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This thesis explores potential intersections of drama therapy and an embodied clowning exercise known as leading centers. The aim is to further establish relations and a common lexicon between therapeutic circus arts and drama therapy. To guide this coupling, drama therapy’s newly revised core processes per Frydman et al. (2022) were utilized as a framework when coding the leading center exercise. Three out of seven drama therapy core processes were
investigated: embodiment, dramatic projection, and distancing. These were determined to be most salient for the purposes of this thesis as they were recently the most emergent core processes coded in Elowe et al.’s (2022) meta-analytic literature review comparing therapeutic circus arts to drama therapy. The clowning exercise was conducted in an outpatient agency that served court-mandated, substance-use, and dually diagnosed individuals. The results showed a high compliance rate in completing the exercise and embodiment was featured as the most emergent core process. The author believes that this is due to the fact that physical gesture is objectively more observable than the characteristics of distancing and dramatic projection. Limitations included sample size, confirmation bias (given the author’s identity and relationship to circus), and client compliance could have been skewed because the clients were mostly court-mandated and sought positive feedback for their progress notes. Future research is needed to confirm the validity of any results; however, the study might suggest strong parallels between clowning and drama therapy.