The Drama of Recovery: Stanislavski, Vygotsky, and the Dialectic of Transformation

The pathway to recovery from addictions seldom unfolds as a solitary endeavour; instead, it intricately weaves together symbolic, embodied, and psychosocial processes aimed at the adoption of new coping mechanisms and new values. This journey entails a transformative pursuit wherein individuals attempt to reorganise their habits, priorities, and decision-making. While modern forms of addiction treatment promise to facilitate a similar process of self-transformation, they often do so through an inherently individualistic lens. On the other hand, theatre stands out as the most enduring technology of self-transformation in human history—an artistic medium for collectively forging new modes of existence. This article aims to revisit theatre’s therapeutic potential for addictions by focusing on a specific instance of the intersection between drama and psychology during the early 20th century. The exploration aims to demonstrate how integrating Konstantin Stanislavski’s psychophysiological approach to acting and L.S. Vygotsky’s concept of perezhivanie offers a promising avenue for reimagining addiction recovery as a dialectical ontogenetic process based on the nexus of ‘crisis-imagination-transformation’. By framing the actor’s psychology as a historically and socially embedded phenomenon rather than a purely biological or individual experience, Vygotsky offers a dialectical approach not only to acting but to every process of self-transformation. His emphasis on the sociohistorical nature of perezhivanie not only redefines the actor’s craft but also highlights the broader transformative potential of performance, both in art and in what he termed the drama of life, as a shared, collective process of meaning-making and change.