Brooke Horan Williams understands that not everyone will see things from her point of view, or even benefit from her advice in the same way that she has. However, she wants to share her experience for those who are able to take it to heart. Brooke Horan Williams wants to share with everyone she can the therapeutic benefits of acting.
People come from all walks of life, from countless different situations, and everyone deals with their immediate surroundings and stimuli in varying ways. While sharing one’s feelings, frustrations and emotions may come easily to some, others struggle to express themselves in a meaningful way on a daily basis. Brooke Horan Williams was one such person who fell into this second camp.
After discovering the joy of acting, Brooke Horan Williams realized that by understanding and reenacting the emotions of the characters on the written page, she was able to begin working through her own similar feelings that she was experiencing in her day to day life. Her suppressed anger, sadness, joy, and a multitude of other emotions were finally able to be freed through the magic of committing to a script.
It may seem counter-intuitive, Brooke Horan Williams admits: acting out someone else’s words and feelings may appear to some as being extremely non-helpful when it comes to dealing with actual emotions, or in a worst-case scenario, could be seen as hiding behind a mask and actually harming your ability to express your true self.
Brooke Horan Williams assures us that this line of thinking couldn’t be further from the truth: for someone who has struggled a large portion of their life with properly coming to terms with their feelings, being able to work through and understand your character’s intentions can be extremely beneficial in helping you understand your own.
This isn’t just one person’s point of view: there is a professionally recognized practice known as drama therapy that utilizes this school of thought. Drama therapy is defined as “the use of theatre techniques to facilitate personal growth and promote mental health”, according to Wikipedia.
Drama therapy is specifically used to help people work through specific problems—whether it be trying to discover something about one’s self, making a breakthrough about a personality disorder, or any other number of psychological problems. This isn’t exactly the same thing Brooke Horan Williams is referring to, but it proves that the basis for the logic behind it is sound.
Brooke Horan Williams hopes that if you’re going through the same struggles she had, you’ll give acting a shot. It may help more than you think!
