Blog 2: Psychodrama in the Social World

Psychodrama in the Social World

Abstract

Psychodrama and group therapy emerged in the 1920s through the creative passion of Jacob Moreno - a Romanian-born, Austrian-educated psychiatrist who emigrated to the United States to pursue his belief in the powers of spontaneity. Although his therapy method was set in a group situation, and centred around interrelationships with others in society, it focused on the interpersonal conflicts of the individual. Since its experimental beginnings in theatre-based improvisational dramatics, psychodrama has become a popular and growing method of action-based group psychotherapy worldwide. It is used in a variety of contexts, both clinical and non-clinical, and continues to be integrated with other more traditional forms of psychotherapy.

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What is psychodrama?

Psychodrama can be defined as a dynamic and action-oriented method of psychotherapy that uses role-playing techniques to assist individuals, families or groups to address people’s problems or issues. The process attempts to reveal the source of individuals’ unconscious internal conflicts and help people understand themselves and their social structures.
(Blatner, 1988, 1997; Dayton, 2000; Hamer, 1990).

Where does it come from?

Jacob L. Moreno is considered the inventor of psychodrama. He was a Viennese psychiatrist who moved from the traditional method of one-to-one therapy to treating people in groups, developing the idea of group psychotherapy (Blatner, 1997). One of Moreno’s first therapeutic group initiatives was in 1912 when he organized Viennese prostitutes to establish self-help groups to share emotional support and coping strategies. In the early 1920s, Moreno experimented with improvisational dramatics, initially with children and then with adults, which gradually developed into the more therapeutic method of psychodrama. In 1925, Moreno emigrated to the United States to more freely pursue his theories in social science. He settled in New York and developed psychodrama into the widely-used therapeutic technique it is today (Blatner, 1988).

Moreno was particularly interested in using spontaneity and the importance of the present moment (in fact, he coined the term ‘here-and-now’ in 1923). He emphasized creativity, action, self-disclosure and nonverbal forms of communication. He believed that through group therapy, dysfunctional ways of relating to other people can be revealed. These can be worked on within the group to retrain the individual’s habitual reactive patterns and discover other ways of responding. Moreno considered groups as “society in miniature” and therefore hoped to address some of society’s interrelationship problems through this group therapy method and the techniques of psychodrama (Blatner, 1997; Dayton, 2000).


Psychodrama vs similar-sounding methods

Before going into more detail about how psychodrama works, there needs to be a clarification on how psychodrama differs from other similar-sounding dynamic methods. There are a number of action-based forms, such as sociodrama and drama therapy, which focus on social relationships and dramatic techniques, but which differ from psychodrama. The main difference is that although psychodrama involves working within a group, it addresses the particularities of a single person. Sociodrama and drama therapy are both group-centred methods. Sociodrama focuses on the roles shared within the group (eg. all nurses, or all parents) rather than by individuals in particular. Drama therapy (which is often used as a warm-up technique prior to a psychodrama session) encourages improvisations and trying out roles other than their own to explore self-expression, rather than individual’s playing scenes from their own lives (Blatner, 1997). (More detailed descriptions of sociodrama, drama therapy and another similar-sounding concept called sociometry can be found in Appendix A.)


How psychodrama works

Psychodrama involves an individual, within a group setting, staging a problem in their life as if it were a scene from a play (Blatner, 1997). With Moreno’s theatrical background, it is no surprise that the terminology used is drawn from the theatre. A typical psychodramatic setup includes five main elements which are protagonist, director, stage, audience, and auxiliary. The action scene itself is called the enactment. The descriptions of these terms are:

Enactment – portrayal of life situation in dramatic form, including encounters which may have only previously existed in memory or fantasy. The enactment can be in the past, present or future.
Protagonist – subject of the enactment.
Director – orchestrates the psychodrama to help the protagonist explore the problem.
Auxiliary – anyone besides the protagonist and the director who takes part.
Audience – others present (they may provide feedback or act as auxiliaries when needed).
Note that roles are not fixed, they can shift and a person could play each one of them in turn.
Stage – area where the enactment takes place, not necessarily an actual stage.

There are several other common elements in psychodrama sessions such as the empty-chair technique where an empty chair is used instead of an auxiliary which may be less confronting for some protagonists. Doubling is where another person acts as a therapeutic ally by standing close to the protagonist and verbalising their internal processing, the inner voice of the protagonist. Role reversal is an important part of psychodrama where the protagonist can stand in the shoes of another person. They can see themselves from others’ points of view and in so doing can perhaps gain empathy for themselves (Dayton, 2000).

As scenes are enacted, protagonists can become aware of emotional states triggered by the reexperiencing of events. They can see how they might have formed habitual ways of responding to others. They can try out different scenarios that might give them an alternative way of perceiving a past event. This may be especially so during role-reversal where they can see things from another person’s point of view. They can practice alternative ways of reacting to a similar scenario in the future and the non-judgmental group setup provides a safe place to practice self-expression and self-control. Through psychodrama, protagonists can regain some power and control over their environment (Blatner, 1988; Dayton, 2000).

Other techniques can be used during psychodrama. Sculpting, for example, is less verbal and less action-oriented. Acting is not required, rather, it is based on a visual representation of relationships, still using people though. People are physically positioned in a way to represent their relationships with one another. For example, you might have your mother standing with her hands on her hips or with her head hung low when she’s placed facing another family member. In one family case study from Tales and Transformations, an eight-year-old daughter is asked to sculpt how she would like the family to be in the future. She put the family inside a teepee, holding hands out over the fire, and touching each other shoulder-to-shoulder. This broke down some barriers between the family memebers and prompted them to talk about how they would like their inter-relationships to change for the better. Puppets have also been useful, especially with children between the ages of 3 and 14, to enact scenarios (Roberts, 1994).

Psychodrama can help unconscious emotions, memories or fantasies to take a more concrete shape and enable the protagonist to make conscious choices about how to deal with them. It should bring about understanding, conflict clarification and resolution (Blatner, 1988; Dayton, 2000).


Where psychodrama is used

Psychodrama is being used in a variety of contexts, both clinical and non-clinical. In addition to specific psychotherapy sessions in the clinical field, psychodramatic techniques are also being used in educational settings (Freeman, Sullivan & Fulton, 2003; Zachariah & Moreno, 2006), outdoor education (Outward Bound, 2007), prisons (Jeffries, 2005), professional organizations (ANZ Psychodrama Association Inc, 2007l), social change groups (ActNow Theatre for Social Change, 2007), community initiatives (Playback Theatre, 2007), and cross-cultural training programs (Mak & Barker, 2004). (See Appendix B for more details about how psychodrama is being used within some of these contexts.)


How psychodrama relates to social psychology

“By learning how to act properly and how to conform to social rules and norms, people can improve their chances of social acceptance.” (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008, p.74)

Psychodrama is a method in which individuals can, within a safe and supportive group setting, uncover how personal issues can affect healthy communications with other people, and explore other ways of thinking, feeling and behaving. This transfers well with the ABC triad of social psychology: Affect (how people feel inside), Behaviour (what people do) and Cognition (what people think about). Through the psychodramatic method, individuals can address each area of the ABC triad in a fully experiential way.

Psychodrama is a method which was developed to help people relate to one another more effectively and harmoniously. Moreno intended his methods to help not only individuals, but also to heal the divisions between groups and nations. In fact, he intended this creative and spontaneous approach to spread into all social domains possible, beyond the clinical area, stating that: “A truly therapeutic procedure cannot have less an objective than the whole of mankind” (Blatner, 1988, p.60).


Conclusion

Psychodrama has developed over the decades from a Vienna-based theatrically-driven improvisation technique into a globally-accepted group psychotherapeutic approach. Psychodrama complements other creative therapies as well as more traditional talk-based therapies. It has also inspired other action-based and creativity-focused methods to emerge.

Although working in a group setting, psychodrama aims for every participant to benefit on an individual level, which in turn will benefit societal interpersonal relationships. Moreno's vision to improve community harmony by releasing creativity through individual self-reflection and spontaneous self-expression in groups has consistently gained support over time. It is being used for psychotherapy, personal development as well as being adapted to nonclinical contexts.

Psychotherapy has become more dynamic, integrative and flexible since Moreno’s techniques surfaced in the 1920s. Having an alternative to verbal therapy has allowed therapeutic methods to be shared across age groups, genders and cultures and in so doing has reduced the time required to reach positive outcomes - something that might, in some cases, have taken months or years to achieve otherwise.


References

ActNow Theatre for Social Change (2007). Retrieved October 22nd, 2007 from http://www.actnowtheatre.org.au/

ANZ Psychodrama Association Inc. (2007). Retrieved October 22nd, 2007 from http://anzpa.org/Pdis.html

Baumeister, R. F., & Bushman, B. J. (2008). Social psychology and human nature (1st ed.) Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.

Blatner, A. (1988). Foundations of psychodrama: History, theory, and practice (3rd ed.). New York: Springer Publishing Company.

Blatner, A. (1997). Acting-in: practical applications of psychodramatic methods (3rd ed.). London: Free Association Books Ltd.

Blatner, A. (2007). Sociometry: The dynamics of rapport. Retrieved October 27th, 2007 from
http://www.blatner.com/adam/pdntbk/sociomnotes.htm.

Dayton, T. (2000). Trauma and addiction: Ending the cycle of pain through emotional literacy. Florida: Health Communications, Inc.

Freeman, G.D., Sullivan, K. & Fulton, C.R. (2003). Effects of creative drama on self-concept,social skills, and problem behaviour. The Journal of Educational Research, 96(3), 131-138.

Hamer, N. (1990). Group-analytic psychodrama. Group Analysis, 23, 245-254,SAGE publications.

Jeffries, J. (2005). Psychodrama: Working through action: ‘My thank you is for your concern’. Group Analysis, 38(3), 371-379, SAGE publications.

Mak, A.S., & Barker, M. (2004). A social cognitive learning program for facilitating intercultural relations. In Kashima, Y., Endo, Y., Kashima, E. S., Leung, C., & McClure, J. (Eds), Progress in Asian Social Psychology, 4 (pp.157-179). Seoul: Kyoyook-Kwahak-Sa Publishing.

Outward Bound (2007). Retrieved October 29th, 2007 from http://www.outwardbound.org.au/

Playback Theatre (2007). Retrieved October 5th, 2007 from http://playbacknet.org/interplay/Previousissues/

Roberts, J. (1994). Tales and transformations: Stories in families and family therapy (1st ed.). New York: W.W.Norton & Company.

Zachariah, M. & Moreno, R. (2006). Finding my place: The use of sociometric choice and sociodrama for building community in the school classroom. Journal of Group Psychotherapy, Psychodrama, & Sociometry,58 (4), 157-167.



Appendix A

Comparing psychodrama to similar-sounding techniques and concepts

Sociodrama: Exploration of a problem that involves a role or a role relationship, a theme which might be relevant to a group of people, eg. people from different racial backgrounds meeting to resolve differences, nurses trying to understand their own feelings regarding AIDS patients, new parents sharing their feelings about dealing with a new baby. It is group-centred and focuses on roles shared within the group rather than by individuals in particular (Blatner, 1997).

Drama therapy: Drama therapists generally train first in the theatre and later receive specialized training in drama therapy and psychodrama. Psychodramatists are the reverse where they tend to start out as psychotherapists who later specialize in using psychodramatic methods. They focus on the protagonists playing scenes involving their own lives, whereas drama therapists may encourage group members to use improvisations or taking on roles other than their own to explore self-expression Drama therapy is more group centred (Blatner, 1997).

Sociometry: Moreno was interested in the concept of rapport – the connectedness people feel with other people, whether that be the sense of attraction or repulsion. For example, when a person meets somebody new, they may feel that they are “not my kind of person” or vice versa. Moreno called these invisible currents of connectedness ‘tele’ and termed this measure of social relationships ‘sociometry’ (Blatner, 2000).

Sociodrama and sociometry deal with role conflicts in groups and organizations, in a variety of contexts. Along with drama therapy, they promote group cohesion, spontaneity and creativity (Blatner, 1988).


Appendix B

Where psychodramatic techniques are used: in and out of the clinical field

School
Results from a study in the US involving 3rd and 4th grade children within a classroom context found that the use of creative dramatic activities, such as role play and working cooperatively, may positively affect children’s self-control. For example, very shy children became more relaxed and less inhibited to participation and more outgoing students became more aware of the need to work cooperatively (Freeman, Sullivan & Fulton, 2003). Another study with similar aged school children, this time from Canada, found similarly positive outcomes when using sociodramatic and sociometric tools to encourage use of conflict resolution skills. In fact, some of the children involved and their parents requested the activities to become part of the school curriculum (Zachariah & Moreno, 2006).

Outdoor education
Outward Bound Australia uses outdoor education in the form of experiential learning to improve participants' self-confidence, teamwork, leadership abilities, and communication skills. A quote on the website states: "for self-concept change programs, the evidence suggests that physically-based interventions...are more effective than cognitive, behavioural and other therapies" (Hattie, 1992). http://www.outwardbound.org.au/content/view/186/106/

Prison
Jinnie Jeffries works as a psychodrama psychotherapist in a UK prison where psychodrama has been used as a therapeutic treatment program for over 20 years. She believes that in order to reduce crime and protect the public we need to go beyond the criminal’s offence. We should seek to understand the contributing factors that led to the crime and also heal the disruptive internal worlds of those who offend against others. Many of the men at the prison had suffered extreme cruelty in their childhood. Psychodrama gave them the opportunity to discover how they may have internalized their hatred for themselves at being weak and then projected this anger onto others weaker than themselves. Psychodramatic sessions have helped prisoners to reduce their internal rage and to find alternative ways of perceiving and reacting to past and present life experiences (Jeffries, 2005).

Organisations
Practitioners from various professions apply psychodrama to their own specialities. Organizational development consultants may use it in developing teams, in training managers on how to supervise and direct others or training employees in simulated situations. Professionals use the method to help people become clear about their long term goals and strategies for satisfying these or to help them negotiate with others to attain goals in a way which is mutually satisfactory. (Adapted from ANZPA website: http://anzpa.org/Pdis.html)

Social change groups
ActNow Theatre for Social Change (2007) uses theatre as a tool for social change using creative, dramatic concepts such as street theatre and invisible theatre. For instance, a staged dramatic social commentary piece is enacted in a public place. Although used in a different context to psychodrama, it is still a dramatic method to engage with society through creativity and spontaneity. It is aimed at promoting social interaction, thinking and change by exchanging information and ideas. http://www.actnowtheatre.org.au/

Playback Theatre
Playback Theatre is created through a unique collaboration between performers and audience. Someone tells a story or moment from their life, chooses actors to play the different roles, then watches as their story is immediately recreated and given artistic shape and coherence.

Influences on Playback Theatre include psychodrama. While there are differences in form and practice, there are many shared values. For example, spontaneity and the release of creative energy and inclusiveness - every individual has a place in the collective.

This method has been used in several different contexts such as social change and action (such as within programs to enhance self-esteem in Aboriginal communities), corporate contexts (eg. organizational re-structuring), education (as part of community service programs), therapy (outpatients at a psychiatric unit share stories of coping), community events (celebrations or regular events) and public performances (theatres and art centres).

“Playback Theatre gives attention to social interaction. This theatre form is in direct service to healing relationship, communication and understanding between people. By listening to personal stories we feel and weave the deeper web of our story as a community of people and thus tap into the collective and universal experience. Social change and transformation begins here, as we make space for the stories of the community, through individual voices, and are affected by them.” (Adapted from the playbacknet.org website.)

The Playback website http://playbacknet.org/interplay/Previousissues/ has some interesting articles on places where the Playback practitioners have performed: Africa (between Tutsis and Hutus), Auschwitz (including people who were part of that horror), Macedonia (as the Balkan conflict began), New York (after 9/11), and more. Articles relating to these types of reconciliation-type approaches can be found at: http://africastories.usaid.gov/search_details.cfm?storyID=316&countryID=3&sectorID=0&yearID=5 and http://playbackcenter.org/Burundi_and_Angola.htm


Cross-cultural training programs
The ExcelL program has been used successfully to better integrate overseas students within societies of host countries. Some of the aspects of the program that participants regarded as being the most helpful included participation in role play, discovery and action-oriented learning and safety in having practice sessions prior to real-life implementation (Mak & Barker, 2004).


Appendix C

Self-Evaluation

Theory

I have commented extensively on Moreno's theory of psychodrama and group therapy techniques. I have shown how the theory developed in history and how it is used today. I have explained how a typical psychodrama session is constructed, and how it might run, including structure, participants, processes and intended outcomes. I have shown how psychodrama integrates with other therapies and with other fields outside the clinical arena, which also show how it is well related to the field of social psychology.

Research

I conducted extensive research on psychodrama and would have liked to include more examples of case studies which were particularly interesting to me, however, that was not the main aim of the essay or the essay question, and the word limit also restricted this. Therefore I gave some brief and relatively broad descriptions on how the technique (or related techniques) are being used with some links to websites for more information if required within the appendix.

Written Expression

I have included an abstract. Throughout the essay I have tried to keep the language and terminology clear, simple and easy to read.

I would like to put bookmark links into the body of the blog essay to link text to Appendices, however, I'm do not know how to do this on this blogger site (I can do it in Word but not here). I thought of separating the blog into separate pages, but thought the blog site may get messy with pages being out of order, so have kept it as one continuous post.

I have taken care with referencing in APA format, however, blogger has a habit of unformatting between editing and publishing posts, so it takes a lot of time to keep going back and forth correcting tiny formatting errors. Also, if a link appears in the referencing I have kept it in as this is an online document - if it was hard copy I would have taken out the underline and used black text only.

Excluding the abstract, appedices and references, I am within the word limit.

Online Engagement

There is a link to my online engagement on my main blog site. http://karensocialpsych.blogspot.com/2007/08/comments-on-others-blogs.html I have posted on several other people's blogs, responded to several polls and posted on my own blog, including embedding YouTube videos of role-play. I have also made extra comments within my own blog referring to my responses to other people's blogs - they are all contained with the same posting so have not been coming up as separate posts, as they have been added as edits to the first post on other blogs. I believe I have maintained a high level of online engagement. I think I deserve a 3rd green star....