

So, try it again. So, you know, ENACT was around for 30 years, and it did close after 30 years. But luckily, we're finding that there still are a lot of teachers and teaching artists that are doing this work. It went from anywhere, we would never do less than four days, right? Because you have to build trust in the first day or two, right? Sadly, it was based on funding. So, to a month, to six months, and when we were lucky enough to get city council funding to improve dropout prevention, and if I may say so myself, we were the ones that brought up 90% of attendance. And those kids would be involved in a play. We did off-Broadway plays with actors. So, depending on funding, always, and the schools or wherever else we did it. We did it at counseling centers, rehab centers. It doesn't just have to be in a school.

[35:22] Audience Member: Anybody else?

[35:26] Audience Member: Yes.

[35:28] Audience Member: Yes.

[35:29] Audience Member: Could you please stand?

[35:30] Audience Member: I'm sorry. I just wanted to say, I don't know this young lady's name right here.

[35:35] Audience Member: Issa.

[35:36] Audience Member: I can't hear you. I don't know this young lady's name right here. Real bad coming out. Anyway, but she was saying, you know, like, I do not experience teachers being upset when we leave the room if we do it loud and they're not in control. And I think that's kind of what she was saying, that we have to, you know, make it work in the end after we leave. So, we see stuff like that, we've got to spend a few more minutes, and we have, like Diana said, the theater games, where we can just say, okay, everybody knows that they want to be disruptive. We can say, for instance, you know, okay, let's just go and walk around the room and clap before we go. That's okay. Anything like that. They want to be disruptive because, you know, that's fun for them sometimes.

So, they, you know, we would do that, and then we'd say, okay, and then the last minute, when we get back to where we're supposed to sit, we're going to clap real loud and just sit. And we would just pass out, like, I passed out, like, okay.

[36:43] Audience Member: Well, whatever we had to develop. Also, you know, Diana taught us all this because I think a lot of us took on acting at some time. So, I was told, like, how did I get from there to here, to being the person who's going to help me? You know, so, those things are all in the act. I was speaking to somebody about it, and they said, that should come back. And I was thinking, I don't know why I'm saying it somewhere. I said, yeah, they need to, because I would say, because in 2019, I was just, you know, working. And it's amazing, because it's amazing. My life, I became the, also, you did it with parents, you know, but they traumatized their kids, and I became a parent coordinator.

[37:31] Diana Feldman: Yeah, Betty was the parent coordinator, and she could play the part of the parents, like nobody could.

[37:35] Audience Member: No, they haven't had any kids, but they had some, you know, the last part, some of the people that Diana's children. And so, they had trauma, too. You know, those, we had those workshops come up. We always were going to do the workshops, and we had to have, you know, how we meet the people. So, I just wanted to say that it's, it seems like we really need it.

[38:08] Diana Feldman: Yeah, and then, you know, hopefully, you guys will do some of this, and the teachers will continue to do this work, and hopefully, we'll, starting a certification program, so that we can train other people in the method, so that they can bring this to wherever they find a need, because there really is, more than ever, a need.

[38:23] David Rigano: So, you talk about the games and improvisation. Also, talk about the power of role play as part of this process. Do you want to say anything, as actors, before I sort of explain it from, you know, our point of, just as an actor, what's the power of role play?

[38:43] Audience Member: If you may.

[38:44] Audience Member: Well, I mean, I'm just, I studied drama therapy, too, with Diana, and I remember it was so powerful, playing the two characters in conflict, and then switching roles. And it was like, oh my God, like you really got an understanding of how the other person felt, even if you didn't at the beginning. So, it was very powerful, very powerful.

[39:10] Audience Member: To piggyback on what Marianne said, for me, it's meeting them where they're at, and also, I was able to identify with every child in every class, first grade through eighth grade. I said, that's who I was. That's who I was. That's who I was. So, the empathy was already there, and showing them that I, too, was like that in certain ways.

[39:35] Diana Feldman: I was able to create that bridge and that trust and understand that a lot of these kids, again, pathology issues, the foundation is broken at home. So what can I do to show them a different side of disciplining them when they act up as opposed to, you know, like coming down on them and reprimanding them? It's more like, okay, so why don't we use that energy to create something amazing? So they're like, what do you mean? So then I would start creating voices and movements and all that, and they're like, I said, would you want to join me? Sure. So it's again, it's about meeting them where they're at and identifying. I was able to identify with each student per grade. I saw myself, and I think for me that was a huge icebreaker.

I've been told by many of the instructors that it's healing to do the work because we might not all come from the same backgrounds, you know, as the kids, but we've all had challenging bonds with our parents. Maybe not good bonds, maybe we lost a parent, maybe we weren't treated the way, you know, and then on top of it, sadly, the kids we worked with didn't live in safe neighborhoods. But there is a, why do you think I did it for 30 years? And I can't stop, and I have to write a book, and now I have to do it. It's very powerful, and it's very healing for the people that are doing it. It's cathartic, and when you see those moments when people come up and replay a scene and with, say, naming their feelings as big social, when they finally say, you know, if he finally would say, and it would be a student, please don't talk to me that way. I'm really having a hard time now. Please talk to me.

[41:21] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Oh, this is not a question, it's a statement. Having been a teacher for 32 years in the Bronx, as you know, high school, and having had thousands and thousands of kids, I wanted to say thank you to you.

[41:34] Diana Feldman: Oh, for developing this, and I wish and hope that more people, many, many more people don't take it, but he was so desperate, and you would work your whole life.

[41:51] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Oh, thank you for saying that. Thank you so much. Thank you, you too, as a teacher.

[42:00] Diana Feldman: So thank you for saying that. Yeah, I'm paying attention to timing, but I did want to call our attention to the cover.

[42:06] Mark-Eugene Garcia: I was going to do that.

[42:12] Diana Feldman: Oh, yes, Wendy, wonderful. And author, the choice of words, you know, releasing trauma in teens, this idea of this method being an opportunity. When we were talking the other night, you were talking about what you do is make what's unconscious conscious, and this, as part of this process. And what I loved about the cover is this, the kid is unbridled, right? There is this opening, releasing, and this notion of being stuck in a role and then being able to release it. Would you say that really is the core of what ENACT does?

[42:57] Diana Feldman: The core, you hit it, is bringing the unconscious that they've worked so hard to cover up for many good reasons very safely into consciousness, and in doing so, releasing. So yes, and this beautiful person really captured that with the cover.

[43:14] Diana Feldman: And I'd like to also thank Finn Riley. Stand up, please. He did the photograph of me.

[43:24] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Oh yes, and for those in the audience, you know who you are, who coached me along the way and taught me so much about myself and trauma, I truly thank you from the bottom of my heart.

[43:46] Diana Feldman: I taught acting for 20 years, and a lot of this was going on when they were much older people. People would wipe their brows, not being able to go on in a certain scene because it was touching things that they were terrified to bring forth. And I was channeling, asking God to help me talk to them so they wouldn't feel embarrassed. And the whole room would take part in this. It was amazing.

[44:16] Mark-Eugene Garcia: So I'm interested in how many of your kids went into acting.

[44:23] Diana Feldman: Ah, great question. Some of them did, but I have to say a little one sad thing. It's in the book. I'm supposed to keep saying it's in the book, so I'm saying it is in the book. But there's a lot of case histories, but this one really made me sad. There's a case history of a kid named Lamont, who was just the most acting out impossible and ended up being in an off-Broadway play and was like brilliant. But the sad part is these were kids that were being thrown out of school. It was through the dropout prevention. They couldn't sustain like doing it for a week. But the breakthroughs of how being witnessed for their strengths, oh my God, the transformation. But it was hard for them to sustain. We weren't there long enough, and we weren't doing enough.

We did do one-on-one also later on, and I will just say about acting, since that's my background in there. But people have just, like therapy, there's all different, there's exposure therapy, this, which for me, I'm not comfortable with it because it's very direct and goes right. But some people, it's great. My home method is built around, it's in there, something called distancing and kind of finding the safety of people's expression and backing off when we see that it's too much and just touching that aha moment that we talk about in training. There's an aha moment where people see themselves, but you know, other acting teachers will like rip it out of people. So it's really your own style, but ours is around safety.

[46:07] Diana Feldman: I think so. Some people, you know.

[46:12] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Well, so I think I was about to sign books with my, yeah, bad hand. So just as a way of any other burning questions.

[46:25] Diana Feldman: Okay, I just wanted to add, I said to my girlfriend yesterday, I said, you know, the word therapy is art.

[46:32] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Oh, you're right. That's interesting.

[46:37] Diana Feldman: In the word therapy, there's art, A-R-T. Where is it? Therapy, T. Well, in the word therapy, you find the word art in there.

[46:44] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Interesting.

[46:55] Diana Feldman: No, no, it's true. That's cathartic. It's cathartic. So I didn't, I wanted to leave you with the last word. Any, and this work has also been hard work over the 30 years, but what has been your greatest satisfaction?

[47:05] Diana Feldman: It's very satisfying when you see people really healing and transforming, and in this work, you see it in the moment.

[47:25] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Do you think it would work the same way with adults?

[47:41] Diana Feldman: I do it with adults as well. I mean, well, we do a lot of training for teachers and counselors and things like that, where they get to play the parts of their kids and their clients. That gets them every time. But work does work with anybody that's had developmental trauma, but it's most effective with people who have created these defenses and are so shut down that they won't talk about anything. So it's very effective because this is a very indirect way of getting them to slowly and gently see themselves. But yeah, definitely, I can say my background is in adult learning, and the answer would be categorically absolutely yes. This is a great method. There's nothing that would be big. We all come with our stuff, and one of the reasons I, this is not about me, but I'll just say this, I went into adult learning was because I wanted to fix the adults around the kids, right?

And yeah, I could see this working very well for adults, so I'm happy to know this is out here. I've already sent it out to a clinical psychologist because in the audience here, some very smart people in the audience.

[48:53] Mark-Eugene Garcia: I'm just going to say, could this be applied in a corporate setting for people working together?

[48:59] Diana Feldman: Yes, I mean, we've worked in corporations, and that's a whole, you know, it's all about the assessment. Like we'd have to find out, do they like the coffee? And that would get them, we'd go, oh, the coffee's bitter because that was like something they'd all like. So we'd always have to find that moment that they would attune with and fight. So yes, it does. It does, and there's, believe me, a lot of resistance in corporations as well.

[49:27] Mark-Eugene Garcia: So we're coming to the end of it, so she can go ahead and sign some books. And are you really burnt? It's a burning statement or question?

[49:32] Diana Feldman: Oh, go ahead. You look like...

[49:39] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Did you ask him directly what do you hate here when you...

[49:44] Diana Feldman: Yeah, we would start when we're doing the assessment. We would ask what do you love, what works for you, what don't you like, how do you like the food, you know, or what's the atmosphere, what's the environment? And then we have to select the actors based on the appropriate.

[50:08] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Little do that now. Betty, just so you know, you're all invited to a party. Thank you.

[50:14] Diana Feldman: Thank you so much, Kim, once again. Thank you.

[50:21] Mark-Eugene Garcia: There's a lot to be said about healing and drama, and this truly is so. For that, thank you so much for being here. Can I have one more round of applause for everybody up here? Thank you. And thank you, Drama Bookstore, really, for giving us the opportunity. And we are back, feeling fully therapized.

[50:38] Dylan Glick: Yep, it was a production. She brought actors in, and it was just wonderful to watch them work and show examples of how theater can heal.

[50:45] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah, and so it was theater can be therapy.

[50:51] Dylan Glick: Yeah, it was just a very cool experience and one like all our other ones.

[50:56] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Unlike all our other ones, yeah.

[51:03] Dylan Glick: Yes, yes, I love that. It just shows how big the world of theater is. There's always, and I think this also speaks to like how big not just the world of theater is, but the capabilities of theater as a performance is because you can have a full production like this that is entirely different from the kind of full production that we get when, say, Doug DeVita shows up, which is entirely different from the kind of full production that we get when, say, Joe Iconis shows up.

[51:25] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Exactly, but it's a different production every time.

[51:30] Dylan Glick: Yeah, and it's entertaining and fun and just a real showcase of the diversity of theater, and I am so happy to be part of that. And speaking of different productions, we had another one.

[51:47] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Not actors, they were actors but not people acting.

[51:54] Dylan Glick: No, next one, but no people singing. Yes, and it was another educational theatrical moment because we had uncovering your true voice with voice teacher Carolyn Marcelle Elmore, and she talked about her book, brought in some singers, and it was a wonderful production that I'm so excited to share with you all on the next episode.

[52:13] Mark-Eugene Garcia: So remember to follow us on Instagram at Drama Book Show Podcast. Please subscribe to the Drama Bookshop on Eventbrite so that you can be alerted whenever we add in-person events to our calendar. And remember, all the books we talk about can be found here at the Drama Bookshop, and so can we. And we will see you at the bookshop.