psychodrama's mission

[Peter Howie]

Dear Adam,

great response.

My take on the word psychodrama is newly arrived at and is somewhat based 
on musing from reading marketing books as well as some recent personal 
experiences.

So the marketing idea is this - remarkable things get noticed and paid 
attention to. That is - they get remarked on and in this web savvy age 
being remarked upon can create 'winning' situations. Psychodrama, the word, 
to novice people who don't know about psychodrama, which is most everybody, 
is a word that doesn't compute and demands a question like "What is 
psychodrama?" Whereas "action methods" - well who cares - it is a safe 
description and might be useful for a funding application to a Government 
board. Its like calling space travel - flying. Yes it is flying and people 
can form pictures of flying. But space travel is more than flying.

Now my recent personal experience of that question "What is psychodrama?" 
seems to lead me to again and again want to describe it as a therapy. I 
find it hard to escape that trap of convenience. But when I think about 
other aspects of psychodrama - surplus reality, future visioning, 
relationship development I go "Damn why didn't I talk about that. Or 
spontaneity or creativity or freeing people up or liberty. I can usually 
craft a great response afterwards.  I get caught up in describing how it is 
used which is about a boring as can be. And sometimes I notice, though less 
and less at the moment, a cringe factor in me - to the word psychodrama - 
so I wonder whether I have been creating a role response in others rather 
than them having the response to start with. I know you mentioned 
therapists - and they might be aware of aspects of psychodrama they are not 
comfortable with - but a person who has heard nothing has prejudices that I 
cannot assume I know about. Anyway - still working on it. Still working on 
"What is the story of psychodrama" for different cultures in our community.

Cheers

Peter


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