applying psychodrama

[PATRICIA DESERT]

Because most of my work over the past year has been one on one with clients in a 50 minute session I have had to separate out various psychodrama structures.  Here are some:

I use role training all the time in various ways in individual sessions--setting limits with overbearing peers, saying "no" to supervisors making unrealistic demands, etc.  etc.

I apply role theory through what I call "floor graphics."  For example, I have client use scarves or anything else in my room to concretize a role conflict by displaying the subroles on the floor in colorful relation to each other.  I then have the Client step into each role and speak to the Self, concretized somewhere in the room identifying the function of the role, etc.  Or subroles can speak to each other overtly expressing tugs of war within the Self.    

I also use the "encounter" through empty chair work with different role aspects of Self.  That is quite a powerful experience for clients and because of the cognitive/affective components it helps clients remain in their observant role AND experience emotions, labeling them as they arise.  Among other things this is an artful way to develop affect regulation.

These are certainly applicable to business and education too.  Patti


From: Adam Blatner<mailto:adam at blatner.com> 
  To: list at grouptalkweb.org<mailto:list at grouptalkweb.org> 
  Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2006 2:52 PM
  Subject: applying psychodrama


    Dear Colleagues,
        I've contemplated the predicament of psychodrama in the current field of psychotherapy and one possible analysis goes like this:
          1. There are many competing forms. The more competition, the harder it is for psychodrama to be heard.
         2. Many clients are most reluctant to engage in enactment, as this process is in their own fantasy excessively vulnerable to judgment by others. It's performance anxiety doubled. Warm-up within the time allocated is hardly possible, and might require a series of individual sessions or ordinary verbal group sessions. 
      (We should not underestimate the gradient of spontaneity and risk taking, and the numbers or percentages of people on the lower end of this spectrum. For many, any activity that involves movement threatens to betray the person by way of his or her nonverbal communications, voice tone, etc., and there is a fear of being judged for that which is not subject to voluntary and conscious control.)
     
           3. What if the best way to get the many wonderful insights of Moreno's work into the mainstream of not just clinical work, but business, education, and other social institutions, is to apply psychodrama's components separately? i.e., 
       sociometry      applied role theory        role training          role playing for diagnosis         spontaneity training
   promoting the value of creativity        playfulness          etc.
            Of course they can work especially well when they are used together, but my point is that they need not be, and for some clients, the enactment element may be evocative of too much of a sense of vulnerability...
        but that doesn't mean that some or all the other components can't be artfully woven in

           thoughts?

  Adam Blatner, M.D.
  (please reply to adam at blatner.com<mailto:adam at blatner.com>)
  website: www.blatner.com/adam/<http://www.blatner.com/adam/>   
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