Growing up in this country, I often heard people say that Thais don't go to psychiatrists to sort out their problems; they go to fortune-tellers. Later, while I was living in the West, I saw many individuals running to counsellors and therapists to untangle the knots and smooth out the bumps in their lives.
More and more people in Thailand are now seeking out therapy as attitudes towards it become increasingly open, said a psychiatrist present at a discussion held following a performance of Therapy (After the Flood), a production that brings stage actors and real-life therapists together.
In Western societies, psychology is regarded as an important lens through which one looks to better understand how human beings function and one finds all kinds of portrayals of therapists in both literature and the media. In the Thai media, however, the voices of professionals from the fields of psychology and psychiatry are usually only "heard" in magazines about parenting and childcare. Fictional portrayals of shrinks in the vernacular are practically non-existent. Characters in Thai films, television series and plays tend not to be very psychologically complex. As a society, we still appear to have little use for science when it comes to comprehending the human mind.
Directed by Nophand Boonyai of Collective Experience, Therapy (After the Flood) serves up fictional but true-to-form therapy sessions in order to shed light on the different types of therapy that employ art as a tool for healing. The production is a collaborative effort with Arts Container, a group comprising art therapists, drama therapists and a dance/movement psychotherapist. The patients are, of course, played by actors. However, the real stars of this show are the therapists who are there to do exactly what they've been trained to do.
The entire premise of the drama centres on the process; Therapy is not about being healed, but about healing. The "therapy sessions" we see on stage are actually continuations of encounters that started during rehearsals. Almost all the dialogue, from beginning to end, is improvised. Therefore, each performance is unique. The real-life mental-health professionals taking part are art therapist Anupan Preukpankajee, drama therapist Sirinrat Thomas and dance/movement psychotherapist Dujdao Vadhanapakorn Boonyai. Each is assigned one "patient" per night. The actors playing these patients are told to fake different conditions including depression, schizophrenia and anger-control disorder.
The narrative is realistic for the most part, with the therapist intermittently addressing the audience, telling how he first became interested in therapy, explaining his methods or describing his feelings about the situation in which he finds himself. At the end of each session, the "patient" gives us feedback on what has transpired and tells us how he feels about being in therapy.
Dance movement psychotherapist Dujdao Vadhanapakorn Boonyai working with a patient in constant state of paranoia. PHOTO: SUPSAWAS BURANAVET
Therapy succeeds at portraying the mentally ill with a sensitivity and respect rarely seen in Thai cinema and television, where this type of character is not often seen. There seems to be only one formula for portraying the mentally ill in Thai films and TV dramas; it differs only in the way the director or scriptwriter wants the character to be perceived: as pitiable, comical or frightening.
During all three performances of Therapy that I watched, I found myself struggling with the blurring of the boundary between real and artificial. The process which the therapist and patient undergo _ and take us, the audience, through _ felt like a sincere effort to reveal the complexities of the human mind and the difficulty of healing and getting healed.
What's also admirable about this drama is that it doesn't place much importance in the results of each session, which typically last from 45 minutes to an hour. During the first performance I attended, the audience had to endure a long period of excruciating silence as drama therapist Sirinrat patiently coaxed words out of a depressed, taciturn teenage boy (Sarut Komallitipong). That discomfiting quietness unexpectedly led to something very moving. Yet the experience was undeniably exhausting _ even for the viewers.
The atmosphere was more relaxed, even upbeat, during another session, this time an interaction between dance/movement psychotherapist Dujdao and a man suffering from paranoia (Supsawas Buranavet). The patient developed a certain dependence on the therapist and created a temporary comfort zone for himself, but at the end of session he was still very much a fearful man. The final performance I witnessed had art therapist Anupan working with the same quiet teenage boy and his over-the-top mother (played hilariously by Jarunun Phantachat). The patient kept up a mild resistance to the therapist throughout the session, while his mother couldn't help but flirt with the latter when he involved her in some of the activities.
While the show's conceit inevitably creates dramatic tension and a kind of unpredictability that keeps the audience fascinated, Therapy suffers from over-earnestness and seem to be making an almost desperate appeal for public understanding and acceptance of the role played by art therapy and art therapists. Each time a patient summed up his experience, it felt as if he was trying to validate his belief in therapy and rope us into the same camp. Moreover, the three characters I saw were probably the most willing fictional patients I've ever come across.
Even though the show presents art therapy from both the patient's and the therapist's perspective, the use of real therapists poses some limitations. It was quite generous of the director to surrender half of his creative control to the therapists and this was, without doubt, an interesting creative experiment. But Nophand failed to push his actors to pose questions that were begging to be asked. As a result, the show came across as something of a promotional exercise for therapy and therapists. The patients never threw their therapists any real curveballs. Nor does anyone challenge the psychological definition of what constitutes "normal" behaviour; the patients don't question whether they're sick or not, nor do they challenge the therapists' methodologies.
From watching Therapy I learned that it's not uncommon for Thai patients to address their therapist as khru (teacher) or for them to give gifts to a counsellor to demonstrate their appreciation. Although this drama succeeds in the generous, sensitive manner in which it illuminates how art therapy works, it still subscribes to that tired tradition of portraying certain occupations as heroic pursuits, totally beyond reproach.
Therapy (After the Flood) is on show at B-Floor Room at the Pridi Bhanomyong Institute until Sun, Jan 29. Tickets cost 350 baht.
Call 084-713-5075.
