Psychodrama
Encyclopedia
Psychodrama is a method of psychotherapy
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...

 in which clients utilize spontaneous dramatization, role playing and dramatic self-presentation to investigate and gain insight into their lives. Developed by Jacob L. Moreno
Jacob L. Moreno
Jacob Levy Moreno was a Jewish Romanian-born Austrian-American leading psychiatrist and psychosociologist, thinker and educator, the founder of psychodrama, and the foremost pioneer of group psychotherapy...

, M.D. (1889-1974) psychodrama includes elements of theater, often conducted on a stage
Stage (theatre)
In theatre or performance arts, the stage is a designated space for the performance productions. The stage serves as a space for actors or performers and a focal point for the members of the audience...

 where props
Theatrical property
A theatrical property, commonly referred to as a prop, is an object used on stage by actors to further the plot or story line of a theatrical production. Smaller props are referred to as "hand props". Larger props may also be set decoration, such as a chair or table. The difference between a set...

 can be used. By closely recreating real-life situations, and acting them out in the present, clients have the opportunity to evaluate their behavior and more deeply understand a particular situation in their lives. Psychodrama may be used in a variety of clinical and community-based settings, and is most often utilized in a group scenario, in which each person in the group can become therapeutic agents for one another's scenes. Psychodrama is not, however, a form of group therapy, and is instead an individual psychotherapy that is executed from within a group. A psychodrama is best conducted and produced by a person trained in the method or learning the method called a psychodrama director
Psychodrama director
A psychodrama director is the leader of a psychodrama session who by his/her actions is aimed to help the protagonist enact significant scenes from his life and experiences in a meaningful and therapeutically beneficial way...

.

In a session of psychodrama, one client of the group becomes the protagonist, and focuses on a particular situation to enact on stage. A variety of scenes may be enacted, depicting, for example, memories of specific happenings in the client's past, unfinished situations, inner dramas, fantasies, dream
Dream
Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious...

s, preparations for future risk-taking situations, or unrehearsed expressions of mental states in the here and now. These scenes either approximate real-life situations or are externalizations of inner mental processes. Other members of the group may become auxiliaries, and support the protagonist by playing other significant roles in the scene.

A core tenant of psychodrama is Moreno's theory of "spontaneity-creativity" . By encouraging an individual to address a problem in a creative way, reacting spontaneously and based on impulse, they may begin to discover new solutions to problems in their lives and new roles they can inhabit within it

Psychological uses

In psychodrama, participants explore internal conflict
Emotional conflict
"Emotional conflicts and the intervention of the unconscious are the classical features of...medical psychology" for C. G. Jung. Equally, 'Freud's concept of emotional conflict as amplified by Anna Freud...Erikson and others is central in contemporary theories of mental disorder in children,...

s through acting out their emotions and interpersonal interactions on stage. A given psychodrama session (typically 90 minutes to 2 hours) focuses principally on a single participant, known as the protagonist. Protagonists examine their relationships by interacting with the other actors and the leader, known as the director
Psychodrama director
A psychodrama director is the leader of a psychodrama session who by his/her actions is aimed to help the protagonist enact significant scenes from his life and experiences in a meaningful and therapeutically beneficial way...

. This is done using specific techniques, including doubling (psychodrama)
Doubling (psychodrama)
In psychodrama, doubling is a technique where a participant, perhaps asked by the psychodrama director, supplements the role of the protagonist, usually by standing behind them and saying things that the protagonist might want to say or is withholding. In this way one is able to hear things that...

, role reversal
Role reversal
In psychodrama, role reversal is a technique where the protagonist is asked, by the psychodrama director, to exchange roles with another person on the psychodrama stage. The former assumes as many of the roles of the other as possible and vice versa...

s, mirrors, soliloquy
Soliloquy
A soliloquy is a device often used in drama whereby a character relates his or her thoughts and feelings to him/herself and to the audience without addressing any of the other characters, and is delivered often when they are alone or think they are alone. Soliloquy is distinct from monologue and...

, and applied sociometry
Sociometry
Sociometry is a quantitative method for measuring social relationships. It was developed by psychotherapist Jacob L. Moreno in his studies of the relationship between social structures and psychological well-being....

.

Psychodrama attempts to create an internal restructuring of dysfunctional mindsets with other people, and it challenges the participants to discover new answers to some situations and become more spontaneous and independent. There are over 10,000 practitioners internationally.

Although a primary application of psychodrama has traditionally been as a form of group psychotherapy, and psychodrama often gets defined as "a method of group psychotherapy," this does a disservice to the many other uses or functions of the method. More accurately psychodrama is defined as "a method of communication in which the communicator[s] expresses him/her/themselves in action." The psychodramatic method is an important source of the role-playing
Role-playing
Role-playing refers to the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role...

 widely used in business and industry. Psychodrama offers a powerful approach to teaching and learning, as well as to training interrelationship skills. The action techniques of psychodrama also offer a means of discovering and communicating information concerning events and situations in which the communicator has been involved.

History

Dr. J.L. Moreno (1889-1974) is the documented founder of psychodrama, sociometry, and the group psychotherapy movement. Around 1910, he developed the Theater of Spontaneity, which was not originally about the therapy of his currently developing psychodrama but Moreno thought them only to be a benefit out of psychodrama, not the point of the exercise itself. Moreno's ideas can be seen and begun to be understood in a poem he wrote that displays his pervasive ideas:
" A meeting of two: eye to eye, face to face.
And when you are near I will tear your eyes out
and place them instead of mine,
and you will tear my eyes out
and will place them instead of yours,
then I will look at me with mine." .


Moreno in 1912 met Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

 and as a response said in his autobiography, "I attended one of Freud's lectures. He had just finished an analysis of a telepathic dream. As the students filed out, he singled me out from the crowd and asked me what I was doing. I responded, 'Well, Dr. Freud, I start where you leave off. You meet people in the artificial setting of your office. I meet them on the street and in their homes, in their natural surroundings. You analyze their dreams. I give them the courage to dream again. You analyze and tear them apart. I let them act out their conflicting roles and help them to put the parts back together again.".

After this experience, as a student at the University of Vienna in 1917, Moreno used psychotherapy with a group prostitutes as a way of discussing the social stigma they faced. From experiences like this, and inspired by famous intellectual minds such as Reich and Freud, Moreno began to form what we know of today as pysychodrama. After moving to the United States in 1925, Moreno began to introduce Psychodrama to American psychologists. He began his work with children and then eventually moved on to large group psychodrama sessions he held at Impromptu Group Theatre at Carnegie Hall. These meetings made Moreno a well known name in the world of psychology but also in households. Moreno taught his idea of psychodrama until his death in 1974 .

Another important practitioner in the field of psychodrama is Carl. E. Hollander. Carl was the 37th director certified by J. L. Moreno in psychodrama. He is known mostly for his creation of the Hollander Psychodrama Curve which is more of a way to understand the how a psychodrama session works. This curve consists of the ideas of warming up, activity, and intergration.

Although psychodrama isn't very heavily used or practice in the world of psychology, the work of the practioners of psychodrama has openned the doors and research possibilities for psychological concepts such as group therapy and expansion of the work of Sigmund Freud. Along with expanding the possibilities in the world of psychology, the work of Moreno and others have helped legitamized theater through science.

Literary uses

In literature, a psychodrama is a work of fiction in which psychological forces are the main interest. For example, Solaris
Solaris (novel)
Solaris is a 1961 Polish science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem. It is about the ultimate inadequacy of communication between human and non-human species....

.

See also

  • Group therapy
    Group therapy
    Group psychotherapy or group therapy is a form of psychotherapy in which one or more therapists treat a small group of clients together as a group...

  • Gestalt therapy
    Gestalt therapy
    Gestalt therapy is an existential/experiential form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility, and that focuses upon the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist-client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person's life, and the self-regulating...

  • Play therapy
    Play therapy
    Play therapy is generally employed with children aged 3 through 11 and provides a way for them to express their experiences and feelings through a natural, self-guided, self-healing process...

  • Playback Theatre
    Playback Theatre
    Playback Theatre is an original form of improvisational theatre in which audience or group members tell stories from their lives and watch them enacted on the spot.-History:The first Playback Theatre company was founded in 1975 by Jonathan Fox and Jo Salas...

  • Systemic Constellations
    Systemic Constellations
    The Systemic Constellation process is a trans-generational, phenomenological, therapeutic intervention with roots in family systems therapy , existential-phenomenology , and the ancestor reverence of the South African Zulus...

  • Theraplay
    Theraplay
    Theraplay is a therapeutic approach that uses elements of play therapy with the intention of helping parents and children build better attachment relationships through attachment-based play. It was developed in 1967 in Chicago by Ann M...

  • Sociodrama
    Sociodrama
    A sociodrama is a dramatic play in which several individuals act out assigned roles for the purpose of studying and remedying problems in group or collective relationships. It was developed by social scientist Jacob L...

  • Diamond of opposites
    Diamond of opposites
    The diamond of opposites is a type of two-dimensional plot used in psychodrama groups. This tool can illuminate the presence of contradictions in processes that cannot be detected by any single questionnaire item using a traditional format such as the Likert scale...

  • Drama Therapy
    Drama therapy
    Drama Therapy is the use of theatre techniques to facilitate personal growth and promote mental health. Dramatherapy is used in a wide variety of settings, including hospitals, schools, mental health centers, prisons, and businesses...

  • Sociometry
    Sociometry
    Sociometry is a quantitative method for measuring social relationships. It was developed by psychotherapist Jacob L. Moreno in his studies of the relationship between social structures and psychological well-being....

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