Impact of Teaching Palliative Psychology with Psychodrama and Arts Therapies on Psychology Students in Klagenfurt

Abstract

The Erasmus+ project “Death Education for Palliative Psychology” (DE4PP) under the coordination of the University of Padua investigated the effects of teaching palliative psychology with psychodrama and arts therapies, as positive effects on students’ attitudes towards life and death were suspected through the use of these forms of treatment. Five countries participated in this project funded by the European Commission (Austria, Israel, Italy, Poland, and Romania). In Klagenfurt (Austria), 34 students from the University of Klagenfurt completed the pilot course entitled “Palliative Psychology” generated by the project partners. Course participants filled out psychological and satisfaction questionnaires at the beginning and end of the course, to measure the impact of teaching palliative psychology with psychodrama and arts therapies. The research involved a control group. In addition, six participants in the course participated in a focus group interview at the end, which included questions about their experience of the course; the impact of arts therapies and psychodrama techniques; experiences of verbal and artistic processing of death anxiety; and the meaning of life and death, representation of death, and associated feelings. The results, in summary, showed that processing of life and death had occurred in the participants due to the course they had completed. As part of the course, creative arts and psychodrama were bridges to death. Filling out satisfaction questionnaires, photovoice assignments, role reversal, and visualizing a personal social atom were seen by students in Klagenfurt as particularly effective methods for self-reflection.