Will I Ever Find Love? Pt. 1

How the Creative Arts Therapies could support you in your quest for love.

If you have ever wondered: “will I ever find love?” you are not alone.

The Creative Arts Therapies offer an alternative therapy route to exploring identity, relationships, and attachment styles and how this relates to self-worth and your core values.

Take me to the science!

You may have heard of Oxytocin – the love hormone. It’s released when you are in a caring receiving relationship, when you are in love, and in a handful of other experiences and is mainly released through sensory-based interactions like touch and sound. Oxytocin is a hormone and neurotransmitter (communicator cell in the brain) that when released produces feelings of safety, contentment, and positive feelings of attachment. It can contribute to feelings of trust and belonging as well as promoting healing.

When Oxytocin levels go up, Cortisol (the “stress hormone”) levels go down. Oxytocin has been referred to as the love drug and it is described as ‘having a warm fuzzy feeling’. There are several ways that Oxytocin can be activated and you may be surprised to find out that it can be released in the body during a therapy session, even when it’s just talk based. This may occur in response to a positive emotional experience such as being heard and understood, in response to mindfulness meditation or when recounting an experience of awe or feeling of gratitude to a close other.

So, how could Drama Therapy help you to activate benefits from raised oxytocin levels? In a 2024 study on the effects of Role Playing (a common therapeutic intervention used in Drama Therapy) researchers found that role-playing significantly increased positive affect (feeling of happiness) and prosocial attitudes (how you feel about others) and decreased anxiety. Role Play can be used in different psychotherapeutic treatments but is more likely to be employed by a Drama Therapist or Psychodramatist. Drama Therapists and Psychodramatists will have had in-depth training (to varying degrees) on how to effectively use Role Play, Role Reversal and Role Exploration in sessions with individual clients and/or groups.

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Looking for Pt. 2 of this blog series? Check here.

Disclaimer: Blog posts such as this one are not a replacement for therapy and should not be considered advice for a medical or mental health condition that needs monitoring. The opinions expressed are those of the writer and do not speak to anyone else’s individual situation.

“the Science” links:

The science behind how talk therapy contributes to the oxytocin-cortisol balance.

Leslie J. Seltzer, Ashley R. Prososki, Toni E. Ziegler, Seth D. Pollak,
Instant messages vs. speech: hormones and why we still need to hear each other, Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 33, Issue 1, 2012, Pages 42-45,
ISSN 1090-5138, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2011.05.004.

A scientific exploration into how higher levels of Oxytocin in combination with role play predict larger gains in positive emotions.

Berceanu AI, Papasteri C, Sofonea A, Boldasu R, Nita D, Poalelungi C, Froemke R and Carcea I (2024) Oxytocin predicts positive affect gains in a role-play interaction. Front. Psychol. 15:1258254. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1258254

The scientific link between Oxytocin and expressions of gratitude.

Algoe SB, Way BM. Evidence for a role of the oxytocin system, indexed by genetic variation in CD38, in the social bonding effects of expressed gratitude. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2014 Dec;9(12):1855-61. doi: 10.1093/scan/nst182. Epub 2014 Jan 5. PMID: 24396004; PMCID: PMC4249462.