My name is Marcin Zielonka. I am an attentive Dramatherapist who is committed to developing effective  relationships and adapting his work to clients' needs. I am a reflective and creative practitioner, guided by the client’s ‘agenda’ and attuned to their ‘healthy’ aspects of self, as well as difficulties they may be experiencing. In my practice I draw equally on creative methods,  symbolic approaches and talking strategies.

 

As a dramatherapist and a person who has discovered the joy of being creative and its healing and freeing potential, I strongly believe that what Donald Winnicott said in his Playing and Reality is true:

 

“It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self.”

 

The above I’ve experienced myself and witnessed with other people too. I believe that through engagement in creative processes combined with mental reflection, personal transformation is possible.

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I am registered as an Arts Therapist – Dramatherapist with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), practising in accordance with their standards of ethics and professional conduct. I am also a full member of the British Association of Dramatherapists and Polish Association of Dramatherapy.  I completed my MA in Dramatherapy at Roehampton University.

 

I have clinical experience of working in NHS and community-based settings with adults with mental health problems such as bipolar/anxiety disorder, suicidal ideation, self-harm, schizophrenia, depression, chronic bereavement, This included homeless adults as well as those with asylum seeker/refugee status. In addition I have experience of clinical work with children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral difficulties in primary and secondary schools. 

 

I currently provide individual and group dramatherapy for adults, young people and children.  I also facilitated personal development workshops for adults. My practice is in South Woodford, north-east London, . 

 

I am originally from Poland, where  I studied Social and Political Sciences. It was there, while a member of a community-based physical theatre company, that I discovered the healing potential of theatre and that being involved in creative processes allows us to overcome personal difficulties.

 

Thanks to physical theatre training, and experimenting with improvisation and various roles, I was able to distance myself from certain problems and look at them from a different perspective. I also gained insight into paradoxes of theatrical and real life situations. For example, whilst improvising I always felt confident, omnipotent and expressive. I felt that there were no limitations to my creativity, whereas in reality I lacked self-confidence and was withdrawn from my creative self. 

 

The processes I experienced were of healing and cathartic nature which allowed me to undergo a positive personal transformation: I managed to integrate my 'stage' experience into my life. It was at that time that I thought for the first time of studying Dramatherapy; however, it took me almost another eighteen years to put this idea into action.

 

In the meantime, I lived in the UK where I worked for over twelve years as a Drama and Humanities teacher in mainstream, and special education needs schools or pupil referrals units. I also completed an MA in Classical Civilization and performed with the London-based Para Active physical theatre company.