Last Updated on March 14, 2023 by Mike Robinson
Psychodrama is a psychotherapy created by Jacob Levy Moreno and inspired by improvisational theater. It marks when action-based replace verbal methods for treating individuals in groups.
If we look closer at the name, we can see that it consists of the words dramatization and psychology.
Think about a play. When someone is acting, they are between fantasy and reality. The fantasy mode lets us do things we can’t do in real life. Things like showing emotions we’re afraid of, changing our behavior patterns, or offering new traits.
When we have these experiences, even if they are not real, they can become part of our real-life repertoire.
The session of psychodrama is the heir to the theatrical function. After discovering dramatization’s therapeutic potential, Moreno transformed classical theater into the Theater of Spontaneity’s improvisation and Therapeutic Theater’s dramatization.
Psychodramatic techniques could be helpful in places like education, psychotherapy, and workplace relations to look at the psychological aspects of a problem. Psychodrama is a type of group therapy that uses acting techniques. It helps them talk about their issues with the help of therapeutic actors and eliminate episodes that affect their mental health. Next, I’ll discuss psychodrama’s elements, tools, and stages.
Elements of Psychodrama
Three things make up a psychodrama session: social, group, and dramatic situations. The human being is a social being, so it lives with other people, has relationships, and makes meaningful connections with them.
Social Context
The social context reflects social reality, which gives psychodrama its primary source of material with which to work. It is in this setting that the person has grown and gotten sick. In this medium, the person will talk about what happened in that medium from their point of view.
It is in a place that is not part of the work. It follows laws and social norms that demand certain behaviors and responsibilities from each person.
Group Context
The group context includes patients and therapists, their interactions, and what happens (customs, norms, and particular laws). In this situation, we describe the main characters or themes. The difference between this context and the last one is that the group context gives more freedom, tolerance, and understanding.
Dramatic Context
The dramatic context is how the main character and the director set up the scene. It is a product of the main character and is full of meanings and hints. It is fake and made up, and the main characters act out their roles “as if.” They play their roles and interact with each other in a certain way.
They can make or break scenes, change what happens, switch characters, and change the time frame. So, it helps to ease the inner tensions of the main character. During the therapeutic process, the different settings remain separate so that the patient has a place where he feels safe.
Instruments in a Psychodrama Session
The five instruments present in a psychodrama session are:
- the protagonist
- the stage
- auxiliary self
- the director
- the audience.
The Protagonist
The protagonist is the main character in the dramatization. He is the author and star of his work, and he can create an argument from what he believes or feels, which can then follow or change as he pleases. He is the subject of the conflicts within the group, so when he is chosen and takes the stage, he transforms into its hero or heroine and is subject to both success and failure.
The Stage
The stage is where we use the technique; it is a safe environment for the protagonist and a place to perform in real-time. It is rectangular, with three sides corresponding to the auditorium’s intended space and one primary side in contact with the background wall.
The stage’s height (vertical dimension) has a special effect on the protagonists because it makes it easier for them to experience the world “as if” it were fiction. As a result, they develop a commitment to the role they are playing rather than to themselves.
The Protagonist
The scenario has three levels: conception, growth, and consummation. The director realizes the warmth, the encounter with the protagonist, and the dramatization concept.
The protagonist and director meet during the growth phase to plan the opening scenes and establish the dramatic setting.
The Auxiliary Self
The auxiliary self plays roles that are complimentary to the protagonist’s and engages in some psychodramatic techniques. It serves as a teacher and therapist, a social researcher, an actor, and an unbiased observer.
Regarding the first function, it takes place in dramatic settings. The auxiliary self’s goal is to investigate or confirm that the roles or circumstances suggested occur in situations where a connection to the protagonist is required. On the other hand, when the director interacts with the auxiliary self, he follows their directives.
As an actor, the auxiliary self performs both creation and performance. The actor will say everything you need to speak to the main character. He must also be able to interpret the portrayal of characters. The auxiliary self is the one who can elaborate on and share with the group the outcomes of what they experience with it concerning the role of observer.
The Director
The director is in charge of directing so that the technique is therapeutic, as suggested by his name. He needs the required degree and experience that meets the requirements before he can work as a director:
- Three years of theoretical and practical seminars,
- At least 100 hours of psychodrama therapy
- At least 50 hours of supervision
The dramatized theme must include all of the components on a psychological and sociological level, so the director must employ the appropriate methods, techniques, and strategies. You must consider the following elements for providing a secure environment.
- having the patient and the auxiliary self-sign a commitment.
- determining when there will be fees.
- Deciding how to process payments (individual or group).
Additionally, you must specify the dates of the holidays and decide how to play the game based on attendance. Regarding the therapeutic process, one should keep an eye on how it’s going, make the necessary adjustments, control the connections between patients, emphasize the relationships that arise in group sessions, maintain the framework, and prevent, grant, and complete the therapeutic work.
The director performs three jobs: a producer, a social analyst, and a therapist. This must be carried out consistently throughout the psychodrama regarding the therapist’s role. You receive the material in the first section, work with it in the second, and share it in the third. In other words, you must start the session, get comfortable, spot the emerging issue, pick the protagonist, and step in.
The Audience
On the other hand, he plays the producer during dramatization, when he must judge the information, the protagonist provides. Finally, the comment and analysis stages are essential for the analyst’s role. The audience consists of the patients and self-help attendees around the stage.
The group and functional unit (director and I-assistant) from the audience at the start of the psychodrama emerge as the main characters of the initial emotional atmosphere.
The other attendees give the target group particular cohesion in the auditorium. In a private psychodrama, the members’ affective, discriminatory, and personal intensity are the determining factors, as opposed to the audience’s demographics in a public psychodrama. The psychodrama session’s phases
Three Stages of Psychodrama
The three stages of psychodrama are the warm-up, dramatization, and comment phase. In organisms that are ready for action, warming is a natural process. From a procedural perspective, group interaction and communication are encouraged.
The goal is to form a coalition around expressing affective or aggressive real feelings that the dramatization will attempt to resolve. There are two types of warming in this stage: unspecific, where the group is the focus, allowing for interaction and a reduction in tension, and specific, where the protagonist—who may be a theme or a person—appears.
The core of psychodrama is dramatization, which entails character interpretation and emotional mobilization to resolve conflicts. The protagonist’s contributions are made concrete and depicted on stage. The group members share their thoughts on the dramatization and their experiences during the comment stage.
Additional characteristics
It is a method of diagnosis as well as treatment. One of its characteristic features is that the representation of roles is part of the treatment process. It can apply to all kinds of problems, personal or group, children or adults.
Through techniques such as auxiliary self, spontaneous improvisation, self-presentation, and monologue, you can reveal and explore new dimensions of the mind in experimental conditions.
One of the most critical aspects of the psychodramatic method of the author, Rojas Bermudez, was to endow it with a theoretical body.
Also read: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
The personality’s basic structure and the ego’s core are part of the physiological model.
The structuring of the psyche is the result of the different interactions of the individual with their environment, first with the monitoring of genetic patterns and later as the result of social learning.
