Coming home to the arts: theatre with military veterans and families
| Pages | 12-14 |
| Published date | 20 March 2017 |
| Date | 20 March 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPMH-03-2016-0015 |
| Author | Alison O’Connor |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Mental health,Public mental health |
Coming home to the arts: theatre with
military veterans and families
Alison O’Connor
Abstract
Purpose –A significant number of military veterans and family members are living with post-traumatic stress,
unmet mental health needs and isolation. There is growing interest in the potential of theatre and the
expressive arts as a positive intervention with this population. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the
Coming Home programme which aims to create opportunities for military veterans and families to develop an
ongoing engagement with the arts and through that engagement to access new ways of regulating and
expressing complex emotions.
Design/methodology/approach –This case study shares reflections from Re-Live’s current theatre
programme, Coming Home. The programme methodology uses reflective writing, theatre and choral singing
to develop participants wellbeing and reduce isolation.
Findings –Initial feedback suggests that this programme has significant potential as a way of reconnecting
veterans and families with their community and improving their wellbeing. The emotional release of group
singing and performing together has been powerful. Participants report that the Coming Home programme is
connecting them with parts of themselves they thought had gone forever: humour, spontaneity, fun –and
having a positive impact on their wellbeing.
Originality/value –This case study contributes to the literature from the exciting and emerging field of the
use of the creative arts with military veterans and families.
Keywords Families, Theatre, Military veterans, Post-traumatic stress
Paper type Case study
Background and purpose
A man enters, crosses the stage slowly. He carries a holdall, stops, places it on the floor, looks around
him and sits on a chair. Slowly the space fills as five more veterans enter, each carrying a bag or
suitcase. No words are spoken. The emotions are palpable; loss, fear, anticipation. One man hesitates
as he puts his key in the door, changes his mind and rings the bell instead. Another puts his head in his
hands. The scene ends with each man sitting alone on a chair, looking into the distance.
This was the opening scene of a performance from the first stage of Re-Live’s Coming Home
programme with military veterans and families. A group of eight veterans and five family members
worked with Re-Live practitioners and guest practitioner, Andy Watson, Artistic Director of
Geese Theatre Company, exploring experiences of coming home. Despite significant differences
in age and military experience, themes emerging were similar. The youngest veteran in the group
described his recent experience, “I stood on the tarmac as I was leaving Afghanistan and
I thought, how do you come home from this?”while another veteran took us back thirty years, to
coming home from the Falklands War to a young family, feeling like “a shell of a man, alien, with
no words to describe the things I’d seen and done”.
There is a long histor y of returning soldi ers using the arts to c ommunicate the horr ors of their
experience. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have seen a new wave of literature, film and theatre
emerging as combatants, families, artists and writers strive to make sense of the impact of war
and post-traumatic stress. There is growing interest, in the clinical world, in how the arts can
Received 22 March 2016
Revised 22 March 2016
Accepted 31 August 2016
Alison O’Connor is an Applied
Theatre Practitioner at Re-Live,
Cardiff, UK.
PAG E 12
j
JOURNAL OF PUBLIC MENTAL HEALTH
j
VOL. 16 NO. 1 2017, pp. 12-14, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1746-5729 DOI 10.1108/JPMH-03-2016-0015
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