Drama therapists becomes 5th PhD holder in SA
- Wits University
Dr Linda Mdena-Thibedi has achieved a milestone by becoming the fifth and the youngest female PhD graduate in Drama Therapy.
A middle-child, Mdena-Thibedi graduated with her PhD in July 2025. Her journey began in 2010 when she left East London to pursue a BA majoring in Applied Drama and Theatre, Drama Therapy and Physical Theatre. Mdena-Thibedi says she was intentional right from the beginning about fusing her passions.
“My love for Drama began in preparatory school and I was cognisant that my parents supported my interests in the arts from a very young age by allowing me to do Ballet, Music and Drama. By the time I had to choose my main subjects in high school they allowed me to choose Music, Drama and History along with the other compulsory subjects. Therefore, telling my parents I wanted to come to Wits to study Drama was met with ease and understanding.”
Determined to advance her studies, she completed her master’s degree in 2015 at Wits University. In 2016 she became the first and the youngest, black female Drama Therapist, registered and trained in South Africa.
While psychodrama has been in existence for years and has been used in communities for centuries, it’s professionalisation has only come about in recent decades. Those holding PhDs are rare but the tide is turning.
“There are roughly 40 active Drama Therapists registered and/or practicing in South Africa. Gauteng currently has the most registered Drama Therapists, followed by the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal. There are a few Drama Therapists in South Africa because people genuinely do not know about Drama Therapy,” she says.
One of the simplest ways to explain the field is offered by ChatGPT which describes drama therapy “as a form of expressive arts therapy that uses drama and theatre processes to achieve therapeutic goals. It integrates psychological theories with creative techniques to help individuals explore their emotions, resolve conflicts, improve relationships, and enhance personal growth.”
Mdena-Thibedi says her field comes with an added advantage as “sometimes, sitting and discussing trauma is not always easy; therefore, the role of the Drama Therapist is to do their best to create treatment plans that allow client/s to navigate therapy creatively and expressively.”
This form of therapy is particularly useful and effective in various settings like hospitals, rehabilitation centers, schools, prisons, NGO’s, children's or old age homes, and private practice, to name a few.
New Position to Advance Scholarship and Practice
With a PhD in hand, Mdena-Thibedi aims to continue exploring ways creative mediums like Drama Therapy, that allow us to find various ways of communicating and expressing ourselves.
Working long distance with her PhD supervisor, Professor Vivien Marcow Speiser, a registered Dance Movement Therapist from Lesley University, have been working together on getting Dance Movement Therapy accredited by the Health Professions Council of South Africa and the Council of Higher Education to be taught at Wits University. This would make Wits the first and only University on the African continent to offer Dance Movement Therapy as a course, similar to the current Drama Therapy programme at Drama for Life. Drama for Life is an internationally recognised department that focuses on using the Arts for social transformation and healing.
As the newly appointed Head of Department at Drama for Life, Mdena-Thibedi endeavours to inspire and build on the achievements of the department.
In 2013, Drama for Life taught its first cohort of Honours Drama Therapy students. In 2016, these became the first ten South African-trained Drama Therapists qualified and registered with the HPCSA.
The discipline is poised to play a greater role in South Africa and beyond.
“With the increasing interest and use of AI, a rise in anxiety, depression, gender-based-harm, and high suicide rates of South African children, teenagers, and adults, we cannot close our eyes and wish these matters away. We need creative mediums like Drama Therapy that allow us to find various ways of communicating and expressing ourselves.”
A person interested in postgraduate training would need an undergraduate degree in Psychology or Social Work. A minimum of 3 and ½ years (full-time) is needed to become a registered Drama Therapist.
Reflecting on her own journey as the youngest PhD holder, Mdena-Thibedi, who is close to her mid-30s says “it wasn’t easy getting to this point. Two obstacles that I faced was that my workload didn’t decrease once I started my PhD, and I had a whole other life outside of academia. Raising 3 children under the age of 6 made me appreciate and navigate motherhood as best as I could while being a wife, student and lecturer, studying and trying to build my career. I was often challenged and questioned on my ability to balance it all and even asked why I was doing my PhD now, when I have my entire life ahead of me and young children to raise. None the less, I did not let these concerns weigh me down, I pushed forward, completing and submitting my PhD without any corrections needed.”
“Obtaining my PhD has been a career highlight along with being responsible for introducing and teaching the first Postgraduate diploma in Dance in Education course. Finding creative was of teaching Drama Therapy online by engaging with international Arts therapy lecturers from different Universities and building connections with them was also a career highlight which I will always value.”
Mdena-Thibedi will continue to hold on to her belief that you should “never let anyone look down on you because you are young. Education has no age!”