Research Context & Scope of Practice
Costume Therapy™ is an embodied, expressive arts methodology developed through practice-based research, arts-based inquiry, and iterative experiential design. The method operates at the intersection of performance, somatic activation, symbolic play, social interaction, and live interpretive facilitation.
Costume Therapy engages identity, memory, emotion, and trauma through enacted experience. Participants enter altered self-states using costume, role, movement, voice, and social engagement. These experiences function simultaneously as symbolic expression and lived somatic reality, allowing insight, emotional material, and future orientation to be metabolized in real time rather than through prolonged narrative processing.
A defining feature of the method is its use of adrenaline and heightened arousal as an entry point. Costume Therapy intentionally activates the nervous system to create conditions where new self-states, behaviors, and relational patterns can be rehearsed, encoded, and remembered as viable future possibilities. This process supports future memory formation, not only reflection on the past.
Facilitation includes active witnessing, interpretation, and meaning-making. Experiences are not treated as neutral or self-interpreting. The facilitator observes, names patterns, reflects organization, and assigns meaning where appropriate, offering symbolic and structural interventions that support integration without requiring extended aftercare or clinical containment.
Costume Therapy is applied in non-clinical contexts and does not replace psychotherapy or medical treatment. However, it does engage trauma, emotional memory, and identity disruption through embodied, action-based means. Participants are responsible for their own participation and self-care, and the method is structured to support self-regulation through design rather than reliance on post-session processing.
As Costume Therapy continues to evolve, ongoing research focuses on embodiment, memory encoding, adrenaline-mediated learning, and social field dynamics. Future development includes interdisciplinary dialogue with psychology, somatics, expressive arts, and neuroscience while maintaining the integrity of the method’s original mechanisms.
An Interdisciplinary Foundation
Costume Therapy™ did not emerge in isolation. The method draws from multiple fields concerned with embodiment, identity, and lived experience, while responding to gaps those fields leave unaddressed.
Key influences include:
• Expressive and dramatic arts traditions
• Role theory and performative identity research
• Somatic psychology and embodied cognition
• Ritual studies and material culture
• Social neuroscience and relational nervous system research
These fields inform the intellectual terrain of Costume Therapy without defining its application or scope.
Where Costume Therapy Diverges
Costume Therapy departs from adjacent modalities in several critical ways:
• It operates outside clinical and diagnostic frameworks
• It treats enacted experience as lived reality AND symbolic metaphor
• It centers expression & visibility rather than simply treatment or remediation
Rather than adapting existing therapeutic models, Costume Therapy introduces an applied framework for intentional identity enactment & future positive-affirming memory creation through physical transformation and social engagement.
The Blank Space It Addresses
While many disciplines acknowledge identity as performative or embodied, few provide structured, non-clinical environments where adults can experiment with identity in real time.
Costume Therapy addresses this gap by offering:
• A method for practicing alternate self-states through action
• A framework for experiential memory formation
• A structured approach to identity experimentation within social contexts
• A facilitated container for exploration without diagnosis or interpretation
Research Status & Development
Costume Therapy is an evolving methodology developed through practice-based research, arts-based inquiry, and iterative experiential design. The method has been field-tested across workshops, one-on-one sessions, and group experiences in non-clinical settings.
Current development focuses on:
• Formal documentation of method principles
• Interdisciplinary research collaboration
• Ethical standardization and scope clarity
• Adaptation for educational and community contexts
Scope of Practice
Costume Therapy™ is a non-clinical expressive method. It is not psychotherapy, medical treatment, or a substitute for licensed mental health care.
The method is offered within clearly defined ethical boundaries that prioritize:
• Participant agency and consent
• Voluntary participation and personal pacing
• Facilitated reflection without interpretation
• Appropriate referral boundaries
Participants are encouraged to seek licensed support when needed. Costume Therapy facilitators do not diagnose, treat trauma, or intervene in mental health conditions.