Physiological states Essays

Physiological states Essays Physiological states Essay Physiological states Essay A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioural pattern that occurs in an individual and is thought to cause distress or disability that is not expected as part of normal development or culture. From the drama we used I learnt that the recognition and understanding of mental disorders has changed over time and across cultures, I also l learnt that mental disorders do not have a defined cause- any disorder can arise from a combination of environmental, biological, and psychological sources. In particular one of the workshops we took part in helped me identify how social forces can influence individual psychological and physiological states.This was achieved by each pupil being given a folded piece of paper where all were blank except one which had a black spot on it. This taught me some mental illnesses may be caused by social rejection often leading to paranoia or distress. It also taught me, however, that a persons mental disorder can influence their thoughts on people around them and how these people perceive their behavior, whether these thoughts are right or wrong.From the work we did I learnt drama can be expressed in several ways and is an extremely diverse subject- a piece can also be interpreted in a number of ways and that is what makes it drama. Anything can be portrayed through drama, ranging from art to literature. Particularly, I learnt about certain explorative strategies and how they can influence a piece- forum theatre, I thought, was one of the most interesting ideas. I think it allows the character and the audience to become more familiar with the characters traits and understand them on a deeper level. This is also true for hot-seating, whereby simply asking basic questions, a character can be developed from a straightforward person to a complex, intricate character. Marking the moment has also proved helpful, by identifying a significant moment in a piece of drama allows the audience to help the actors improve their scene, but also helps the audience understand it further, on a deeper more multifaceted level.One of the key moments of the workshop was the lesson where we looked at The Scream. From this I learnt a significant amount about not only drama, but drama portrayed though art. From one painting, so many connotations can be drawn and applied to drama. What I noticed first about this painting is the normality of everything else besides the man screaming, it can be seen as a sort of inner scream we all feel sometimes when an agony that we must keep silent becomes unbearable. Unless we are insane, we keep the resulting desire to scream in despair and fear inside- we are torn apart inside while outside everything goes on as normal. This painting captures both the inner scream and the normality around us. From this I learnt that people may be drawn to madness or depression because they have no one to confront, and open up to- their inner scream may drive them insane. I thought this central idea was most forcefully portrayed by Huguettes group.They portrayed their inner scream and confusion through a simple but impressionable concept. The four members of the group, Jake, Lucy, Honor and Huguette, were sitting in a circle. They took it in turns to speak as they went around the circle, they all seemed to talk to each other, but did not communicate as each character was interested in their own problems- and only their problems. The scene was drawn to a stark ending when all four characters shouted ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?, this stood as a symbol of their inner scream revealing itself.This was my favourite and most memorable part of their piece as it was extremely powerful and summed up everything we had previously studied from The Scream to Cagebirds, drawing links between all the drama texts we had studied, this is what really sticks out in my mind and was one of the most powerful workshops.