Laura Wood and Dave Mowers

With the international rise of theater in the arts in health movement the need for manualization and clarification of professional roles help provide clear pathways for cross-disciplinary collaboration and protection of participants. CoATT provides a straightforward way for professional collaboration that honors the unique scope of practice of various disciplines.
The model focuses on working with participants in different forms of recovery (substance use, eating disorders, medical trauma, etc.). Like the conference theme, the model moves away from autobiographical exploration of recovery and instead turns the participant focus outward by structuring a performance around the question: what is the theme of recovery you want to embody and share with the community at large? Using metaphor, multiplicity of participant voices, theatrical aesthetics, and manualized drama therapy exercises public performances are co-actively created with participants and the drama therapist over the course of 14-16 weeks. This paper presentation will describe the theory that underpins the model, discuss the value of manulization, and present the seven movements that comprise the model. Finally, five years of data from various recovery populations will be highlighted. Implications and limitations of manualization will be discussed, as well as strategies for collaborating with various disciplines since as psychiatry, speech language pathology, arts in health, and other creative arts therapists will be noted.