Psychodrama

Psychodrama is a form of group therapy in which one or more persons act out situations in a dramatic setting which enable them to gain some insight into the emotional problems deliberately drawn into the scenario. Ultimately, the intention is to encounter the self by transcending everyday life, and to form a deeper relationship with existence.

The individuals may either act out their own real life role in the scenario, or else take up a counter-role through which they gain understanding not easily available otherwise. The therapist may also take up roles, and he and his assistants may also find themselves obtaining insights into some of their own problems, patterns of behaviour or motives. For this reason psychodrama need not be confined to groups of people whose problems are pathological; it is basically a training in acting out past and present problems, both realistically and symbolically, both alone and with others, and develops a spontaneity and awareness from which perfectly normal people can also benefit. In fact, it has been said that games in which children play roles (mothering a doll, shooting toy pistols, and so on), a natural part of growing into adulthood, are everyday forms of psychodrama.

An important justification for this technique is that individuals may well have difficulty in giving verbal expression to their emotional problems, particularly when these are intense. Acting out a situation may prove both easier and more meaningful, given that this takes place in a setting which approximates most closely to the problem-producing situation of life. Psychodramatists contend that irrational and compulsive patterns are more readily seen and treated in the situation which involves action rather than just conversation.