Our history
Initiatives aimed at bringing European dramatherapists together has quite a long story.
In 2006, the first idea sparkled out at the annual BADTh conference, in a panel discussion including Sue Jennings, Anna Seymour and Salvo Pitruzzella. From it, Salvo, as a BADTh International Member, suggested to start an inquiry, in order to check the state of dramatherapy in Europe. The DEEP (Dramatherapy European Exchange Project) started in 2007 as a BADTh working party, thanks also to the precious collaboration of Madeline Andersen-Warren, who was the BADTh Chair at that time. In the 90s, in the Netherlands there had been attempts to gather dramatherapists through organising meeting points but it wasn’t until later that we have come together.
The creation of new dramatherapy associations in recent years around Europe has been key in making the EFD possible.
In 2009 DEEP and SPID (the Italian DT association) had their first meeting in Milan, to get to know each other and share the European vision.
In 2010, a questionnaire was sent to all the people on DEEP’s mailing list, in order to identify the needs of the dramatherapists working in Europe. The main conclusion was the request for opportunities to exchange practice and research.
The DEEP working group came to an end as a BADTh working party in 2010. The group’s name was changed to EDEN (European Dramatherapy Exchange Network), an independent group.
Many contacts were made during the time of DEEP and this certainly helped in the coordination and organization of the Berlin meeting in 2011, but the major contribution to it has been undoubtedly that of Jessica Williams Ciemnyjewski, who patiently reconnected all the threads, and added some new ones. In Berlin, the steering group of the nascent EFD included Germany, Israel, France, UK, Italy, Romania, Latvia, Switzerland, Czech Republic, and The Netherlands. Greece joined later, as well as Belgium, Norway and Poland.
Some other meetings followed, and the Federation was officially founded in 2013.