The purpose of this research is to examine the effects of drama therapy on the female sex trade victims on self-esteem, self-resilience, and emotional security, through quantitative research method and session process research method. As for quantitat...
The purpose of this research is to examine the effects of drama therapy on the female sex trade victims on self-esteem, self-resilience, and emotional security, through quantitative research method and session process research method. As for quantitative research, the researcher compared the difference between the pre-treatment and the post-treatment in terms of self-esteem, self-resilience, and emotional security. In the study of the session process, the session process of each participant was individually analyzed.
The participants in the present study are the female sex trade victims, who were admitted to a shelter for female sex trade victims located in G city. The entire process is composed of a total of eight sessions. From the beginning to the end of April of 2008, the group met twice or thrice a week with each session lasting two hours.
The result of the study is as follows. First of all, from the quantitative research, the group treated with drama therapy showed a little change in self-esteem, but not to a significant degree. However, on the individual level, only one participant showed a decrease in self-esteem, and the rest four all experienced an increase in self-esteem. Next, self-resilience went up for most of the participants, but it also turned out that there was no statistically significant change: as with self-esteem, self-resilience also decreased only for one participant, and greatly increased for another participant, and a little increased for the rest three. Lastly, however, as for emotional security, there was a statistically significant change in the post-treatment emotional security level, compared with the pre-treatment emotional security level. This indicates that drama therapy influences female sex trade victims’ emotional security.
Moving onto the result of the individual session process analysis, it has been found out that self-expression, spontaneity, and creativity was increased. It was also observed that the participant did not get easily triggered, but started to adequately express their resentment, which is consistent with the observations from the quantitative research. This indicates that drama therapy is effective in improving female sex trade victims’ self-resilience. It is also noticeable that there were frequently observed some remarkable behavioral changes, compared with the initial stages of the program: in the scenes involving resentment or conflicts, the participants’ tension was drastically reduced; in their interpersonal relations, they more often performed positive communication taking empathetic attitude.
This study has a few limitations, though. Firstly, the researcher led the program, so her characteristics should be taken into account. Secondly, after conducting the program, the researcher did not do any follow-up study. So, we can not definitely demonstrate whether this program has continuous therapeutic effects or not. Thirdly, since this study was done with only five participants and had no comparative group corresponding to them, the internal and external validity of the treatment result is low, which makes it difficult to apply the program to other female sex trade victims in general.
In closing, the researcher would like to make a few suggestions drawing on the above result. First, female sex trade victims experience both physical and psychological damages to the point where they need long-term treatment. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a long-term treatment program. Second, if the victims face realistic problems trying to survive before recovering from their traumatic experiences, they are more likely to end up getting into the vicious cycle where they flow into sex trade business. So, it is required that those issues should be addressed by future studies. Lastly, it is very helpful to take preventive measures by developing drama therapy programs for the youth who are categorized as being likely to flow into sex trade business, because once an individual becomes victimized in sex trade business, not only is its aftermath huge, but also it isn’t easy for the victim to escape from the sex trade business owner.