BAGHDAD – At Jabbar Khmat’s Theater Clinic, patients suffering from psychological problems find relief by taking the stage to act. The Iraqi academic and actor launched the Theater Clinic to aid those suffering mentally from the conflicts that have plagued Iraq.

“Theater Clinic, unlike traditional theaters, aims to find therapeutic solutions for victims of war and social crises,” said Khmat, who began his career in theater therapy treating victims of the 1988 chemical attacks by Saddam Hussein's government against Halabja, in Iraqi Kurdistan. “This type of art helps patients break out of their isolation. Their participation improves their vocal and physical skills and enhances their ability to communicate.” Khmat explained, “The project also allows patients to compose scripts to be performed on stage.”

Khmat’s efforts are similar to those of Dr. Jan Ilhan Kizilhan, a German-Iraqi psychotherapist who, with funding from the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg and the German Ministry of Science, established in March an institute at the University of Dahuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan, to train therapists. Students are being trained in psychotherapy and psychotraumatology with the ultimate goal of helping to alleviate the suffering of victims of terrorism and war. At present, there are estimated to be only 20 psychiatrists in the Kurdistan region. Previously, Kizilhan had participated in a program to provide therapy to some 1,100 victims of the Islamic State (IS), mainly Yazidis and some Christians, and help them relocate in Germany.

Telling Al-Monitor about past work, Khmat said, “The patients performed the play ‘I Exist’ in the auditorium of the Health Directorate in Halabja [in 2015], and the audience was surprised how patients could offer brilliant work and act just like ‘normal’ people, if not more so.” The goal of the psychological clinic mixing drama with psychology is to give individuals space in which to express buried feelings by acting them out.