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Psychodrama

Psychodrama

Psychodrama

The basic idea behind psychodrama is getting rid of your problems by playing a role like at the theatre. Psychodrama makes the very fundamental method of psychotherapy which uses the procedures of fulfiling various roles. The key is to acquire own experience in a different role, thus detecting own inhibitions, prejudices and problems of mental nature.

Psychodrama described

Psychodrama is a very demanding method. It requires the psychotherapist to be perfectly prepared to moderate a particular scene needed and the client to be ready to reach into their own subconscious.

At the beginning of a psychodrama there is a problem that the client wants to resolve. The psychotherapist must know well both the whole situation and all the roles that will be played. Each of the participants must identify themselves with the role they have been assigned, trying to play it the best they can and portraying its features. While playing, the client realizes the way how his or her views show in the new character. They get feedback from the other actors in the form of immediate reactions and, subsequently, in the form of description of what they were feeling. At the end of the psychodrama, the participants describe what new things they have learned. They communicate what they have newly realized, all this under the supervision of an experienced psychotherapist who directs their attention to the most important aspects of a new pattern of behaviour the client needs to get rid of their problems.

Playing a certain role enables us to get clear of our inhibitions. The spontaneity involved eliminates inhibitions and encourage creative reactions. Empathy, the ability to understand other people´s feelings, is cultivated through their identification with the other psychodrama participants. Here people work with touches, thoughts and their own ideas. They develop flexibility, which supports their coping strategies in various roles they play in real life (parents, lovers, students, friends, etc.). Psychodrama helps people who have problematic relationships, either with friends or the members of their families, get more balanced lives. Where there is a good atmosphere, people fall ill less frequently. Psychodrama employs namely energy of spontaneity and creativity.

By means of gestures and face-play, which the participants use while doing psychodrama, they all find what reactions they evoke with the others. Thus, they have a chance to learn quickly one part of themsleves as well as the other participants, because they also react to the original gesture giving information about themselves.

Psychodrama, through the role-playing, makes it possible for the participant to see, and quickly, where have they got to in life and what role in life they play.

Application of psychodrama

Psychodrama can be put to work:

• in a group of people

or

• for individuals only.

Each application requires its own specific approach.

This method is used by Ivona Machová, a consultant and the writer of the above text.

Related articles of psychology and psychotherapy

• Psychodrama for individuals
• Psychodrama in a group
• Positive psychotherapy

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