The Power of Psychodrama - Zvonko Dzokiczvonkodzokic.com/books/THE POWER OF PSYCHODRAMA.pdf · The Power of Psychodrama HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS The history of psychodrama is closely

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The Power of Psychodrama

Zvonko Dzokic


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Zvonko Dzokic

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Zvonko Dzokic

Copyright © Zvonko Dzokic, 2009

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted orreproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, me-chanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,including photocopying and recording, or in any informationstorage or retrieval system, without permission in writing fromthe publisher.

Translated byLjudmila Dzokic & Marija Jones

Proofread byMatthew Jones

Cover design byNatali Nikolovska & Zvonko Dzokic

ISBN 978-9989-2860-2-5

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AS LONG AS PLAY EXISTS,

WE SHALL EXIST TOO!

My friend Goce, in the role of the messengerof an unknown author

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FOREWORD

This book is written for all those who are inter-ested in encountering the practical magic ofpsychodrama. That is why the title is ‘The Power ofPsychodrama’. It is written for beginnerpsychodramatists and experienced practitioners, train-ers as well as students, postgraduates, psychiatrists,psychologists, managers, screenplay writers and direc-tors. Nevertheless, it is mainly written for the wideraudience of readers, for the ‘ordinary’ men and womenwho will, I hope, be enabled through the contents ofthis book to use the power of ‘the magic of psychodrama’in their everyday life.

When I published my first book ‘Psychodrama’in Skopje in 1995, the first of its kind in this field to bewritten in the Balkans, I thought that I had given afundamental and final contribution to this field. I thoughtin this way because in the following period I was dedi-cated to the development of other, quite diverse projectsin my creative work. As that book was intended for thebeginners, students and non-professionals, it was writ-ten in simple and understandable language. Soon after

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it had been published it became a reference book atmany universities and was sold out. In the meantime,other books in this field, dedicated to certain theoreti-cal and applicable aspects of psychodrama, have ap-peared in the region and in the world.

After twenty years of constant use in severalareas of professional engagement, I have come to real-ize that the experience I have acquired in the practicalapplication of psychodrama over this period constitutesvaluable material that should be shared with others.This is even more the case in view of the fact that, dueto certain circumstances, I have used psychodrama invery different situations and projects—sometimes con-troversial to the accepted logic.

This is the reason for the selected topics in thisbook having been mainly divided into two parts: theoryand practice. There are chapters in the theoretical partwhich I think every book striving to be a standard, in-troductory and comprehensive work on psychodramamust contain. Texts from the previous book are used inthis part. The second, practical part contains chaptersaimed at introducing the reader to psychodramatic prac-tice in order to see its applicable value in those fieldswhere I think its power is most striking. Thus in thissecond part I provide examples and expert commentson the application of psychodrama to fear disorders,suppressed anger, in dealing with traumas, transfer-ence relations, character shields, psychosomatic disor-ders, working with children, in sociodrama, human re-

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source trainings in business and governmental sectorsand, as a special value, its application as a healing art.I hope the reader will not be bothered by the occa-sional use of my knowledge and experience in the fieldsof clinical psychiatry, psychoanalysis, stress manage-ment, curing traumas, communicational skills in myexpert comments of practically performed sessions whichhave the sole purpose of rendering a more comprehen-sive insight. In general, this is my integrative approachto psychodrama.

I leave the reader the freedom to be the judgeof such a concept through reading and experiencingthis book. I hope that by reading this book the readerwill reach the moments that Marcia Karp described(1994) in the foreword of my first book: ‘Each new bookon psychodrama opens life improvement to non-pro-fessionals and professionals alike. I envy anyone whoreads it for the first time. To be inspired by the practicalmagic of psychodrama is a joy to behold.’

I am thankful to psychodrama for what it hasgiven me in these twenty years, enriching my personallife, professional opportunities and my creative opus.

The Author

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T H E O R Y

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HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS

The history of psychodrama is closely connectedwith the life, philosophical views and creative opus ofJacob Levy Moreno. In addition to psychodrama, Morenocreated sociometry and established the foundations forgroup therapy in general.

For long there was some confusion as to theexact time and place of Moreno’s birth due to a storytold by Moreno himself that he was born one stormynight in 1892 on a ship without a flag which had sailedon the Black Sea between the Bosporus and Constanta.Analysts have found the reason for such poetic playwith the beginning of his own history in several crucialmoments related to his emotional life: the birth of hisbrother William; the history of the Sephardic Jews whohad left Spain four hundred before and whose commu-nity Levy belonged to; the discovery of America byColumbus; and Moreno’s personal conviction that hewas a citizen of the world.

The truth is less poetic. According to the evi-dence, he was born on 18th May 1889 in the house ofhis parents in Bucharest. His father was not there at

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the time but was travelling through Serbia, Greece andTurkey as a salesman. His mother was only fifteen-yearsold when she gave birth to Jacob Levy, the first child inthe family. In the next five years he was to gain fivebrothers and sisters. Moreno was closest to William,who was also a big fan of his eldest brother and laterbecame the first of his siblings to emigrate to the USA.He also financed Moreno’s stay in Vienna and New York.

From an early age, Moreno enjoyed privilegedstatus in his family. One event from his early childhoodprobably helped him in obtaining such a position andwas to be passed on as a family myth. When he wasone-year old he fell seriously ill, struck by a severe formof rickets. Helpless doctors told his mother that the childwould most probably die. One day when the desperatemother had taken the child out in the yard, a gypsywoman appeared and, noticing the worried youngmother asked her why she was so worried. When shehad found out the details, she advised her to put thechild on the hot sand and expose him to the sun. Thegypsy woman told the suspicious mother that one daythe child would be a great man and that people from allover the world would come to see him.

That the atmosphere after young Moreno’s re-covery and his special place in his mother’s heart and inthe family created exceptional affinities in Moreno froman early age is also shown by the following anecdote.When he was four-years old he organized the neigh-bourhood children in a joint game, as he usually did.

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His idea was to create a pyramid from the furniture inthe room and on the top of the pyramid to place a chairwhich should represent the heavens. Moreno climbedthe pyramid and sat on the chair to take on the role ofGod while the other children circled the pyramid, wav-ing their arms in the roles of angels. At one moment achild asked Jacob: ‘Why don’t you fly, too?’ Carried awayin his game, Moreno truly tried to fly by jumping fromthe top. He fell and broke his arm.

This event may serve to illustrate the essence ofhis later ‘positive megalomania’ as one of the founda-tions in interpreting his philosophical views and stand-points. As he later said: ‘My job is psychotherapy of‘the fallen gods’.’ As children we have the sense of God’spower, which I would call normal megalomania. How-ever, as society imposes its demands on us, our some-times-unlimited horizons become narrower and we feelsmall while our frustrations create emotional disorder.Psychodrama helps people to regain something of theirprimary being, their lost divinity. The very course of hislife and the obstacles set before Moreno challenged thepersistency and predetermination which he had in himfrom his childhood.

The family moved to Vienna in 1885, where hestarted his elementary education. In 1905, the familymoved to Berlin. After a short period of time, Moreno,unable to adapt, returned to Vienna with the permis-sion of his parents to continue his education. He livedthere with friends of the family. From then onwards,

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from the age of fifteen, he would never again live withhis parents. In the meantime, his father, due to a prob-lem with the Berlin police, had to move his family again,this time to Chemnitz. Moreno visited his parents onlyonce during their residence in that place. Soon after-wards they were divorced. After the divorce, his fatherwent to Constantinople. He died in Romania in 1925,completely forgotten by his family. In certain commentslater, when talking about his relation to psychoanalysisand Freud, Moreno stated that, apart from as a biologi-cal son he was never ready to be a son to anyone: ‘Inmy life I tried and managed to become ‘a father’ quiteearly. Both, Freud and I were ‘fathers’, rulers’.

There is little data about Moreno’s life for theperiod till 1908. At that time he started an experimentin creative drama with children in the parks of Vienna.Fascinated by children’s play, he took part in it by en-couraging the participants to play roles from the storieshe had told them, and then to act out without a scriptwhatever they wanted. Those were usually experiencesfrom everyday life. During this, Moreno noticed moreand more the meaning of spontaneity in awakening thevital and creative inner powers. In 1911, he foundedthe theatre of spontaneity for children.

In the meantime, in 1909, he had enrolled at theUniversity of Vienna to study theology, philosophy andmedicine. In 1917 he became a medical doctor. Duringhis studies he had shown great affinity with the existen-tialist ideas of that time. As one close to his views and

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standpoints he accepted Bergson’s philosophy in whichthe creative process takes the central role as an es-sence of reality. Moreno stressed ‘the moment as a revo-lutionary category’, speaking in favour of the idea thatthe moment contained the potential for creative proce-dure. With that he created the expression ‘here andnow’ – active creating at the moment of experiencing.

Between 1909 and 1919 he wrote many publi-cations: ‘A Man, a Child’, ‘The Kingdom of Children’, ‘Godas a Comedian’, ‘An Invitation to a Chance Encounter’,‘Silence’, ‘God as an Actor’, ‘God as a Creator’. In hiswork ‘An Invitation to a Chance Encounter’ the word‘encounter’ was used conceptually for the first time.This notion, which was much later adopted by the ap-proach called the ‘encounter group movement’, was anessential foundation for the development of manypsychodrama techniques: ‘An encounter of the two: eyeto eye, face to face, and when you are close I’ll switchmy eyes with yours and you’ll switch yours with mineand I’ll look at you with your eyes and you’ll look at mewith mine.’

During his medical studies, Moreno visited psy-chiatric departments where he learnt of the therapeuticconcepts being applied at that time in the treatment ofpatients in Vienna and he was left with the impressionthat such treatment was not generally satisfactory. Itwas at this time that Freud was holding introductorylectures on psychoanalysis in Vienna. There is an anec-dote regarding their only encounter, which took place

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in 1912. Namely, after the lecture in which Freudanalyzed a telepathic dream, Moreno was among thestudents leaving the hall. Freud noticed him due to hisextravagant clothes, which usually included a greencloak, and asked him what he did. Moreno answered:‘Well, Doctor Freud, I begin where you stop: you meetpeople in the artificial ambience of your office. I meetthem on the streets and in their homes, in their naturalenvironment. You analyze their dreams and I try to givethem courage to dream again. I teach people how toplay God.’

In the same year, Moreno organized ‘self-help’groups for members of those social classes which, ashe noticed, ‘were not acceptable either for the bour-geoisie or the Marxists, not even for crime.’ These werethe prostitutes in Vienna, who at that time were with-out basic legal rights, without the possibility of protect-ing their interests—eternally lost. He approached themwith the aim of improving their status and giving themdignity without any need to analyze them or reformthem. Organizing them in groups and taking part inthese groups, Moreno started to notice and discovergroup phenomena which later he formulated in fourprinciples that became the foundations of all later formsof group psychotherapy: the anonymity of the group;group structure and group diagnosis; the problem ofcollectivity; the problem of the anonymity of membersof the group.

In 1917 Moreno was involved in organizing liv-ing conditions for refugees from Tyrol in a camp in

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Mittendorf, a suburb of Vienna. There was chaos in thecamp due to insufficient attention on the part of thewarden to the diverse religious affinities, different liv-ing habits and social status of the members of such acommunity. Adapting to and resolving the problem,Moreno created the first sociometric concepts; conceptswhich proved successful through the creation of groupsof similar affinities and the final introduction of orderand peace in the camp.

In the same year he published a literary maga-zine entitled ‘Daimon’, which became a leading existen-tialist journal of its time. The magazine gathered tal-ented creators, writers, and wise men like Alfred Adler,Oskar Kokoschka, Max Scheler, and Andreas Peto, andpublished the early works of Franz Kafka. In the periodthat followed, Moreno became a family doctor in BadVöslau where he developed a spontaneous approachwhich he called Theatre Reciproque. The basic tech-nique was re-enactment of the conflict situation ‘in situ’.With this he established the foundations of familytherapy and the systemic approach.

On 1st April 1912 he founded ‘Das Stegreif-theater’, the theatre of spontaneity which bore the trueseed of psychodrama. Moreno gathered together a fewyoung and talented actors who daily organized playswithout concepts written in advance but through theenactment of themes which sprung from communica-tion with the audience. Chance and Fate decreed it thatthe husband of the main actress, Barbara, turned toMoreno for help. The husband was more and more des-

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perate because of his wife’s unpleasant behaviour athome; behaviour which was in complete contrast withher usual role in the theatre as a tender, caring andsensitive woman. Moreno saw this as a challenge andan opportunity to give Barbara the role of a brutalwoman for the first time, and he repeated this until oneday her husband turned up, happy and grateful toMoreno for having ‘cured’ his wife. After this event,Moreno focused his attention on the therapeutic effectof enactment on the stage, switching the actors in thetheatre with ordinary people whom he would instructto enact events from their lives in which they had expe-rienced emotional traumas. Born in this way,psychodrama was improved more and more and en-riched in the conceptual and technical sense.

In 1925 Jacob Levy immigrated to the USA andit is interesting to note that he acquired his immigrationdocuments because a large American company was in-terested in an invention of his—some kind of prototypeof cassette players. In his unstoppable creativity Morenothus proved himself as an innovator as well.

In the new environment he was surprised bythe great popularity of psychoanalysis at that time whenit was experiencing difficulties in its institutionalizationin Europe.

At the same time, Moreno had to face traditionalAmerican intolerance and rejection of eccentricity. Itseemed to be a challenge for him and a drive for fur-ther professional development. Between 1927 and 1929,he presented a ‘role-playing’ technique at Mt. Sinai

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Hospital in New York. He organized Impromptu Thea-tre in Carnegie Hall in 1929-1930. In 1931, he was in-volved in research into relations amongst prisoners heldat the Sing-Sing prison. For the first time he appliedgroup-centred interaction methods with the prisoners,different from the known methods which were exclu-sively sociotherapeutic, counselling, and informative.With this he established the foundations of grouptherapy. At the meeting of the American Psychiatric As-sociation in Philadelphia in 1932, presenting the resultsof this research, he introduced the expression ‘grouppsychotherapy’ for the first time, an expression thatwas to become associated with Slavson, who used itlater on.

Over the next two years, Moreno worked as aHeadmaster of the Hadson School for Girls in New York.Besides the application of ‘role-playing’ and ‘role-train-ing’ techniques, he established the basic principles ofsociometry. In 1934, he published ‘Who Shall Survive’,in which he created a new approach to human rela-tions. At the same time he presented psychodrama atthe large psychiatric centre, St. Elizabeth Hospital, inWashington.

In 1936, Moreno gained American citizenship andshortly afterwards opened the Beacon Hill Sanatorium,sixty kilometres from New York. It was his private psy-chiatric hospital where he had a psychodrama theatre,which, beside its therapeutic role, soon became a cen-tre for the education and training of new therapists. In1937 he published the first professional journal ‘Soci-

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ometry: A Journal of Interpersonal Relations’, creatingthe expression ‘interpersonal relations’ long before HenryStack Sullivan. In his ‘second sociometric phase’, heapplied his sociometric tests at the Public School 181 inBrooklyn. The Theatre for Psychodrama was created atSt. Elizabeth Hospital in 1941. In the following year,Moreno organized the American Society for Group Psy-chotherapy—the first association of group therapists.Later on it was to become the official authority of theAmerican Society for Group Therapy and Psychodrama.Two years later, the name was changed to ‘group psy-chotherapy’. He created the first volume of‘Psychodrama’ in 1946. Numerous publications in thefield of psychodrama, sociometry and group psycho-therapy in general were to follow.

The 1940s were years of expansion forpsychodrama. It gained special momentum in organi-zational and educational spheres with the third mar-riage of Jacob Levy, this time to Zerka Toeman. Theymarried in 1949 after his two failed marriages: the firstto Beatrice Beecher from 1928 to 1934, the second toFlorence Bridge from 1938 to 1948, with whom he hada daughter, Regina. According to biographers, Moreno’sthird life companion represented for him ‘… an alterego, an inspiration, a co-therapist, an associate in re-search and, above all, true love.’ They had a baby boy,Jonathan, in 1953, when Moreno was 63.

In that period, psychodrama entered its mostfruitful phase. The Moreno couple became inexhaust-

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ible in their creative, organizing and publishing activi-ties. In addition to their work at the sanatorium in Bea-con, as well as in the field of sociometry and grouppsychotherapy, their approach was being adopted in agreat number of other institutions, such as schools, thearmy, in the training of managers, in the training ofvarious professional roles from teachers to sale per-sons, in rehabilitation programs, recreation… At thesame time, Moreno provided his constant support forinnovations in psychotherapy, showing a particular in-terest in Art Therapy.

In 1951 he organized the International Associa-tion of Group Therapy. Three years later, he organizedthe First International Congress of Group Psychotherapyin Toronto. He was giving lectures as a visiting profes-sor of sociology at the High School of Arts and Sciencesin New York from 1951 till 1966. Among his numerousactivities and contributions was also his lecture in theUSSR in 1959. The First International Congress ofPsychodrama was organized with his support in Paris in1964. He also took the main role in organizing the FirstInternational Congress of Sociometry in Baden, Aus-tria, in 1968. In the same year, Moreno became an hon-orary doctor in the Medical Faculty of Barcelona Univer-sity. In the following year he was awarded a GoldenHonorary Diploma (PhD) from the University of Vienna.

Moreno died at the age of 85 at his home inBeacon, New York, on 14th May 1974. A series of strokesthat left him completely paralysed presaged his death.

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With a clear mind he decided to stop taking food, buthe did not stop receiving friends who came from allover the world to see him for the last time and bid himfarewell. He explained his decision simply: ‘It’s not atime for sorrow—I’ve lived a fulfilling life.’ His last wishwas for the following words to be put on his tomb-stone: ‘Here lies the man who put the smile back onpsychiatry.’ It was granted to him.

After his death, the main pillar of the furtherdevelopment of psychodrama became Zerka Moreno.She showed an extraordinary ability both in organizingeducation and training in ‘classical psychodrama’ andin the systematization of the Moreno’s work. Trainingcontinued to take place in Beacon up to 1980 and after-wards in Horsham Clinic till this centre was closed in 1984.The original psychodrama stage was moved to JonathanSteiner Hall, Brighton Palace, New York (High Land).

As the need grew for supervising and maintain-ing the quality of education and training in psychodrama,the American Council of the Researchers ofPsychodrama, Sociometry and Group Therapy wasfounded in 1975. The highest level is a TEP (trainer,educator and practitioner).

In the meantime, psychodrama has been ac-cepted as a psychotherapeutic method and has beenfunctioning in many countries throughout the world: inaddition to Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Great Britain,Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Mexico, France, Swe-den, Spain and Russia. It has also begun to be applied

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in other countries. Psychodrama has been applied ingreat number of psychiatric institutions in the USA.

The organized application and study ofpsychodrama in Europe began in 1974, with the com-ing of Marcia Karp, who had studied under Moreno, toEngland. With her husband Ken Sprague she foundedthe psychodrama theatre in Holwell, which today is themain European centre for psychodrama education.

In the late 1980s, education in psychodrama wasorganized in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugosla-via at the initiative of the Belgrade psychiatrist, Dr. DušanPotkonjak, as a project under the auspices of the Brit-ish Council. The training, which lasted several years,was conducted by many British experts such as Profes-sor Andrew Powell, the mentor of the project, MarciaKarp, Susie Coombs, Michael Watson, the President ofthe British Psychodrama Association at the time, JohnCasson, Ken Sprague, and Rudie Noygard, a student ofthe British School from Denmark.

Through this education, several members of theYugoslav group of that time, amongst whom is includedthe author of this book as a representative from Skopje,acquired a basic knowledge in psychodrama. In 1991,seven members of that Yugoslav group—Dr. DušanPotkonjak, Dr. Zoran Ðuri}, Dr. Vlada Miloševi}, psy-chologist Jasna Veljkovi}, Dr. Zoran Ili}, psychologistValentina A}imovi} and the author of this book—gainedtheir certificates in the clinical application ofpsychodrama.

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Since that time I have conducted continuous edu-cation in this field in the Republic of Macedonia andoccasionally in other countries. I initiated the establish-ment of the Macedonian Psychodrama Association in1993. I published the book ‘Psychodrama’ in 1995. Thiswas the first work of its kind to be produced in theBalkans. In 1997 I organized the First BalkanPsychodrama Conference in Ohrid, Republic of Macedo-nia. In the same town in 2007, I also hosted the FifthCross-Cultural Psychodrama Days conference with theparticipation of psychodramatists from many countries.In the meantime, I have organized more than a hun-dred psychodrama seminars and workshops, a greatnumber of continuous experiential and educationalgroups, a hundred training sessions within the projectsin which psychodrama techniques have been used, aswell as training courses for selected groups and indi-viduals with specific aims.

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PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS

Before getting to know the philosophical viewsand concepts of J. L. Moreno, it is first necessary toestablish his role in this field. It should be taken intoconsideration that he was more of a visionary than asystematic philosopher, more of an unusual creator anda practitioner than a theoretician.

We may perhaps best place Moreno as belong-ing to that philosophical tradition of people who havestressed the role of creativity and potential for sponta-neity in their works. This is the field in which great con-tributions have been made by individuals such as Al-fred Adler, Alfred North Whitehead, who understoodcreativity to constitute the fundamental process in theuniverse; philosophers such as Charles Hartshorne,Leibniz, Spinoza, Bergson, Berdyaev, Charles Pierce,Teilhard de Chardin, Ken Wilber and others. What de-termines Moreno’s specific place alongside these greatminds is that Moreno’s philosophical views are firmlywoven into verified possibilities for practical applicationin two other important aspects of human existence, thesocial and the psychical, and this is the approach thatMoreno personally adopted in his daily life.

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Moreno’s philosophy is founded on the phenom-ena of spontaneity and creativity. This theoretical foun-dation is based on the potential each of us possesses:the ability to create what is going on in our minds.Progress occurs and is seen in the realization, the ac-tion in the real world that surrounds us, in the practicaluse of individual experiences and ideas that every per-son carries inside and that make every person differentfrom the other, contributing to changes that improvethe environment the person lives in. Moreno’s approachis aimed at the development of spontaneity throughstrengthening the freedom and flexibility of the mind inaccepting the responsibility for actions undertaken. Thepracticing of certain psychodramatic methods providesskills that direct a healthy wish and a will to explore thepossibilities of taking the initiative, enabling and devel-oping the sense of possessing the power to experienceoneself as a creative being, acquiring self-confidenceand self-respect. The possibility of free reaction alsoincludes the existence of alternatives, of experiencingoneself as the subject-initiator of an effective action.These features can be developed in actions which re-lease spontaneity. Releasing spontaneity leads to thecreation of a free mind, a mind that comprises charac-teristics like curiosity, expressiveness, challenging of lim-its, objectivity, abundance, exploring, seeking attention,imaginativeness, intuitiveness, freedom in social experi-mentation, responsibility… These elements of sponta-neity are our natural inheritance which always has to

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be looked for and reintegrated over and over again ifwe want to use the enormous psychical energy whichcan serve as a source of solutions in mastering the chal-lenges of the outer world which changes ever morerapidly. The basis of such potential is seen in the hu-man capacity for imagination, the potential that makesa difference between humans and other living creatures.Psychodrama has evolved as a group of methods thatuse this dimension of mind. First of all, imagination is acentral component of spontaneity and creativity. Crea-tivity relies on imagination when it springs unique solu-tions, new combinations of existing elements, and newdirections of possible results.

Moreno considers spontaneity and creativity tobe at the heart of the psychodramatic process, but alsoof healthy life in general. He looks for their roots andessence in the phenomenon of free play, which he com-prehends as a natural path towards socialization andexploring and expanding our repertoire of roles for ac-tive participation in the events in our life’s surround-ings. However, the universal nature of play at the sametime inevitably results in creating resistance, both cul-tural and individual, in the environment. According toMoreno, modern culture condemns spontaneity andcreativity, attributing negative qualities to them whichcause in the individual a feeling of guilt and fear ofrejection, blocking of the further development of one’sspontaneity and creativity and accepting the rigid rolesthat unreservedly maintain ‘the cultural tin’. Spontane-

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ous initiative is a threat to the established authoritarianand hierarchical model of culture.

Moreno defines spontaneity as a new answer toan old stereotypical situation and an adequate responseto a new situation. He calls it a ‘non-conserved form ofenergy’. According to him, spontaneity does not needto be dramatically expressed, but most differently, of-ten unpredictably, unexpectedly. Apart from its expres-sion through action and behaviour, spontaneity can beexpressed as openness of mind, freshness in approach,a wish and readiness to take initiative, a way of inte-grating into the outer reality with inner emotionality,intuitiveness and rationality. Spontaneity does not meanimpulsiveness but an intention for a constructive result,whether it is a practical, social or aesthetic one.

Spontaneity is also comprised in reproduction,in its interpretation and bringing to life, which meansreadiness to express such a subtle quality of mind. Spon-taneity and creativity are expressed at the moment ofaction, which Moreno pinpoints as ‘a revolutionary cat-egory of the moment’. Action and changes are createdhere and now, at the moment of the happening, anexpression that would later be taken up and adoptedby some modern existential approaches.

Moreno wrote with an inspiration dedicated tohis vision for people to recognize the divine nature inthemselves. He developed methods that help them ex-perience an encounter with the other in a way that stirsthe world towards more creative and more conscious

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modes of living together. He pointed out that, nowa-days, when a man does not have true heroes to iden-tify with, that same man is forced to turn to himself.The need to recognize the meaning of the live encoun-ter is imposed on him. In this age of robots, computersand more sophisticated technology, a man should beencouraged to direct communication with the peoplehe meets on the street, in the workplace and at home,in order to recognize their constant and immortal value,without experiencing them as numbers in a game.

In this way, ‘an encounter’ is defined with anactive meaning. In such a way, communication betweentwo human beings is laid at a much deeper level: ‘Thereis no-one and nothing that can teach you more aboutyour neighbour than what you can discover and experi-ence yourself, an encounter of two, eyes to eyes, faceto face. And when you are close, I shall switch my eyeswith yours and you will switch yours with mine and Ishall see you with your eyes and you will see me withmine.’

One of the most important aspects ofpsychodrama is its ability to mobilize the strength ofthe group in curing and healing its each and everymember and itself as well. Thus it recognizes and con-firms the deeply embedded social essence and needfor belonging of every individual. With this, besides thepsychological and sociological determinations of man,the meaning of the moral implications is reached be-cause man as a co-creator accepts responsibility for

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himself and everything else that surrounds him (co-re-sponsibility). Moreno believed that collective responsi-bility can be cultivated. He tried to improve spontaneityin interpersonal relations by enabling groups to sharetheir experiences among one another in a systematicway. He believed that the development of sociometricand similar methods for enabling authentic encountersmade it easier for people to reach their creative re-serves which they had earlier not been aware they pos-sessed.

Moreno recognized that the social structure hasa need for healing as well as the individual.Psychodramatic methods and techniques have beencreated to be an effective approach towards the treat-ment of both entities. Moreno considers relevant theneed for a method of social therapy – ‘Sociatry’. As acentral problem of society he pinpoints fear and thelack of power to express interpersonal conflict directlyand authentically, the ignoring of methods for resolu-tion. According to him, people are afraid to face experi-ences about themselves which perhaps are unwantedor disrespected. They do not believe that they canchange this state in case they realize it. They also can-not discover how their mistakes might be corrected,nor how to correct the wrong experiences of othersand by doing so achieve a positive result. This furtherleads to mechanisms for avoiding and manoeuvringwhich often, in the end, paradoxically create the samepositions they have been previously afraid of. Defences

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of experiencing rejection and humiliation force actionswhich end in rejection of others. Observed in this way,this raises awareness of the need to discover methodsin the field of interpersonal relations which would cor-rect the immature modes of our culture.

Moreno advocated a meta-medical field calledsociatry as a sort of applied social psychology. This im-poses an integrating idea: what would happen if westarted treating ‘ill’ elements in our society with a holis-tic approach? The emphasis of the concept lies not inthe creation of ‘medicine’ but in stressing the impor-tance of developing a theory and a method that willrelate to social as much as to individual emotional mean-ings. It seems that our time is not ready to accept theseconcepts yet.

In the construction of psychotherapeutic conditi-ons which, according to Moreno, should use life as amodel and should contain all modalities of living, he setsup four categories: time, space, reality and cosmos.

When talking about time, he does not define itas a philosophical, mystique or a phenomenologicalcategory but as a psychotherapeutic concept. A manlives in time: present, past and future. He can sufferfrom pathology that refers to each of them and theproblem that arises is how those are to be integrated inthe psychotherapeutic procedure. With regard to psy-choanalysis, Moreno concludes that it is concerned onlywith the past. According to him, psychoanalysts go asfar as it is possible deeper into the past, to the uterus

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and further if possible: ‘… till they get tired, after whichthey start to come back.’ Moreno thinks that no matterhow important the past is it is just one dimension oftime, a one-sided position of ‘reduced time’ that ne-glects and distorts the complete influence that it has onthe psyche. According to him, the present carries thedynamics of a decision, action, enactment, encounter,creation and resolution of a conflict. The dynamics ofthe moment is that ‘revolutionary category’ of activeliving and changing ‘here and now’ (hic et nunc). Manalso lives in the future, according to Moreno, even morethan in the past. He lives the present according to hisplans and hopes for the future. Psychodrama enablesthat supposed future to be enacted ‘here and now’ andby doing so provides an opportunity to explore the re-ality of the approach and of the set goals, to notice andadjust the possibilities in advance, in a protected thera-peutic situation where newly discovered roles are workedout and improved. The meaning of the future was alsostressed by Adler, Horney, and Sullivan, but the con-figuration of the future remained unstructured and de-personalized.

Moreno claims that space is completely neglectedin all psychotherapeutic approaches. In a typical thera-peutic setting, one is merely reduced to a chair or acouch. The client is instructed to talk and the therapistto listen. Moreno claims that the space in which thepatient has suffered a psychical trauma cannot be pro-vided in these conditions. The pioneering idea which

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psychodrama performs, which is action-oriented andseeks to embrace all dimensions of life, is that it is forthe protagonist to describe and set boundaries and ac-tualize the space in which the situation that follows willbe portrayed with horizontal and vertical dimensions,with the objects in it and the relations among them. Itis not insistent on the smallest details. Psychodramaclaims that the form, the look of the space as a part ofthe therapeutic process, is of enormous importance. Itwarms up the protagonist to be and to act as in theauthentic life situation.

Moreno distinguishes a third category when talk-ing of three kinds of reality: infra-reality, life or actualreality, and surplus-reality. As an example of infra-real-ity he takes a typical therapeutic situation. He consid-ers this to be a reduced reality since the contact be-tween the therapist and the patient, according to him,is not an authentic dialogue but more an interview or aprojective test. Whatever is going on with the patient isnot in the form of a direct confrontation and actualiza-tion since it remains on the level of imagination, thought,feeling, fear, etc.

The life and actual reality of every person com-prehends one’s life at home, at work, in one’s relationswith other individuals one meets—husband/wife, chil-dren, parents, teacher, superior—and the world as awhole. The way we live in reality, in our relations withimportant persons in our everyday life, can be defec-tive or inadequate and perhaps we would want to

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change that, to try a new way of living. However, thechange can seem frightening or very difficult so we moreoften choose to stick to the old path than to risk a pos-sibly unfortunate result which we could not cope with.That is why, according to Moreno, it is necessary for atherapeutic situation to be a place where reality can besimulated, giving a chance to people to develop newmodes of living without risking serious consequencesor a misfortune in real life.

Surplus-reality comprises the untouchable, in-visible dimension of the inner and outer psychical life.It is necessary to perform certain additional operationsand manoeuvres in the therapeutic situation in order toexpress and make the surplus-reality accessible to theexperience. One of the basic techniques of surplus-re-ality is role-reversal. With the help of this technique theprotagonist enters the role of another person, impor-tant for the current situation, temporarily taking his/hers identity, behaving and feeling like the other per-son, telling messages from his/her point of view, therebycomprehending and experiencing oneself from the otherside, from the role of the other. After returning to one’sown identity, one carries with oneself the notions acqu-ired in the role of the other that have gained differentmeaning with the encounter; one’s own insight into andunderstanding of reality is enriched by the other reality.Moreno predicted that one day this technique for im-proving human interactions would be as popular as travelby airplane. He believed that in the future people would

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play the role-reversal game amongst one another andwith the inhabitants of other planets as well.

The other instruments of surplus-reality are: anauxiliary ego, role-play, an empty chair, a magic shop,etc. Its place among them includes bodily contact, ataboo practice in all psychotherapies, especially in psy-choanalysis. Moreno finds its power and its role in thosesituations when the suffering of a patient cannot beresolved by any kind of word or verbal expression. Insuch moments, physical contact can mean much more.

The fourth category introduced by Moreno is cos-mos, a notion which very often was misinterpreted byothers and the reason why Moreno was called a mega-lomaniac and a mystic. Moreno stresses the fact thatman does not carry in himself only individual and socialfeatures but cosmic ones as well. He emphasises thatman has always tried to understand his position in theuniverse, to control the phenomena that determine him:evolution, sex, birth, death, the functioning of ‘the crea-tor’ of the world. Thus man has created religion, myths,fairy tales and rigid rules of submission to the laws ofthe universe as he understood them. The modern age,the age of nuclear bombs, computers and other tech-nology, increasingly questions the finality of such de-termination. It becomes more certain that God perhapsdoes not exist at all, that He is not a super-being. Moreand more questions are posed to man, who survives inthe world of ever-accelerating changes which make himfeel threatened. Moreno finds power in what we can

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create in our imagination, exactly the place where thesequestions and ideas were previously created. Inpsychodrama, these issues are overcome by the helpof techniques of the surplus-reality. Thus differences ingender, age, birth and death are overcome. Both theunborn and the dead can come to life in thepsychodramatic space and what has not been experi-enced can be experienced for the first time. All this isconnected to the subjectivity and imagination of theprotagonist. In the psychodramatic cosmos, a man canembody even animals, any form of living or imaginarycreature— be part of the universe not as regression butas creative involvement. Moreno states that one of thebiggest dilemmas of contemporary man is loss of faithin the existence of the super-being. Moreno resolvesthis dilemma with the answer that psychodrama givesfor the death of God and this is that God can be easilybrought back to life. Instead of one God, there are mil-lions of people who could embody God in themselvesliving in reality. The main act, according to Moreno, is‘embodiment’. He says that there were many peopleintellectually more superior to Christ, but they were pas-sive, feeble intellectuals. Instead of making an effort toembody the truth the way they felt it, they only talkedof it. Leaders, prophets and healers of all times havealways tried to play God and to impose the power andsuperiority over the little man. In the psychodramaticworld, the position is reversed. The appearance of Godcan take a concrete form and can be embodied in everyhuman being.

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Moreno has set clear boundaries inpsychodrama’s relation to the theatre. Psychodrama forhim does not have any theatrical origins. The influenceof theatre on psychodrama came later and he thoughtit was more negative than positive. It gave him direc-tions towards, as he said, what not to do. He thoughtthat psychodrama was the most radical rejection of thea-tre since the time of Socrates and Plato. Agreeing withtheir opinion, he thinks that reality of common man aquite poor imitation of the lofty lives of the immortalgods. Thus, according to him, theatre is ‘an imitation ofimitation’ and with that it is alienation and distancingfrom life more then it is a liberating and driving force.

At the end of this chapter we may return to astatement from the beginning. The unstoppable needto find creative resolutions and practical applications ofthe ideas that poured out of Moreno impact upon anyattempt at orderly systematisation in modelling his philo-sophical views. This has proved a challenge for the fur-ther development and shaping of his ideas by certainauthors.

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PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS

A central place in Moreno’s psychological con-cept which generated psychodrama, sociodrama andsociometry, concerns the theory of roles. We may con-sider his theory a contribution to the development ofthose theories that strive to establish a bridge betweenpsychiatry and the social sciences.

Looking for the origin of the word ‘role’ showsthat it is a French word which originates from the Latinexpression ‘rotula’. In ancient Rome this expressiondescribed the way an actor memorised his role, tryingto learn it ‘by heart’ as a prompter was reading it tohim. This word lost its meaning in the Middle Ages,only to return in the 16th and the 17th century with thearrival of the modern theatre, then characterising eachpart in a scene. Thenceforth, natural continuations weredeveloped: role player, a role to act, a role to perform,a role of expectation and, finally, psychodrama andsociodrama.

According to Moreno, a role can be definedthrough the actual and tangible forms that the self takes.Thus he defines a role as: ‘…a functioning form that an

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individual takes in a specific situation which involvesother persons and objects. The symbolic presentationof this functioning form, noticed by the very individualand others, is called a role.’

A role is created from past experiences and themodels of the culture of the society in which an indi-vidual lives and might be satisfied with as a specificmeans of performance. Moreno claims that the moderntheory of roles is not a sociological concept, althoughcertain authors like George Herbert Mead and P. Lintondeveloped a sociological concept of role-taking withoutrealising the basic dependence on the process of tak-ing over the roles from psychodrama. Later, Morenostated that many American sociologists, like Talcott Par-sons, monopolised the concept of roles, turning it intosociological property. Moreno claims that every role rep-resents a sum of individual and collective elements andthat every role has two sides, the individual and thecollective. The concept of roles stretches over severalscientific fields: physiology, psychology, sociology andanthropology, and connects them all into new relations.

According to Moreno, the psychodrama theoryof roles, carrying in itself the psychiatric orientation,encompasses the concept of roles through all dimen-sions of life, both individual and social. It creates mod-els in which a role begins its interaction from birth. Theprocess of the creation of roles does not begin with theperiod of speech development but has its beginnings inthe nonverbal phases of development. Therefore the

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theory of roles cannot be limited only to social roles.According to Moreno, there are three dimensions in theconcept of roles: psychosomatic roles, which developphysiological dimensions; psychodramatic roles, whichrefer to psychological dimensions of the self; and socialroles, which show social dimensions. According to him,the primary roles are psychosomatic and psychodramaticroles that are later upgraded through development withsocial roles.

Each individual carries in himself or herself vari-ous roles which seek to become active, but at the sametime they are at different levels of development. If thereis active pressure on the part of these numerous unitsupon the official role, the latter will often bear the feel-ing of anxiousness and tension. A role also has the func-tion of entering from the social world into the uncon-scious in order to bring form and order into it. A personis composed of a spectrum of roles which an individualnotices in oneself, in the same way as one deals withthe numerous contra-roles through which one noticesthe other roles around oneself. All these roles are atdifferent levels of development.

The tangible aspects of what is known as theEgo are the roles with which it acts in the system ofrole relations that are directed towards an individual.The creation of roles and the relations amongst themcan be considered as the most important developmentin each specific culture. A role is a unit of culture; Egoand roles are in constant interaction. A perceptive role,

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for example, is comprehensive and anticipates reactionsand answers that follow. An executive role is a skill inperformance. A high level of perceptive role might beaccompanied with a low degree of skill in an executiverole. The role of enactment is in a function of the formertwo roles. A preparatory role represents a practising ofroles for an appropriate performance in future. Accord-ing to Moreno, regressive behaviour is not truly a re-gression but a form of enactment role. He thinks that inparanoid behaviour, for example, a repertoire of rolesis reduced to a distorted playing of one role. A paranoidperson is thus unable to carry out the role for the givenmoment. One might also overplay or underplay a partwhen inappropriate perception is combined with dis-torted playing.

A role can be:1. rudimentarily developed, normally developed,

or overdeveloped;2. almost or completely non-existent in a per-

son (indifference);3. twisted into a hostility function.Any role of the abovementioned categories can

also be classified according to the relation of develop-ment in time, according to whether the role:

a) has never existed in a person;b) exists in one person but does not exist in

another;c) once existed in a person but does not do so

any more.

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This concept recognizes a person as a ‘role player’and is directed towards cognition that every individualis characterized by a certain range of roles which man-age one’s behaviour and that every culture is definedby a certain set of roles imposed on its members with avaried degree of success. Psychodrama represents anaxis for experimental and control studies of roles. Itallows concrete observations of individuals in their lifesituations in which these roles are directly involved.

Moreno expanded the notion of conscious andunconscious with the notions co-conscious and co-un-conscious. As a starting-point in his explanation, he takesthe phenomena developed in conducting the methodof role reversal. With the help of role reversal, one indi-vidual tries to identify with another. This is easier if theindividuals are closer to each other than if they are di-vided by psychological or ethnic distances. Moreno findsthe reason for this distinction in the development of co-conscious and co-unconscious states. According to him,the concepts of individual unconscious (Freud) and col-lective unconscious (Jung) cannot comprise these statesunless their meanings are supplemented. He explainsthis with the example of two persons, A and B. It isassumed that the free associations of person A couldbe the path to the unconscious of person A only. Thefree associations of person B are also the path to theunconscious of person B only. From this it follows thatfor person A to have direct communication with theunconscious of person B, the basic condition would be

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that these two share at unconscious levels. The con-cept of the individual unconscious, according to Moreno,excludes the possibility of the reversal of states betweenA and B. He thinks that this lays an objective need forstructuring a concept for existing two-way, simultane-ous processes which do not derive from a single psychebut from even profounder reality in which the uncon-scious states of two or more individuals are intercon-nected in the system of co-unconscious states. This playsan important part in the lives of people who are inti-mately close, like father and son, husband and wife,brothers and sisters, twins. This also applies to otherkinds of intimate companionships like work-teams, fightgroups, people in concentration camps, charismatic re-ligious groups, etc. That is why marriage and familytherapy have to be conducted in such a way that the‘inter-psychical’ of the whole group is enacted again sothat their tele-relations, conscious and co-unconsciousstates are brought to life. Co-conscious and co-uncon-scious states are, by definition, states that partners haveexperienced or created together and therefore can onlybe reproduced or enacted again with mutual participa-tion. Co-conscious and co-unconscious states cannotbe the property of only one individual but are always ajoint property and can be reproduced only by joint ef-fort. If a repeated happening of such states is desirableor necessary, then this resumed enactment has to takeplace with the help of all the partners involved in such asituation. The logical method for such a repeated en-

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actment is psychodrama. No matter how great the in-geniousness of perception of one of the members ofthe group, one cannot reproduce such a state alonebecause partners have joint co-conscious and co-un-conscious states which are also the matrix for their in-spiration and knowledge.

Moreno also created the notion ‘tele’, which isan integral part of the previous concept. With it he de-notes a process that attracts individuals to one anotheror repulses them from one another. This represents atwo-way process which at the same time takes placebetween two or more individuals if they are in a group.Moreno describes this process as a flow of feelings,thoughts, ideas and experiences that a social nucleus ismade of, i.e. a connecting net in a group. It is differentfrom phenomena such as sympathy, empathy, transfer-ence, countertransference, etc., which are usually one-way processes. Experiencing tele between two individu-als can remain at a potential level until those two indi-viduals come close to each other or until their feelingsor ideas meet through some channel. Following thephenomenon of tele is necessary in the elaboration oflarge-scale sociometric studies and at the same time itis an inseparable part of the psychodramatic process inwhich a director should recognize happenings at thislevel in a protagonist and in a group.

Moreno dedicates special attention to mental ca-tharsis as a therapeutic effect of psychodrama. In hispsychological system it represents a method of purify-

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ing, a solution to a disturbed psychological balance, or‘disequilibrium’, in order to achieve balance, ‘equilib-rium’. The reasons for these derangements of balancecould be physical, mental, economic or social. Whensuch clashes occur, an individual is driven to a state of‘disequilibrium’ in which spontaneity is paralyzed andthe individual comes to function through rigid, stiff rolesin their inability to develop other roles. It is very impor-tant to add that Moreno observes that if such disequi-librium has been created in interpersonal relations, thenit is common for other individuals who have participatedor been part of a social network of communications onthe level of tele, also to develop a certain level of dis-equilibrium. These states create pressure on the ener-getic level, a tension that demands to be solved. Speak-ing further of possibilities for a solution, Moreno ex-cludes the possibility that it can be done only verbally.He is resolute in his opinion that the solution can onlybe achieved through the concrete and specific repeti-tion of the situations and states in which this disequilib-rium occurred. Through this repetition, repeated en-actment of the conflict created in the interpersonal in-teraction or in correlation among the parts of the self ofthe individual, will be found a more adequate solutionfor the individual and the situation. In this way, blockedenergy is freed by bodily reactions, gestures and verbalexpression; and, in their joint action, a mental cathar-sis, resuming the equilibrium and releasing the sponta-neity, will occur. Moreno claims that psychodrama is the

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only possible medium for this solution because, accord-ing to him, it offers the possibility of a repeated enact-ment of reality in a safe place, far away from the truereality, during which a great amount of energy is beingsaved, since otherwise it would be wasted in a possibleattempt of the individual to change the same surround-ings according to his/her own unchecked and unclearway. Psychodrama, at the same time, enables partici-pation and solution for several individuals who took partin the creation of the disequilibrium from which every-body has suffered. Disequilibrium can be partial, relat-ing only to a verbal or non-verbal part of an individualwho, by repetition of the conflicting positions, is freedthrough mental catharsis in order to integrate himselfwith the other parts of their personality.

Finally, this is the place to mention that manyformer interpreters of Moreno’s work considered hisapproach to catharsis a reductive one, reducing it to alevel of bodily enactment or non-verbal ventilation, dis-regarding a final, integrative approach.

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RELATIONS WITH OTHERTHEORIES IN PSYCHOTHERAPY

Psychodrama is an action-oriented, intensivemethod of group psychotherapy which offers possibili-ties for maximum correctional emotional experience,as well as its application in individual treatments with adefined psychotherapeutic goal. In its foundations it isa holistic approach but at the same time it is eclectic,open for exchange and complementation with all otherpsychotherapeutic theories. By creating psychodrama,as well as sociodrama and sociometry, Moreno estab-lished numerous psychotherapeutic approaches andtechniques which later became startingpoints or im-portant elements in the creation and development ofother psychotherapeutic theories.

Although certain authors like Abraham Maslow(1968), Eric Berne (1970), and Will Schutz (1971) clearlyconfirm the importance of Moreno’s role as the sourceof many new techniques, there is an impression thathis importance is more often wholly or in large partneglected by the authors and followers of those theo-ries in their historical reviews. Reasons for such an atti-

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tude should certainly be sought not only in their con-scious and irrational strivings but also in the nature ofMoreno’s personality and his bearing.

Specifically, Moreno was outrageously creativeand so carried away with creative impulses that he fre-quently hurried towards the discovery of new areas andpossibilities without dedicating enough attention to whathe had already created in order to make it more pro-found or systematize it. This was probably due to hisstyle of writing and method of conducting public pres-entations, which left space for speculative interpreta-tions of his ideas. He was considered a narcissistic per-son, his ideas megalomaniac and his lectures exhibi-tionist. Quite simply, everything he did and the way hepresented it contrasted strongly with the establishedmodels of that period. At that time, psychoanalysis washighly institutionalized in the USA, accepted to a greaterextent than in Europe, while behaviourist and fast grow-ing humanist theories offered psychologists an attrac-tive model of identification in order to gain equal statuswith psychiatrists, who were considered to be moreprivileged in the institutions. On the other hand, al-though Moreno gathered a lot of students through hisattitude towards them, which was often unexpected andwhimsical, Moreno did not manage during his lifetimeto create an educational system that would comprisethe quantity, quality and continuance of his teachings.For a system to be accepted, it is not enough to containgreat ideas and powerful techniques. It also has to be

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clearly theoretically founded, coherent, professionallysustained and scientifically consistent.

Due to the all abovementioned factors, Moreno’sapproach has not always been publicly acknowledgedto the extent it deserves. The aim of this chapter is togive a more precise view of his contribution to otherpsychotherapeutic theories.

Between 1930 and 1950, articles relating thelatest innovations in the field of psychotherapy and so-cial psychology were issued in a number of journalsthat Moreno published (Sociometry, Group Psycho-therapy). Among the authors of these articles wereRudolf Dreikurs (a student of Adler), Marian Chance (apioneer of family therapy), Ronald Lippitt (one of thefounder of the T-groups). It is interesting to mentionthat Moreno’s co-operation of Dreikurs continued fur-ther on because he thought that individual psychology(Adlerian therapy) was naturally complementary topsychodrama. He later urged Adaline Starr to visitMoreno’s Academy and to develop co-operation. Sincethen, psychodrama has become an integral part of theprogramme of the Alfred Adler Institute in Chicago,adapted and integrated by Nahum Shoobs, O’Connelland others.

Moreno encouraged and urged the developmentof group psychotherapy, the forming of national asso-ciations, innovations in psychotherapy and the exchangeof new approaches. Among those were ‘the social clubs’of Joshua Bierer, the family therapy of Virginia Satir, the

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therapeutic community of Maxwell Jones, the applicationof the art-therapy techniques of George Vassilou, etc.

Virginia Satir has enriched family therapy, whichowes a lot to psychodrama, with the ‘family sculpture’technique which is the embodiment of the psychodrama‘action sociogram’ technique. Her idea for ‘the partsparty’ is identical to the psychodrama technique called‘multiple parts of the self’.

After emigrating from South Africa in 1947, FritzPearls, later the creator of ‘gestalt therapy’, attendedmany of Moreno’s public sessions. He managed to en-rich his approach by including Moreno’s techniques ofrole taking, especially the technique called ‘an emptychair’, in his existential and psychodynamic ideas.Psychodrama and gestalt therapy are compatible andopen to the possibility of an exchange of techniques.

The transactional analysis of Eric Berne, whopublicly praised Moreno, uses different ‘ego states’, in-cluding also the division of the self into its components.The role play technique as a type of psychodramaticperformance can lead to finding the most effective strat-egy of behaviour in response to a given situation.

Techniques like enactment, modelling with othergroup members and practicing new roles are very close,almost identical indeed, to the behavioural approach. Atechnique called ‘psychodramatic shock’ has the per-formance and the effect that resemble the method of‘overwhelming’.

Cognitive therapeutic models also employ an ac-tion-oriented approach which includes role-playing.

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Hypnotherapy in its early development was com-bined with psychodrama. In fact, psychodramatic en-actment often induces a light-to-moderate degree oftrance in the protagonist and other participants. Thetechnique of guided fantasy, which is often used inpsychodrama, is also very close to hypnotherapeuticapproaches. Some of the latest hypnotherapeutic ap-proaches and other closely related approaches, for ex-ample neuro-linguistic programming, involve the divi-sion of the self into different parts and subsequentlyperforming encounters and interactions among theseparts.

The psychodramatic relation to body languagehas numerous connecting points with certain interven-tions in the bio-energetic approach: ‘body therapies’,including the achievements of Frederick Matthias Alex-ander, Ida Rolf, Moshe Feldenkrais, Milton Trager, andespecially the bio-energetic analysis of Alexander Lowen,as approaches towards the mobilization of feelings andmemories captured in body blocks. Lowen’s work isclosely connected with Wilhelm Reich’s theory of ‘bodyarmour’, which manifests itself as an unconscious de-fence against psychological injury and pain throughvarious kinds of chronic muscle tension. The cognitivedimension of this therapy is upgraded with thepsychodrama application.

Play-therapy consists of numerous action ap-proaches, including non-verbal modalities for the com-plete expression of feelings. It is usually conducted withchildren, but in a modified form can also be applied to

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adults. The psychodramatic approach has the potentialto create various scenarios and methods for scene re-search.

The imaginative therapies of Hanscarl Leuner,Akhter Ahsen, Sharr and others use elements that arecomplementary with psychodrama. They also create abridge between cognitive, expressive andhypnotherapeutic approaches.

Several pioneers of ‘group encounters’ publishedtheir first experiments in Moreno’s ‘Sociometry’. Theylater used many of Moreno’s methods as well as sensi-tive training, family therapy, education, business, thea-tre, art-therapy. Over time, creative and expressivetherapies have been drawn together, includingpsychodrama, drama, music, dance, painting, panto-mime, poetry, etc. For example, drama-therapy usesscene-staging and role-playing. A dramatic play canoften be used as a warm-up in a psychodramatic session.

Eclectic therapies such as Philips’ conflict reso-lution therapy, Redderson’s triple counselling, Kelly’s per-sonal constructive therapy, Rosen’s direct analysis,Lazarus’ multimodal therapy, Janov’s primal therapy,Urban’s integrative therapy, Shutz’s holistic therapy andothers, all contain in themselves the action elements ofrole-playing.

The field of psychodrama has expanded beyondclinical application and classical therapy to embrace vari-ous artistic, recreational and educational applicationssuch as the ‘Playback Theater’ of Jonathan Fox in

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Poughkeepsie, New York, and Rosalie Minkin’s educa-tional program, a theatre for teenagers and adults inPhiladelphia. All these applications reflect the dynamicpotential and perspective of psychodrama andsociodrama.

In the mid-1950s in France, ‘scene-expressivepsychotherapy’, or analytical psychodrama, was created.This represented a supplement and transformation ofclassic psychodrama based on psychoanalytical theorythrough the introduction of basic psychoanalytical tech-niques into scene action. The first impulse towards ana-lytical psychodrama was given by Mireille Monod fol-lowing Moreno’s first conference on psychodrama heldin Paris in the Hospital of Saint Anna.

Mireille Monod’s approach was further developedby Serge Lebovici, the founder of analyticalpsychodrama, together with Rene Diatkin and EvelyneKestenberg, a child psychoanalyst. This kind of devel-opment and standpoint was also given support byMoreno, who once said: ‘Analytical psychodrama is thesynthesis of psychodrama and psychoanalysis. I inau-gurated it in January 1944 by connecting psychodramaand psychoanalytical theory and by calling this associa-tion analytical psychodrama.’ In his reply to ProfessorLebovici in 1955, he wrote: ‘Today we havepsychodramatists, analysts, psychotherapists for groupanalysis, as well as psychodramatists who apply indi-vidual approaches…’ A second approach is representedby the work of Anne Ancelin Schutzenberger. After gain-

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ing her PhD in psychology at the Sorbonne, and afterindividual analysis, she went to the USA, where sheundertook comprehensive training in group dynamics,didactic group work and psychodrama under Morenobetween 1950-1952, becoming ‘Psychodrama Director’at Moreno’s Institute in New York in 1951. She intro-duced Moreno’s classic educational and therapeuticpsychodrama for adults in Paris in 1953. In 1955, shecreated ‘triple psychodrama’, which consisted of groupdynamics, group analysis and psychodrama. A very simi-lar method was developed in the USA by James Enneisand Robert Hass, and in Japan by Matsumura. A thirdapproach in France was established by Pierre Bour withthe introduction of ‘indirect objects’. He was Moreno’sassociate during his staying in Paris. A fourth approachunder the name of ‘quadric psychodrama’, as a combi-nation of the previous approaches, was applied in Franceby Michel Lemay.

In recent decades there has been a growing needfor an eclectic approach in psychotherapeutic proce-dure. Psychodrama techniques are increasingly inte-grated in other clinical, psychotherapeutic, socio-thera-peutic and pedagogical approaches, as well as in rec-reational and informative-political program models.

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CLASSIC PSYCHODRAMA

A. Basic elementsThe basic elements of classic psychodrama are

the following:1. A protagonist – the member of a group who

shows and explores his or her own contentsin a certain psychodrama session and is thecentral figure of the psychodrama.

2. A director – a therapist who leads the psycho-drama session through co-operation with theprotagonist and the group.

3. Assistants (auxiliary egos)- members of thegroup or trained co-therapists who play theroles of the important figures in the life ofthe protagonist and thus enable the devel-opment of the scenes and the events in acurrent session.

4. Audience – other members of the group thatare not directly involved in the enactment.Although it seems that they are in a passivesituation, they become urged by the eventsin the drama towards their own experiences

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that are developed by the group processwhich brings benefits to all individuals in thegroup. In addition, their presence representsthe reality to which a protagonist returns af-ter the enactment of his/her psychodrama.

5. A scene – the space where psychodramatakes place. Most often it is a part of theroom where the group meets and which hasto be spacious enough to enable physicalmovement. In his Beacon Institute, Morenocreated a scene that consisted of three lev-els which geometrically represented threeconcentric circles around a joint imaginaryaxis. In this way it was possible to define thedifferent levels of the scene contents to beenacted.

B. Basic rulesClassic psychodrama, as an action method of

group psychotherapy, is based on certain rules, someof which represent general rules that are identical tothose which apply in other concepts of group psycho-therapy, while most of them are specifically determinedby the psychodramatic approach and its techniques.

The basic rules of psychodrama insist on:a) A rule of discretion – everything that goes on

during a psychodrama session remains ‘a group secret’,which means that nobody from the group should allowthemselves to bring out or relate any kind of contents

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relating to the group and its members as a result of thesession. This enables the strengthening of trust amongstthe group members, which further opens up possibili-ties and space for expressing and working on deep in-timate contents of every member of the group, simul-taneously providing for the continuous development ofthe group process.

b) A rule of no transgression - Every member ofa group should take part in an agreement of joint goodintentions, of not hurting themselves or others. Aggres-sion, which represents an important content that mustbe expressed at a certain phase of exploration of theinner contents, should be expressed throughpsychodrama and its techniques so as to enable a saferesolution.

Specific rules of psychodrama are directly es-tablished in its approach, its structure and its techniques:

‘A protagonist enacts his/her conflicts instead oftalking about them’. Enactment takes place with thehelp of a director, group members and improvised props(chairs, pillows, blankets, newspapers, etc.) on apsychodrama stage. The basic director’s message to aprotagonist, in accordance with this rule, is: ‘Show in-stead of tell.’

‘A protagonist acts here and now, regardless ofthe fact that the current event has already happened orcould happen, regardless of whether the past, thepresent or the future is enacted or whether it is a real

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or imaginary event.’ An individual acts and communi-cates ‘in the present’, thus corroborating the immediacyof the experience at the moment of the enactment, atthe same time avoiding the possibility of remaining inthe role of ‘a story teller’ or ‘passive observer’ of theevents and objects in his/her own experiences.

‘A protagonist is encouraged rather to maximizeall expressions, actions and verbalizations than to di-minish them.’ This rule does not neglect or forget thelimitations of reality, which cannot be neglected butshould be observed upon their appearance and in thecompletion of the expression previously aroused.

‘The warm-up process should progress from theperiphery towards the centre.’ A director does not startwith the most traumatic events for a protagonist. Thefirst scenes should deal with emotionally more superfi-cial situations in order to gradually reach deeper, moreintense emotional experiences.

‘Whenever possible, a protagonist will set thetime, the space, the scene, auxiliary egos and otherelements necessary in building his/her psychodrama.’The protagonist is the central figure in thepsychodramatic session and has the right to stop theenactment or to make a decision as to the choice of thenew scene.

‘Psychodrama is as much a method of limitationas it is a method of expression.’ This rule is reserved forsituations when the control of a protagonist’s behav-iour is broken, which is common in cases of delinquency

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or psychopathy. It can occasionally be present in a lesserform in other states during the impulsive discharge ofemotional tension. This rule is usually conducted throughthe technique of role-reversal, which should be care-fully and precisely carried out.

‘It is allowed for a protagonist to be as non-spontaneous and expressionless as s/he is in presenttime.’ At first sight this is contrary to the rule of sponta-neity, but in fact it represents ‘maximization of expres-sions’ and in this case it refers to a current inhibition.

‘A protagonist has to learn to take the role of allthat s/he is in an important relation with, to undergoand experience persons in his/her social nucleus, theirrelation to him/her and among themselves’. Inpsychodrama, the protagonist has to learn ‘to be’ and ‘to become’, temporarily, what s/he sees, feels, hears,smells, loves, hates, what s/he is afraid of, what s/herejects, what s/he is rejected by, what s/he wants toavoid, what s/he wants to become… The basis of thepsychodrama technique that leads to the fulfilment ofthis rule is role reversal with important objects takingover their role and role-playing.

‘A director has to believe in a psychodramaticmethod as an ultimate arbitrator and a leader in thetherapeutic process.’ In order to create this position inwhich a director is fully capable of taking on and justi-fying responsibility for leading a session, it is necessaryfor the director to be well prepared and warmed-up fortheir part, thus reducing their anxiety in order to be

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flexible and capable of following the process of the pro-tagonist.

‘The psychodramatic session consists of threeparts: warm-up, enactment and sharing in a group.’

‘Warm-ups are carried out differently in differ-ent cultures; that is why suitable changes should beapplied.’

The last three rules of psychodrama refer to thebasic parts of psychodrama and their contents and aredescribed in a separate chapter on account of their im-portance and substantiality.

C. Basic partsA classic psychodrama consists of three parts:

warm-up, enactment and sharing. In educational groupsit is usual to add to these basic parts a fourth part calledprocess.

1. Warm-up – Psychodrama begins with the jointpreparation of all group members for the enactment ofimportant experiences and events from their personallives, led by a director. Moreno pointed out that all ofus, whether we are aware of it or not, are constantlypreparing for events to come, whether this refers tosimple or complex actions: for example, getting up af-ter waking, going to bed, preparing for a meal, doingour professional tasks, or prior to various types of en-counters with other people, creating, etc. When com-ing to a psychodrama session, the members of a group

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carry with them different experiences, events, plans,expectations, life and professional roles. The warm-upprocess enables liberation from the previous fixationsin certain roles in order to provide direct contact withimportant inner contents and then to display thesethrough enactments in a group. Naturally, this contrib-utes to the strengthening of group cohesion and trustthrough warm-up, the creation of a feeling of closenessand togetherness. Imagination and fantasies are freedafter the warm-up and the members of the group arein direct contact with them. There are countless waysto perform a warm-up; the choice depends on the spon-taneity and creativity of the director as well as theirassessment and sense of the group process. Basically,warm-ups can be grouped into structural, informal,group and directed warm-ups, warm-ups directed to-wards the choice of a certain protagonist from a group,verbal, nonverbal, interactive, introspective, warm-upswith imaginary or real scenes or themes, etc.

The director, with his/her skill in the procedure,leads the members through identification with the con-tents of the warm-up towards touch and communica-tion with their own contents. After reaching this level ofreadiness and warm-up amongst the members of thegroup, the director comes to the last phase of the warm-up, which is called the choice of the protagonist. This isa very important moment, the crucial aim of which is tochoose the group member who is in the strongest con-tact with his/her own contents, the most prepared toexplore his/hers experience and to try to resolve it

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through the enactment of the scene. It frequently hap-pens that several group members at the same time arestrongly absorbed with their own contents and the needto enact them in the current session. A situation likethis demands that the director be very careful with thechoice in order not to hurt the feelings of any of themembers who will have to return to the group after thechoice has been made; it is vital that members of thegroup do not perceive an underestimation of their ownexperiences or rejection by the director and the group.In such cases, the director tends to preserve throughhis/her manner and procedure the value of the awokenexperiences in order to build trust that the same con-tents will be enacted in some other session or the nextsession and to keep their meaning in the group proc-ess. Finally, the choice of the protagonist is made ei-ther by the director, according to their clinical assess-ment, or by the group, and in some cases by agree-ment among the potential protagonists. The choice ofthe protagonist can be achieved at the very beginningof the session, even before the process of the warm-uphas been developed, which is commonly the case ingroups that have spent a long time together inpsychodrama training or in therapeutic groups that con-sist of members with higher levels of psychological suf-fering.

Once the choice of the protagonist has beenmade, the psychodrama continues to the next phase,which is called enactment.

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2. Enactment – This is the most typicalpsychodramatic part. It begins with the entrance of theprotagonist and the director on the stage. Through con-ducting a short conversation on the contents that ab-sorb the protagonist at the moment, they are formulat-ing an agreement about the topic the protagonist wouldlike to elaborate in the current session. The agreementalways presents a good indication for the director inhis/her assessment of the focus of the events that willfollow on the scene, as well as the main experiencesthat need be explored. Sometimes, in cases when theprotagonist and the director are highly warmed-up, theaction even begins without a previously set agreement,with a spontaneous beginning of the enactment. Thisusually happens when it is important for the protago-nist to remain in touch with the contents, which wouldotherwise be interrupted by insisting on the precise for-mulation of the agreement. The enactment should al-ways begin with the present problem. The beginning ofthe psychodramatic enactment in this way is necessaryin order to obtain better insight as to what extent andwhat situations in the present the protagonist experi-ences as problematic. These could include a certain situ-ation, a scene from a social nucleus, an aspect of spaceand time, a certain feeling, a bodily experience, a sup-position, a phantasm, a dream, etc. The present prob-lem is set on the stage by first defining it in space, timeand reality, and then follows the enactment. After theenactment of the first scene, the director, who carefully

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follows the protagonist’s reactions and experiences, di-rects the action to extract the essential experience fromthat scene, which later becomes the basis for the set-ting and enactment of the next scene.

The scenes follow one another, bringing out thematerial for the psychodramatic enactment of deepercontents, indicating the positions that created thepresent problem. Reaching the source of the problem,which is usually a past experience, the resolution of theproblem is enabled by the enactment of the event ‘hereand now’ with the help of adequate psychodramatictechniques. This provides direct and authentic correc-tion of the emotional experience in the protagonist andreplacement of the old one with a new one. At mo-ments like this the enactment is followed by mentalcatharsis whereby blocked energy is freed and the reso-lution of hitherto unconscious and inappropriate mecha-nisms which had inhibited the protagonist in his/herpast and in the present in certain situations is achieved.After this, a spontaneous choice of new, more adequateand authentic actions and moves in the attempt to re-solve conflict situations from the present is enabled.Thus spontaneity and creativity come to life in the ac-tions of the protagonist, which in the following scenesof return to reality enable him/her to try out and estab-lish new actions and answers ‘here and now’ in the pro-tected therapeutic situation. This usual and desired di-rection of the enactment can be shown through theconstruction of the psychodramatic spiral:

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• the present problem• a scene – oriented towards the present• a scene – recent past• a scene – distant past• childhood• catharsis• concretization• insight, integration• role trainingIt must be taken into account that spontaneous

digressions from the above-mentioned scheme occurin a great deal of psychodramas. The enactment canbegin with a scene from the past, with a memory or arecollection of an event from a distant past, with anevent which is supposed to happen in the near or dis-tant future. With this kind of development it is neces-sary to connect the contents that derive from thosescenes with the current problems of the protagonist inpresent reality. This is necessary in order to end thepsychodramatic enactment with the closure of the con-tents of the protagonist in a systematic—and, for him/her, understandable—connection. Only with such an ap-proach is it possible to reach the insight and integrationof all the presented elements from his/her inner andouter reality. At the end of the enactment, the protago-nist should become aware of the feelings, strivings andactions that set in motion the events in the scene inorder to correct his/her inappropriate actions in reality.It is necessary to reach the level of affective and cogni-

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tive merger, freeing the blocked energy and its sponta-neous directing towards optimal actions in real life situ-ations. In accordance with this goal, ‘role training’ usu-ally takes place in the final scene. This is a spontane-ous and therapeutically safe checking of the newly madechoices in resolving the conflict situations that caused‘the present problem’ which the psychodramatic enact-ment began with.

In short, the optimal enactment should gothrough the following phases:

- beginning with the present problem;- finding similarities with the recent past;- discovering the connection with the distant

past;- helping the protagonist to realize his/her ac-

tions and reactions in his/her life;- reaching catharsis if necessary;- concretization of the topics, choices and ac-

tions that keep the protagonist in the presentdysfunctional state;

- help in realizing the possibilities in life;- help in integration of the affective and the

cognitive;- achieving closure and healing and so that the

protagonist can enact in his/her life what s/he has perceived in the therapy.

Immediately upon ending the enactment of thescene, the protagonist and the director return to thegroup. Thus begins the third part of the psychodrama.

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3. Sharing – This is a part of psychodrama inwhich time is dedicated to other members of the group.Moreno in his unique way also called this part ‘love back’.The members of the group who in previous sceneenactments have touched upon their own contents,shared their experiences, feelings, fears, andrecognitions, etc., with the protagonist now express theirpersonal contents: speaking of themselves, avoiding anyattempt at analyzing the protagonist, interpreting his/her contents, giving advice or asking exploratory ques-tions. It is necessary to provide this stage during thesharing in order to protect the protagonist from possi-ble emotional distress. After the enactment, the pro-tagonist is in a very vulnerable state as a result of con-tinuing openness to the influences of the surroundings—an openness which inevitably emerges in the processof the enactment. While sharing the group members’experiences, the protagonist realizes that his problemsare universal and that s/he is not only not being judgedon them but s/he is completely accepted by the groupand receiving the support of the others. Through theirexperiences s/he realizes and comprehends more clearlyhis/her own conflicts and possibilities of their resolu-tion. Fulfilled with such positive experiences, s/he isencouraged to continue the path of his/her own heal-ing and further enactment and resolving his/her ownproblems. At the same time, by recognizing and shar-ing, the group members themselves are approachingthe essences of their own inner conflicts and problems

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and warming up for their scene enactment in the fol-lowing psychodramatic sessions.

It is especially essential to mention the impor-tance of sharing the experiences of the group mem-bers that have been auxiliary egos in certain scenes ofthe psychodrama in which they have played the rolesof important figures from the protagonist’s life. Duringsharing, these members are separating the experiencesthey recognize and accept as their own from those thatare not close to them and which are part of the rolethey have played. This enables liberation from the roleor, to be more precise, from that part of the role which,if not brought out during the sharing, can remain afterthe session in a member who was an auxiliary ego andcould be accepted and taken in as his/her own partfurther in his/her life. Thus unconsciously brought in, itcan become a source of unauthentic inner conflicts, in-accessible for an insight in its origin.

If properly conducted, sharing brings back co-hesion in the group and thus becomes a sound reser-voir for the healing of its members through mutual ex-change of experiences and joint progress through thegroup process. It is worth mentioning that sharing doesnot have to be done only verbally, it can also be spon-taneously expressed non-verbally in the form of a touch,an embrace, etc.

After the sharing, the group members are readyto return to real life and their everyday roles, enrichedby new experiences, ready for a more spontaneous andmore creative approach.

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4. Process – This is a part of the psychodramathat exclusively pertains to educational groups. The basicrule is that the protagonist should not be present dur-ing the process, except and solely when the protago-nist insists on their being present in the belief that itmight be a good opportunity for him/her to makeprogress in getting acquainted with psychodrama tech-niques when the assessment is that s/he is no longeremotionally vulnerable.

In this part, the technique that the director hasapplied in the psychodrama, which is the object of theprocess, is analyzed with the aim of improving thepresent members’ knowledge of the psychodrama tech-nique and actions in the course of guiding the protago-nist. It is usual for the process to be held several hoursor days after the session, which is analyzed in order toavoid an emotionally overburdened approach and pro-vide correct, objective and expert relation.

If the process is attended by the protagonist fromthe session, the procedure begins with his/her presen-tation of their experiences with the director and in con-nection with the director’s guidance and the interven-tions that s/he has applied during the whole period oftheir contact. Then the process continues with the di-rector’s explanation of the ideas which s/he has con-ducted during the session and their experiences in re-lation to the protagonist and the group. It is also quiteusual for the director to have a previously preparedprotocol as a guideline of their presentation, which isalways time-limited with the previous agreement of the

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group. When s/he has finished, every member of thegroup who has certain remarks or suggestions relatingto the director’s work in the respective session expressesthese comments, giving concrete suggestions for a pos-sible different performance. This must always be anargued presentation of ideas with the concretization ofthe moments which are being analyzed and for whichthe changes are being suggested. A special place in theprocess definitely belongs to the supervisor, if present,who with analysis facilitates attention towards the mostimportant elements of the director’s work and the edu-cation of the other members of the group as well.

It is important to mention that during the proc-ess it is allowed for members to be analytical, to giveinterpretations, to express psychologically-based hy-potheses. Analyses and assessments that are based onother psychological theoretical approaches are alsopossible, such as psychoanalytical, humanist, behav-ioural ones, etc. It is even recommendable and respectedto have such an enriched and wide knowledge of atleast one psychological diagnostic approach. This kindof method reflects the eclecticism and openness of thepsychodramatic system in understanding the psycho-logical essences.

D. The TechniqueThe psychodramatic technique is very rich, ver-

satile and always opens to new, creative solutions inscene enactment.

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A director should be well acquainted with thebasic techniques in order to guide a protagonist and agroup in a psychodramatic session, which very oftencan bring forth intense emotional experiences. It is com-mon knowledge that a director should be directed to-wards the understanding of four primary techniques:the warm-up, the setting up of the scene, auxiliary egoand role reversal.

The warm-up is a primary technique that is in-terwoven in all parts and phases of the psychodramaand not only its first part, which is completely dedi-cated to this technique. The warm-up is a constantlypresent process for the protagonist during the settingup and coming to life of the scene, during the role pres-entation and the enactment. It is also necessary for awarm-up process to develop in the director so that s/hecan get into their role and follow all the events in theprotagonist or in other members of the group.

The setting up the scene follows upon formulat-ing the present problem and agreement on the topicthat is being processed. In as short a time as possible,the time, space and reality which characterize the con-tent the protagonist shows and expresses should be-come alive on the scene. This is a necessary conditionin order for the enactment of the events on the sceneto be done ‘here and now’, thereby producing authen-tic feelings and reactions in the protagonist, equivalentto those from reality. The rule is that the scene is to beset by the protagonist him/herself, by bringing impor-

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tant persons and objects that represent significant emo-tional relations, presenting also the time in which thescene is being enacted. Thus the protagonist reachesthe necessary warm-up level that is needed later on toenact the scene as if it were happening ‘here and now’.

First, the protagonist presents the roles of im-portant objects from his/her life, taking their part sothat, later on, with the director’s help, the protagonistcan choose group members that will take those parts.Here it should be mentioned that this choice is mostoften made spontaneously, by the tele experience. Thischoice is usually asserted through the further durationof the drama and the sharing, when fascinating simi-larities with certain features of important people fromthe protagonist’s reality are discovered amongst thechosen members who play these parts in the drama;these similarities are found even though they do notusually know the people whose characters they are play-ing and even though the protagonist has not been awareof the identity of their particular inner essences.

By coming out on the scene and by taking theroles that the protagonist has presented, these groupmembers, who can be also trained co-therapists, be-came auxiliary egos or auxiliaries. They are very impor-tant for the enactment that follows because with theirspontaneous getting into the roles they rouse authenticreactions in the protagonist that are present in his/herreal life situations. Apart from taking on the roles of theimportant persons and objects from the protagonist’s

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life, auxiliary egos can, with the director’s instruction oron their own initiative but with the director’s blessing,take the role of the double. This is a very sensitive and,from the clinical point of view, very serious role of theauxiliary that is created when the auxiliary enters thescene and stands next to the protagonist, takes his/herbodily position and by getting into the role carefully andgradually begins to express feelings, thoughts and re-actions that s/he experiences in that role. During thisstage, the director has to be permanently careful andready to check the authenticity of the double’s expres-sions through contact with the protagonist and assess-ment of his/her reactions. In case the double’s expres-sions are not accepted as authentic or as his/her ownby the protagonist, the director stops further action onthe part of the auxiliary. The technique of the auxiliaryis usually very successful when it is used in states ofverbal or non-verbal block, social inhibition, and withintrovert protagonists. Sometimes it is possible for twoor more doubles to come to life in some scenes. Theseusually refer to expression of inner polarities, parts ofthe self, or distinct inner drives of the protagonist.

The fourth and also the main primary techniqueof psychodrama is that of role reversal. This is usedupon the director’s instruction to a protagonist to switchhis/her role with the role of an important person whoms/he is interacting with on the scene. At the same time,the role of the protagonist is taken by one of the auxil-iaries, chosen by the protagonist him/herself. In the

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role of another person, the protagonist takes his/herbodily posture, identifies with his/her reactions andexpresses the messages of that person as his/her own.The role reversal is the main axis of the enactment in apsychodrama through all its phases, from the begin-ning of the action till the integration in a protagonist atthe end of the enactment. A director should carefullychoose the moment to apply this technique in ordernot to hinder the realization of the basic goal duringthe enactment, that goal being the completion of theaction by the protagonist’s playing his/her own role.

Role reversal is used for specific purposes:a) The most fundamental purpose is to obtain

information that only the protagonist has.This refers to giving the information to anauxiliary for the part s/he should take, thepresentation of ‘the other’;

b) The application of role reversal is necessaryto achieve understanding and feeling for theother in the protagonist;

c) When the protagonist is enabled to see him/herself ‘with the eyes of the other’, to seehis/her behaviour and reactions;

d) Role reversal with the goal of achieving spon-taneity in overcoming inappropriate defencemechanisms;

e) In cases when the protagonist is the onlyone who can give to him/herself an answer,comfort or advice.

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Besides the primary techniques mentioned,psychodrama uses an immense number of techniques,depending on the director’s education and creativity.Some of the more important ones are:

Soliloquy – a technique of opening subtle levelsof experiences. A director performs this by stopping anaction at a certain moment, then sets the protagonistaside and gives him/her instructions to express feelingsderiving from the enactment.

Mirror – the director stops an action, sets theprotagonist out of the scene, while at the same timeone of the auxiliaries takes the part of the protagonistand repeats the scene. Like looking in the mirror, theprotagonist notices his/her own reaction and his/herbehaviour and relations with others.

Future projection – the situation that the pro-tagonist presumes to happen in the future is enactedon the scene ‘here and now’.

For other techniques, please see the separatechapter of the book that refers to the register ofpsychodrama’s techniques and expressions.

E. The DirectorThe director’s role in psychodrama is very com-

plex. On the one hand, it offers infinite possibilities forcreative procedure, while on the other hand it is bur-dened by great responsibility for the protagonist andthe group.

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A director has to be well trained in performingpsychodrama techniques, to have theoretical knowledgeof one or more psychological approaches, to possesssolid clinical experience which enables safe clinical pro-cedure and to have a developed sense for group proc-ess and group dynamics. These preconditions derivefrom the power of the technical interventions ofpsychodrama, which are basically very expressive andwhich characterize psychodrama as an intensive andpotentially deep psychotherapeutic method. With re-gard to such potential, a director should always bear inmind the rule not to start opening a problem unless s/he is sure that in the further course s/he will be able tosafely close it.

Through enriching his/her own experience inpsychodrama, a director acquires the ability to differ-entiate between two psychological forms in the enact-ment: content and process. These are two fundamen-tal concepts of the therapeutic guidance in psychodrama,which are also essential for other psychotherapeuticapproaches.

The content represents the individual history ofthe protagonist. It is the story in the psychodrama, withinwhich the scene enactment takes place. The processrepresents the way in which an individual reacts inwardlyto details from the content and also the way one willact in life later on.

Basically, a director should direct a psychodramaspecifically towards the process, while the enactmentwill make events from the process alive and noticeable

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at their origin. The process reflects an inner collision orconflict. It contains hidden obstacles to the release ofspontaneity and manifests inadequate defence mecha-nisms. If the attention, contrary to this, is focused onthe content, the psychodrama then becomes a historyrepeating without resolution. The process remains hid-den inside the protagonist and continues its action ineveryday life. It is often very difficult to get to the es-sence of the process, so the commenced work has tocontinue in the following psychodrama sessions.

During his/her work on the scene, a director veryoften uses so-called focusing techniques.

One such technique is insisting on getting a morespecific answer. For example, if in a scene a protago-nist says that the feeling that s/he carries inside him/her shows with all or more persons, the director thenguides the protagonist with a question as to whom thatfeeling refers to most.

A second type of focusing technique is limitingdescription. This is usually used in a scene with a lot ofroles, when a protagonist is guided to present the rolesthrough symbols, several key words, or in one sentence.

A third type is telling the main message of theimportant other person on the stage. Instead of theenactment of another scene, a direction is made to-wards the action and feelings which the main messageof ‘the other’ provokes.

With the aim of achieving the optimal warm-up fora specific age, time and place, provoking focusing tech-niques are used by asking questions that insist on specific

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answers. For example, in a scene from childhood, the di-rector asks, ‘What does a child want at that age?’

A technique of separating feeling is applied withthe aim of focussing on one feeling. For example, aprotagonist feels anger but s/he is only capable of cry-ing. With the psychodrama technique of surplus realitythe tears are temporarily ‘removed’ so that the pro-tagonist can be in contact with the feeling that pre-cedes them.

A direction towards a body and bodily experi-ences also belongs to the focusing techniques. Thisprocedure is based on psychodrama’s holistic approach.This approach enables recognition of bodily messagesfrom hidden experiences, which is especially character-istic of psychosomatic illnesses. It is also used when aprotagonist is blocked in verbalization. In that case, s/he is asked to put their body in a position that canshow the feeling and then to focus to the part of thebody where that feeling is experienced/felt the most.With the further concretization of scenes, the feeling isrendered into interaction.

Besides these general ideas on the director’swork, it should be mentioned that directorial interven-tions can be complex in the extreme, depending onspecific qualities that certain categories of clinical enti-ties contain in themselves. Since the purpose of thiswork is to present the basics of psychodrama to thereader, further elaboration would exceed the scope ofthe book.

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NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION ANDPSYCHODRAMA

Communication generally represents giving orreceiving a message through a certain conveyed or hid-den expression, during which an attempt for connec-tion, for contact with another unity or system is made.The goal is completely realized only when such an at-tempt ends in an exchange of contents to mutual ben-efit, or is partly successful with one-sided communica-tion of a content – message.

Psychotherapy is a skill and a field of researchinto the phenomenon of human communication, whichoccurs in relations between two individuals, in a group,or in the relation among the parts of the person’s struc-ture within an individual, in relation to living and non-living objects from the outer world.

The basic means of communication between twohuman beings involves conveying messages throughwords, through vocal expression, intended for a personor a group that the contact is being made with. This ispreceded by a so-called ‘inner speech’, which is at thesame time a foundation for the recognition and cogni-

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tion of inner experiences. During that process, the wordstry to achieve as true as possible a description of thefeelings, thoughts, intentions, memories, actions, fearsand all that would mean living the space and the timeof an individual or the events from the surrounding thatinfluence him/her.

However, much more frequently than verballycommunicating, a person will spontaneously switch tocommunication without words. The greatest part of thistype of expression is known as ‘body language’, whichcan be recognised in a change of bodily posture, move-ments, walk, a change in the relation of some parts ofthe body, play, dance, drawing, graphic expression, etc.These changes can happen in disguise and then reachthe level of bodily experiences, such as a feeling ofoppression in the chest, even a reaction of the innerorgans with a change in their function (heart throb-bing, vomiting, dizziness, etc.). This ‘non-verbal’ typeof communication can be realised through complexstates in the field of mental functioning, such as sud-den changes at the level of clarity and cognition (con-fusion, blocked thoughts, disorientation, loss of memory,split personality, etc.), without the influence of the or-ganic factor, which in this case asks for a serious ap-proach in a supposed therapeutic situation. A very com-mon phenomenon of non-verbal communication is alsosilence, a stillness, which in the distance that it createstypically comprises a great number of messages. Non-verbal moments are interwoven even in verbal commu-

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nication and can be noticed in the pitch, loudness andcolour of the voice, in the speed and rhythm of speech,the way sentences are finished or unfinished, throughthe connections among them, as well as through therhythmic relation of the words in them, which alwayscontain emotional resonance.

Psychotherapy is a field in which a great numberof the most diverse scientific and non-scientific ap-proaches have sprung up. By following, first of all, thescientific approaches which apply previously wellchecked methods in a controlled manner in order toprevent the possibility of hurting or causing damage toan individual that enters the psychotherapeutic proc-ess, the conclusion can be drawn that in their diversitythey also carry a different approach and treatment ofnon-verbal communication elements created in thetherapeutic relationship.

At one end of the spectrum, there are purelycognitive methods which, strictly rationally and verbally,seek to cause changes in the cognitive sphere of anindividual which also result in changes in behaviour. Atthe other end, there is the behavioural approach in whichthe centre of interest concerns the reactions and be-haviour of an individual with the aim of acting in orderto change ‘inadequate’ forms of behaviour with ‘ad-equate’ ones. These mentioned approaches are veryoften criticized for not allowing enough space to theemotional in a person besides the cognitive and themotor functions.

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Existential psychotherapeutic approaches whichhave also claimed for themselves the epithet ‘humanis-tic’ take into consideration the human as a whole, withall one’s given particularities ‘here and now’, regardingas unjust and inhumane any other approach that wouldobserve a human through one’s single essences. Theirgoal is to reach the authentic human potentials andvalues through insisting on the enrichment of ‘conscious-ness’ about oneself ‘here and now’. Non-verbal aspectsare considered part of the whole.

In contrast with these approaches, non-verbalcommunication is always at the centre of the psycho-analyst’s attention when it appears at certain momentsin the analytical treatment. Here it is understood as astate that hinders the analytical process, blocks itsprogress by expressing unconscious and preconsciouscontents, derivations of drives in an indirect secondaryway called ‘acting out’ (‘agieren’ – Freud) and ‘actingin’. The basic method for rendering these contents intoconscious ones, understandable for a person submit-ted to analytical treatment, is verbal interpretation bywhich the analyst strives to realize the main therapeu-tic aim, i.e. ‘…reclaiming the notions from the derivatesof the drives from the unconscious with the represen-tations of the words in the domain of pre-conscious…’(‘Ego and Id’, Freud, 1923). Thus the unconscious be-comes conscious, the power of the Id is neutralizedand overtaken by the Ego, with which it becomesstronger in control over previously unconscious con-tents, while non-verbal communication automatically

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‘grows’ into verbal communication. Tension is replacedwith relief; insecurity and fear of the unknown is re-placed with security in clear estimates and decisionsthat follow.

Bio-energetic approaches take into considera-tion ‘bodily blocks’ and try to enable the free flow ofenergy in the body through cathartic techniques.

Through the structural method of relaxation,autogene training raises the threshold of vegetative ex-citement of the internal, visceral organs and provides apossibility for conscious, wilful relaxation of the bodymuscles and better control of the body scheme.

In the development of the psychodrama proc-ess, non-verbal communication is one of the startingpoints. In psychodrama, it is understood as an elementthat can represent captured energy in the developmentof spontaneity and a continued obstacle to liberatingthe flow that has the potential to appear in creativeaction. In accordance with the diversity of its techniques,psychodrama initiates this energy with the aim of ex-ploring and finding the obstacles that are placed in frontof it, thus entering the roots and sources of its stoppingand inefficient closing. During this process, insights areachieved into both reality and objective possibilities formore adequate and more efficient usage of this energyin the authentic life of an individual, which manifeststhese phenomena.

It is important to mention that this strives torealize not only the ‘pleasure principle’, catharsis andthe satisfaction of repressed needs, but also to obtain a

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better assessment of life situations—those that repre-sent the ‘reality principle’. The blocked energy growsinto the energy of free exchange between the innerand outer world, the energy of creation, change andsustainable adaptability. Thus an authentic but alsopositive and creative attitude to reality is preserved.

Practically, in a therapeutic situation this is real-ized through the creative interventions of the directorand the group in the psychodramatic ambiance. If wepresume that a non-verbal expression is enacted througha certain movement of the arm, which a director no-tices during a session, s/he can, estimating that thatexpression is important for the given situation, startthat moment with the therapeutic aim of exploring thegesture. This is done by ‘entering the role’ of the armand through taking the role of the arm the protagonist‘becomes’ the arm and starts experiencing the needsand blocks of that arm. The director receives from ‘thespeaking arm’ the information important to understandand rightfully assess the hidden needs and messageswhich take him closer to further intervention. His basicinstruction to the protagonist is ‘to be’ the arm, ‘to show’and express states in it. Thus the protagonist is directlyfaced with the hidden strivings, experiencing hithertounnoticed messages and their strength. After the di-rector’s intervention, which is in accordance with hisclinical assessment and therapeutic responsibility, theenergetically fulfilled protagonist can launch into thereal situations in which the obstacles were created and

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from which time they have remained to hinder the re-alization of needs. Since then, they have remained hid-den in the non-verbal expression as an inefficient andinadequate outcome which is a starting point in thepsychodramatic process and through which the origi-nal situation is reached with the resolution into the moreefficient outcome. The other possibility is for this ener-getic charge to be more developed, with the director’spermission and instruction, up to the improvised satis-faction of the unrealized needs. This is done with theinstruction that allows the arm to develop and show itsstrivings to the very end, to realize them in a protectedpsychodramatic situation. Thus, the need for catharsisis satisfied. This discharge is sometimes extremely nec-essary as an experience for the protagonist in order forhim/her to return immediately afterwards to a realisticassessment of the possibility for such an outcome inreality with an appropriate correction in his/her assess-ment to find the true possibilities for satisfying the sameinner needs. This is the way to restart the creative pro-cedure in authentic everyday life.

Sometimes, however, due to the seriousness ofthe problem and the therapeutic assessment of the di-rector, it is allowed to develop the protagonist’s non-verbal communication up to the level of diagnostic re-search in order to gain an insight into his/her inabilityof further control of the energetic tension that is hid-den in that expression. Then, such an insight and theother usual states are the basis and the reason to change

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the technique, which is now directed towards buildingthe ability to control the potential of a dangerous blaz-ing up of the inner forces which, if uncontrollably re-leased, are capable of destroying the personality’s unity.

There are situations in which the protagonist’sspontaneity is extremely inhibited and that is the rea-son why the protagonist cannot ‘enter the role’ of non-verbal expression. This can be the result of not havingthe basic experiences, which are usually acquired inchild’s play, or due to the domination of other innerforces or fears. Then it is common to use other tech-niques, such as ‘doubling’, i.e. ‘playing a double’. In thatcase, a co-therapist, or any other member of the groupthat comprehends the situation, stands next to the pro-tagonist and by entering his/her role reveals the mean-ings of the expression, conveying the messages by wordsor movements which at the same time prompt the pro-tagonist to get closer to the authentic experiences. Ifby using this or some other similar technique it is notpossible to achieve a desired outcome, the protagonistcan be placed in the position of ‘a mirror’ to watch thesituation from aside, experiencing it and giving commentson it in order to face the state that previously s/he couldnot realize with the existence in his/her own role.

After these simplified descriptions of the ap-proaches and methods applied in resolving elements ofnon-verbal communication in the psychodrama ambi-ence, it is necessary to emphasise that, during the de-velopment and resolution of those elements, the pro-

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tagonist is always urged—in contact with the director,the auxiliaries and the group—to express his/her expe-riences and insights. Thus is fulfilled in the psychodra-matic rule: ‘… that the notions from the derivates of thedrives from the unconscious are being reclaimed withthe representations of the words in the domain of thepre-conscious…’ until ‘conscious insight’ is achieved. Allthis is done through action, in the enactment of lifesituations created on the psychodrama scene.

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APPLICATION AND EDUCATION

Psychodrama is a psychological method which,with certain modification, can be applied to almost theentire field of human communication. This refers espe-cially to group communication, both in the sense oftherapeutic interventions and in exploring and improv-ing all group phenomena. It is also a very powerfulmethod for exploring and resolving individual emotionalsufferings and reconstructions of a disturbed intra-psy-chological balance of the individuals. Its techniquesenable the most varied of approaches, from structuraland practical ones to the extremely creative relation.Thus the application of psychodrama can be consid-ered from two conceptual aspects: the clinical and thegeneral, non-clinical.

The clinical application of psychodrama obeysall the principles and laws that a serious, deep psycho-therapeutic approach should respect. First of all, thisrefers to the necessary level of education and capacityfor taking clinical responsibility of the therapist/psychodramatist. Psychodrama is an intensive, emotion-ally corrective and expressively powerful approach that

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strongly awakens intra-psychological contents, whichshould always be therapeutically well controlled withthe help of accurate technique interventions on the partof the director.

In accordance with the abundance of its tech-niques, psychodrama can be used in the treatment of awide spectrum of psychopathologic states. This meansthat it can find its place in the therapy of psychosis,neurosis, personality disorders, psychosomatic illnesses,psycho-immunological disturbed states, emotionallyreactive states, addictions, and psychopathologicalstates in early age, adolescence and adulthood. It isnaturally understood that the real possibility of its ap-plication depends first of all on the therapist’s –psychodramatist’s capability, technique knowledge andclinical experience, which are the basis for the correctassessment of the therapeutic goal that is set beforethe beginning of a treatment. Depending on the prob-lem which is the subject of the psychodramatic resolu-tion, the approach is adjusted in the sense of adequatepsychodramatic techniques and the desired therapeu-tic goal to be achieved.

This means that the approach and the goal in thetreatment of psychosis are in every sense different fromthose which are set and achieved in treatments of neu-rotic sufferings, psychosomatic illnesses, etc. Thepsychodrama can be directed towards exploration, diag-nostics, gaining insight into inner conflicts, complexes,towards changing behaviour patterns, exploring and com-prehending bodily and vegetative functional disorders,

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delving into the personality structure, interaction of theparts of the self, correction of emotional experience, im-proving interpersonal communication in a group, etc.

However, it should be mentioned thatpsychodrama can also be a dangerous tool in the handsof an inexperienced and careless therapist. This is whythe main rule in psychodramatic enactment is: ‘Do notopen anything if you are not sure you can close it.’ Thus,besides the wide scope of possibilities for clinical appli-cation, it is necessary to have a sound knowledge ofthe methods in order to avoid the dangers of uncon-trolled application. Apart from clinical experience, it isadvisable for a therapist to have a good knowledge ofother deep psychological approaches, all of which en-able a good assessment during guidance and in achiev-ing the therapeutic result.

There are certain psychopathological stateswhere the application of psychodrama is not advisableand have so-called ‘contraindications’. These are thestates of extreme suicidal tendencies, homicidal ten-dencies, acute states in which contact with reality iscompletely lost, states of altered consciousness in theclinical sense. Finally, when faced with these states, othermore serious psychotherapeutic approaches are help-less if they are applied as the sole therapeutic means.

Psychodrama can be combined and simultane-ously clinically applied with medication, as well as withother therapeutic approaches, both in clinics, hospitalsor private practice. Although it is above all a group psy-chotherapeutic approach, it can be used in individual

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treatments, couples’ therapy treatments and in familypathology. Besides, all the approaches mentioned, ex-cept the individual one, have their roots in psychodramato a certain extent.

The non-clinical approach in psychodrama, oftendefined very narrowly with the term ‘sociodrama’, hasthe possibility of much wider application and offers po-tential for simpler and very creative interventions whichcan be performed in different fields of human commu-nication. This approach refers to mastering almost allgroup, social and professional roles. Psychodrama, withthe help of the chosen modified approaches, can con-tribute to the improvement of pedagogy, social research,the functioning of the social services, management, busi-nesses, organization and management, creative actions,negotiating and arranging, studying, etc.

In school pedagogy, for example, the emphasiswith teachers would be directed to understanding andmanaging the group phenomena, in the sense of lead-ing the group, the motivation of its members, role play-ing, role reversal, development of spontaneity in com-munication and learning through the usage of creativekinds of warm-up, etc. On the other hand, when work-ing with younger age-groups, role playing would be apriority and it would be performed in creative gamesthrough role reversal with chosen objects, enactmentof puppet scenes in a psychodramatic way, etc.

For some time, the field of social research hasbeen using sociometric methods, which always leave

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room and possibility for further creative improvement.In the functioning of social services, psychodrama canhelp in improving communication within differentgroups, like family, classes, ethnic groups, etc.

Business, management and marketing are fieldsthat inherently involve the ability to enter into a rolecompletely, the enactment of a professional role, theexiting of a tiring role after a job has been done (whichat the same time should be understood as a preventionfrom chronic stress), the practicing of new roles, etc.For a professional of such a profile, it is necessary to befamiliar with group phenomena, especially of cohesivegroups, the creation of a team-work atmosphere in agroup, the correct assignment and taking up of roleswithin a team. Of equal importance also is knowledgeof the encounter phenomenon, an understanding of themessages expressed in it, an understanding of the needsand impulses of the interlocutor, checking the supposi-tions through the techniques of surplus reality and fu-ture projection.

A similar training program could contribute tothe field of organization, managing, negotiating and ar-ranging, where a great benefit could be the introduc-tion of role reversal—with all the possibilities that thistechnique offers—aimed at the better understanding ofthe other.

With the help of specific techniques of warm-upand enactment of roles, it is possible to improve in manyways the memory-technique and the learning process.

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In the world of creative work, or art as it is mostoften called, psychodrama could provide swifter accessand entry into the creative process with the use of cer-tain warm-up and preparation techniques in order todeepen and prolong the same by maintaining the proc-ess of playing the adopted role. Psychodrama couldmake a special contribution in the phase of liberationfrom a role after the completion of a creative act, whichrepresents a very common problem amongst the ma-jority of creators, especially after intensive entrance intothe creative process. In certain types of creativity, intheatre, for example, the group sharing of the actorsand other participants of a performance after the endof a play would hasten the process of separation fromroles and safe return to reality.

The basic difference between the non-clinical andthe clinical approach in psychodrama lies in the goalsset to be achieved during its performing. While the clini-cal approach has as its goal the resolution of inner con-flicts and correction of emotional experiences, the non-clinical approach is aimed at the better defining of roles,enabling their adequate playing, liberation from old rolesand the practicing of new roles. The goal is directedtowards more spontaneous and more creative enact-ment of social and professional roles with enhancedunderstanding of the reality of the needs of the rolesthat others take.

In accordance with what has been said so far,education in psychodrama can also be considered and

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understood in two ways, depending on whether its scopeand goals are intended for clinical or non-clinical appli-cation.

Education in the clinical application ofpsychodrama sets serious terms before a candidate whobegins or is in the process of learning the skills of clas-sic psychodrama and its modifications. Since the goalto be reached is that of taking the role of a responsiblepsychotherapist/psychodramatist, the candidate mustgo through several phases of acquiring necessary ex-periences. The basic experience which needs to be ac-quired is that of getting to know your own conflicts andtheir resolution through psychodrama. At the same timeit is an introduction to the basic knowledge of thepsychodrama technique, skills of enactment and guid-ance, as well as getting acquainted with group phe-nomena through participation. In the more advancedphases of such an acquired experience, it is obligatoryfor the candidate to improve his/her theoretical knowl-edge, as in the psychodrama field so in other concep-tually serious psychological and psychotherapeutic ap-proaches, especially in the psychodynamic, if it is pos-sible. According to my own long-time experience, thenecessity of previous clinical experience in the treat-ment of persons that suffer from psychic disorders isan important pre-condition for the candidate. In thisway the candidate would truly be prepared to acceptresponsibility for clinical application in resolving morecomplex psychopathologic phenomena. In some coun-

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tries, the education program is not based on previousclinical experience, since their aim is the clinical appli-cation of psychodrama to be performed by personswhose basic education is not mainly from the field ofmedicine or psychology.

Education in non-clinical application does not setsuch strict criteria. First of all, it demands a candidate’spersonal experience in psychodrama and success in mas-tering techniques like role playing, role reversal, mirror,etc, without any pretensions to resolve inner conflictstates and acquire insights into them, having as its aimmore spontaneous and more creative playing of thegiven roles. Candidates trained in this field of applica-tion, which is usually called sociodrama, can be fromany kind of occupation, but at the same time they shouldbe persons who have in themselves a potential for rec-ognizing group phenomena, as well as a creative po-tential for role building.

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PSYCHODRAMA AND THEATRE

Thinking about a topic that can connect the con-cept of such a magazine1 and the interest of its readerswith the psychotherapeutic concept, which with its veryname evokes associations about the similarity betweenthe art scene and the Moreno’s therapeutic approach,the author of this text, to whom the therapeutic voca-tion is much closer than that of acting, has felt the needto launch into the adventure of trying to explain ration-ally the similarities and differences between these twoprocesses that always carry in themselves a greater partof the irrational.

At the very mention of psychodrama, the firstassociations for people with no experience of thepsychodrama process are connected to the theatre,actors and audiences, while the acting element is im-agined to be the basic therapeutic technique. Next inthis line of suppositions is the notion that a personprogresses in the process of self-healing to final recov-

_______________1 This text was published in the magazine ’SCENA‘ (‘STAGE’),No. 6, pp. 65-67, Novi Sad, 1991.

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ery by acting a certain part. It would be interesting tolinger on this position and analyze a deeper flow of theassociation chain and the origin of the spontaneous faithin the healing power of theatre dynamics.

However, at this point it is much more importantto first make a clear distinction that in the psychodrama-tic as opposed to the dramatic process, the person (theprotagonist) who enters that process with their ownproblems and the drive to overcome them, stays in itand emerges from it in their own life role. With some-times long-lasting changes to their identity (when suchchanges are necessary) the protagonist enters throughthe technique of role reversal into the roles of otherimportant persons and objects in their life and, as theburden of their own identity and notions of themselvesare temporarily removed, starts to feel the space, timeand importance of emotional relations and messages ina completely different way from usual, gaining newlyawakened feelings, notions and a qualitative change inestimating him/herself, others and reality.

It is important to mention here that this opensthe door to spontaneity in learning to accept new rolesmore feely, which allow expression through more ad-equate actions and creativity, enriching what had beenstereotyped patterns of behaviour and actions. The pro-tagonist begins to replace rigidity with life-play, to re-place stereotypical behaviour with the joyfulness of freeaction. However, as distinct from the actor, the pro-tagonist on the stage during the psychodramatic proc-ess must soon return to their role, to take up again the

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burden of his/her own identity and decision-makingresponsibilities of life importance, to face the power ofhis/her own problems in the scenes that follow one af-ter another, derived from the experiential, as well asthe world of fears and unsatisfied drives. S/he is de-prived of the defence mechanism of illusion that theevents on the stage are happening to someone elseand that s/he is only temporarily in that other role. Thuss/he is faced with a fateful importance of human iden-tity and a burden of responsibility before him/herselfand in front of others.

The roles of the director in the theatre and inpsychodrama are fundamentally different. Thepsychodrama director is an active person on the stagewho, first of all, has the role of a therapist, but also of adirector, a critic and the audience at the same time.His/her intimate needs are peripheral—disregarded ifpossible—while his/her capacity and ability for experi-encing the drives and frustrations of the protagonistand tuning these to reality determines the extent towhich s/he succeeds in assessing the potential of theprotagonist’s personality.

It is important to note that certain temporarychanges in the identity of the director’s personality arenecessary in order to adopt such a role during thepsychodramatic process. These occur in a mobile playof entering and exiting the protagonist’s identity withthe aim of understanding the protagonist’s intra-psy-chological happenings and then also in returning andshifting in various positions of his/her own personality

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and acceptance of the role on the stage. Nevertheless,at every moment of the psychodramatic process thedirector is obliged to exist with his/her manifoldness inthe time and space of the inner world of the protago-nist, as well as to participate both in the world on thescene and external reality.

It seems that acting in psychodrama is mostlyrepresented in parts of its manifestation and action inthe form of what is called the auxiliary ego. Importantcharacters from the life of the protagonist and imagi-nary situations in which the protagonist has investedstrong feelings and needs and in which they have ex-perienced strong frustrations, are brought to life duringthe psychodramatic process with the participation ofcertain group members who are chosen by the pro-tagonist and who frequently justify this unconsciouschoice by possessing some features that are very closeto the features of the persons from the protagonist’slife. Taking part in such roles, they are trying with theiracting to provoke as credibly as possible the semblanceof enactment of the authentic situation and thus chal-lenge the feelings and reactions of the protagonist thathave remained unresolved till that moment which, withthe power of its tension and the potential of creatingfear and restlessness, forced the protagonist’s person-ality to run to the unsafe shelter of the role of an ill andsuffering person.

In interpreting the role of the auxiliary ego, act-ing in psychodrama is aimed primarily at meeting the

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needs of the protagonist and at the same time it issubjected to continuous assessment of its authenticity.However, it is very important to highlight here that, af-ter getting out of this role, the member of the groupcarries with them awoken identifications, already knownto him/her or experienced and noticed for the first time,which are brought out to the group and shared withthe protagonist in the next part of the psychodrama—called sharing—after the completion of the staged part.Thus s/he shows acceptance of these contents as his/her own and not as experiences that are only in con-nection with the other person.

The role and place of the audience in the thea-tre also differs greatly from that of the group mem-bers/observers in psychodrama. In the theatre the au-dience is in the auditorium, consisting of more or lessinterested individuals that in the scene dynamics findcertain identifications with their own inner dynamicsand experiences and at the same time give an emo-tional tone to the play with their reactions and thusreflect to the actors the degree of acceptance and esti-mation of the authenticity of the roles and the contentthat is taking place on the scene. The applause afterthe play is again a nonverbal, final sharing of the audi-ence with the actors, and the edge of the stage, as wellas the playing of other people’s roles and not their own,remains there after the play to separate them.

The audience in psychodrama represents morean organism than a group of individuals. Persons and

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objects are brought to life out of it, time and spaces arebuilt, and conflicts are made and resolved on the stage.

At the same time it represents a booster of emo-tions and drives—a surrounding that is ready to acceptunconditionally all aspects of the protagonist’s personal-ity as well as the reality with irrefutable laws of survival.

Although we can find similarities in certain phasesand phenomena of the psychodramatic process withthe art scene (theatre), if would be difficult to identifyany kind of similarity between psychodrama’s sharingand theatre events. Thus the conclusion can be drawnthat sharing is a purely therapeutic, group phenom-enon in which the greater or lesser openings of theintimate worlds of the group members occur, aroused bythe events on the psychodramatic stage. There is alsoan unusually powerful and in many ways unexplainablehealing flow of verbal and nonverbal contents directedto all members of the group, but first of all to the pro-tagonist in gratitude for everything s/he has given.

Closing this small, comparative concept, the au-thor of this text becomes aware that he is being over-whelmed by strong feelings at the refreshed spectacleof the stage in his performances. It is a space whichcan hold the fateful importance of a life choice, a placewhere successes and failure are experienced and thetime is being brought to life in your own roles as well asin the roles of others. It is also a space where it ispossible to end an old life and start a new one…

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GLOSSARY OF PSYCHODRAMATIC TERMSAND TECHNIQUES

Psychodrama is a method which in the course ofits development has created an abundance of definedexpressions and techniques, specific in determiningsome of its contents. A true understanding and learn-ing of these enables not only the achievement of a feel-ing for their conceptual unity but also offers freedomand incentive for further creative improvement.

Following the concept of this book, which en-deavours to offer basic knowledge from the field ofpsychodrama, I have decided to present to the readera basic compendium of psychodramatic expressions andtechniques.

Act CompletionA protagonist ends the scene having succeeded

in expressing and satisfying their inner needs in ac-cordance with reality. Psychodrama offers the possibil-ity for a so-called ‘corrective emotional experience’: tolive an experience that is necessary in the protagonist’s

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present but which has not been experienced in his/herpast due to inadequate surroundings.

Action Sociogram, Action SociometryThis is a technique of portraying a protagonist’s

experiences, derived from the protagonist’s relationswith their immediate surroundings (family, work, presentgroup, etc.). This is expressed in a kind of concrete,physical and spatial presentation of distances, emotionalexperiences and other elements of the relationships ina social atom. Virginia Satir uses this technique underthe name of ‘family sculpture’ and it can also be recog-nized by the term ‘building a sculpture’.

Advice GivingA protagonist receives and gives advice on a

scene that reflects relations with important persons fromhis/her life.

AmplificationThis is an intervention that is performed by a

director or a double with the purpose of promptinggreater expression of a certain verbal or nonverbalpsychodramatic expression.

AudienceThese are the members of a therapeutic or any

other group where the psychodrama is taking place.

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AutodramaOne member of the group is at the same time

the protagonist and the director in his/her drama. Thisdoes not exclude the use of an ‘auxiliary ego’.

Auxiliary EgoThose are the members of a group or trained co-

therapists chosen by the protagonist who play the rolesof important persons and objects from his/her life (a fa-ther, a mother, a boss, etc.). Recently, this term has moreoften come to be replaced by a simpler one: ‘auxiliary’.

Breaking InA protagonist tries to break into the circle that

the group members have formed—intertwined with theirfaces turned to the inside of the circle. This techniqueconfronts the protagonist with certain feelings (usuallystates of isolation).

Breaking OutThe members of a group, who have formed a

circle, hinder the protagonist in his/her intention to getout of the circle (this is usually connected with feelingsof confinement). A short-term use of power by the pro-tagonist is allowed, without any violence or hurting,but with the purpose of gaining a perspective on thestrength of the inner need and readiness to resolve thesymbolic position.

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ChessboardThis is a variation on an action sociogram with

symbolic presentation through the help of chess-pieces

ChorusAt the director’s instruction, the audience or the

group of auxiliaries repeat aloud certain phrases previ-ously said by the protagonist.

ClosureThis denotes the process that goes on after the

enactment, when the participants from the previousscenes are enabled ‘to de-role’ with the purpose of re-gaining distance from the events they have taken partin. This process usually unfolds during the sharing, whenany kind of analysis of the problem which the protago-nist has presented is avoided. Thus is also avoided thedanger, apart from that of not distancing from the role,of creating a position for the insertion of newly acquiredwounds as well as the obstruction of the process ofreturning to one’s own identity. It is always necessaryto allow enough time for the development of the proc-ess of closure.

ConcretizationThis refers to the conveying of abstract formula-

tions in concrete situations and forms on thepsychodrama stage. For this purpose, all members ofthe group, inanimate objects from the surroundings, as

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well as numerous combinations with improvised propscan be used.

Cutting the ActionA director stops the action that is in progress on

the stage with the purpose of clearing up certain situa-tions or re-establishing control over enactment if it ishas been lost. This must be done in a way that is un-derstandable for the protagonist and the group.

DirectorThe person who leads and who is responsible

for the psychodrama in progress. It is necessary for thedirector to be a highly-trained psychotherapist/psychodramatist.

DoubleThis is a member of the group who, at a certain

moment when it is necessary, steps out of the grouponto the stage and stands next to the protagonist, adoptstheir bodily position and then verbally expresses innerstates. Thus s/he prompts the protagonist to expresshis/her contents and gain insight into his/her own innerstate. This basic psychodrama technique must be con-tinuously checked, corrected and adjusted by the pro-tagonist with regard to objectivity and authenticity. Onthe psychodrama stage, there is a possibility for moredoubles to appear (multiple double), who in such casesenable the expression of different parts of ‘the self’.

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Double Protagonist SessionThis is an expression that refers to simultane-

ous psychodramatic performance with two protagonists(a married couple, a parent and a child, etc.)

Dream PresentationA dream is presented on the stage, usually as if it

were happening at the present moment. Psychodramaenables exploration of the contents of the dream, gain-ing greater insight into inner needs and ending in action.

An Empty Chair (‘Auxiliary Chair’)Instead of an auxiliary, an empty chair may rep-

resent the place where it is imagined that a certain per-son is sitting—or may stand for any other inner positionor content with which the protagonist is in an impor-tant relation.

EnactmentThis is a basic psychodramatic expression which

denotes active presentation, i.e. enactment, on thepsychodramatic stage. Members of the group areprompted to portray their life situations in dramatic form,to physically recreate and enact an encounter that ex-ists only in their memories and fantasies. A memberwho has become a protagonist in a certain session ishelped to experience the process in the form of action.This can also refer to contents that relate to the past,the present or the future. The expression contains theessential psychodramatic messages to the group mem-

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bers and the protagonist: ‘Show instead of tell…’ and‘Everything can be expressed in a psychodramatic way…’.

Family PsychodramaPsychodrama in which the group consists of fam-

ily members who get into interaction with the help ofthe director and psychodramatic techniques.

Future ProjectionA situation which the protagonist expects to hap-

pen or wishes to happen in the future is created andenacted on stage.

GibberishWhen repeating the scene, the nonverbal ex-

pression is kept and can be intensified while the verbalelements are substituted by repeating gibberish sylla-bles (e.g. ‘…bla, bla…’, etc.).

Guided FantasyA director, through verbal suggestions, first in-

duces relaxation and then evokes notions with whichhe or she will challenge the members of the group orthe protagonist. This is used as a warm-up technique.

Hallucinatory PsychodramaHallucinatory and delusive contents are portrayed

on the stage, as in dream presentation. Voices are thenpersonalized. The application of this technique assumesgreat clinical experience and accurate assessment.

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HypnodramaPerforming action after a previously induced state

of mild trance. This requires adequate experience inthe field of hypnotherapy on the part of the director.

IdealizationThis is a technique that is directed towards the crea-

tion of the ideal self, parts of the self, as well as of importantpersons from the surroundings (a father, a mother, etc.).

‘In situ’This is the application of a psychodrama in a

true, real ambient (at home, at work, at school …), inother words, where the conflict has been created.

Judgment SceneA judgment scene usually takes place when the

protagonist experiences self-accusation or accusationof someone else.

LightingThis is the use of intensity, rhythm and colour of

light on the stage for the purpose of prompting certainexperiences in the protagonist and the group.

Magic ShopThis is usually a warm-up technique. The mem-

bers of the group go into a shop that can fulfil all theirwishes i.e. where they can get what they most want.

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However, they must ‘negotiate’ and ‘bargain’ with the‘salesperson’ in order to realize their wishes.

MasksChoosing masks and entering their roles. This is

usually used as a warm-up technique in a psychodrama.It is frequently used in drama-therapy.

MirrorThis is one of the basic and most important tech-

niques in psychodrama. A protagonist stands at the sideand observes repeated enactments of the previous scenethat s/he took part in and which is now performed byauxiliaries. This is a technique aimed at strengtheningthe powers of observation and confrontation.

MonodramaA protagonist plays all the roles by him/herself.

This is usually used in individual therapy where ‘theempty chair’ technique is common. It is also a basictechnique in Fritz Perls’ gestalt therapy, which actuallycontains an adaptation of a monodrama technique incombination with his existential and dynamic concepts.

Nonverbal TechniquesThe use of bodily positions, mime, movements,

pantomime, play, dance, music, touch and other non-verbal means of expression in psychodrama with a thera-peutic purpose.

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PersonificationTaking on the roles of inanimate objects which

are important to the protagonist and which are presenton the stage; also refers to the animation of these ob-jects through auxiliaries.

The ProtagonistThis is the main character in a psychodrama that

explores and resolves his/her contents in one or moresessions with the help of a director, auxiliaries, the group,and psychodramatic techniques.

Psychodramatic ShockThis refers to the sudden and unannounced intro-

duction of the protagonist into a traumatic scene for him/her.This technique demands special preconditions

such as a complete warm-up of the protagonist, butalso great therapeutic experience with a precise clinicalassessment on the part of the director. It can be con-sidered a kind of ‘implosive therapy’—or, in other words,a technique of de-conditioning.

ReplayThis is the repeated enactment of a situation on

the stage with certain changes aimed at further promot-ing the achievement of the aimed therapeutic effect.

Role PlayingThis is a basic psychodramatic technique which is

different from the other psychotherapeutic methods. In-

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stead of retelling, a protagonist plays the roles that defineand reflect different positions from inner and outer reality.

Role PresentationA protagonist presents the roles of living and

inanimate objects, important for the situation that ishappening on stage.

Role ReversalAt a certain moment, the action is interrupted

and the protagonist, at the director’s instruction, takesthe role of an important person or object that s/he isinteracting with, and at the same time an auxiliary fromthe group takes the protagonist’s role.

Role TakingTaking on a new role after exiting the old one.

The ability for such a change reflects a potential forspontaneity and creativity.

Role TrainingThis involves practising old roles with the pur-

pose of improving them or replacing them with newroles that are expected in the future. Usually, the be-haviour patterns in certain situations are practiced (athome, at work, in an encounter, etc.).

Slow MotionAt the director’s instruction, the moves on the

stage are slowed down.

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SociodramaThis is an exploration of important relations be-

tween certain social roles (teacher – students, doctors– patients, superiors – subordinates, etc.). It can beused in exploring and creating techniques for resolvingconflicts between ethnic groups, class groups, etc. (Itis often used in a similar form under different names.)

SociometryThis is Moreno’s method of exploring interper-

sonal relations in human groups. One type of this isknown as an action sociogram.

SoliloquyA protagonist expresses aloud the experiences

which flow out during the enactment and which nor-mally stay hidden or suppressed.

SpectrogramThis is a spatial ranking of the intensity and qual-

ity of an experience in relation to an invisible line set inone part of the room.

The StageThis is the space where the psychodrama takes

place. In his centre for psychodrama, Moreno created astage with three levels, shaped in concentric circlesaround a central axis. Usually the stage is one part ofthe room where the group meets and is adapted forsuch a purpose.

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Surplus RealityPsychodrama enables the ‘…enactment of what

has never happened… what will never happen… or whatcan never happen’ (Zerka Moreno). On the stage, posi-tions are created from the inner reality which reflectstrong inner needs, fears and unsolved contents—notfrom everyday and previously experienced reality.

TouchingThe performance of psychodrama allows touch-

ing when it has the function of a positively controlledbodily action. It uses this type of communication asone of the primal experiences, especially important inthe developmental period of a personality. It is mostoften used with the purpose of achieving correctiveemotional experience.

Warm-upThis is the use of countless creative actions for

the purpose of releasing spontaneity, developing groupcohesion, facing a certain problem, creating a specificatmosphere, discovering topics, and more easily enter-ing in some roles, etc.

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PERSPECTIVES

We live in times when a ‘robopathic culture’ ispredominant (Yablonsky, 1979). This is a culture pro-duced by minds which are controlled by the compulsionof maintaining strict individual and social roles underthe pressure of existential, moral, political and physicalcompulsions.

It seems that this culture is being increasinglyrooted, approaching absurdity in the meaning of lifeand existence, by building a man’s identity through iden-tification with role models that are put forward and dic-tated by the centres of rule and power over the massesthrough the serving and continuous controlling of in-formation. Their manipulative power very efficiently andprecisely captures the imaginative potential of the hu-man mind, reducing it to the acceptance of imposedroles and their stereotypical preservation. Spontaneityis decreasingly represented in the everyday life of indi-viduals, while creativity and freedom of expression andcreation disappear. With such a statement we are di-rectly faced with the truth of the possibility of the reali-zation of Moreno’s predictions on states in ‘the cultural

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tin’ and its future. This is clearly seen in the increasingdestruction, in other words, in the more powerful ten-dencies of civilization to destroy life and conditions forsurvival on Earth. This will be the final result of theauthoritarian-hierarchy models of unconditional pres-ervation of authority and economic power over themasses, regardless of whether those systems call them-selves ‘democratic’, ‘market-oriented’, ‘socialist’, ‘com-munist’, etc.

This supposition brings us closer again to Freud’sshattering visions as to the outcome of the strugglebetween two basic drives, Eros and Thanatos. It seemthat social energy is negatively possessed, realizing it-self through constant struggle between the rigid rolesof physically and psychologically uniform human be-ings, unauthentic creators of their own performancesof personal identity, driven more by the principle of envyand hatred than the need for understanding and love.Confinement in rigid roles at the same time also closesthe boundaries of such ‘cut out’ individuals towards oth-ers; it makes one feel more isolated, less understoodand accepted by the surroundings; it prevents one’sfree communication and spontaneity in encounters; aswell as preventing creative action in everyday life. Theneed for belonging to a group and protection of possi-ble rejections by a social atom are realized by joiningand supporting formal groups created by impersonal ormechanized roles.

And if we try to look or understand from thisstandpoint the true responsibility that a man carries for

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himself and for the other, for his children and life ingeneral, we shall face the impossibility of finding it insuch a cultural-civilization model of joint living, not evenin so-called ‘humanitarian institutions’ which functionwithin the previous model, except partially in some roles.At this moment, we can only find it in scattered oasesof isolated groups and individuals who are sincerely dedi-cated to creative living of time, space and reality—thoseindividuals who are most often misunderstood and, asa rule, rejected by the stereotypes of the environmentin which they strive to create.

The logical question arises: where might be theplace of psychodrama in view of such a social struc-ture? We shall try to find the answer to this question inits philosophical foundations and in the technical possi-bilities that it offers.

The basic goal of psychodrama is to developspontaneity which will enable the release of creativityin real life. The space in which these mechanisms areactivated is that of an encounter: a person with an-other person, a person with a group, of one personwith another; of an individual with a group; of an indi-vidual with themselves; of an individual with elementsfrom their surroundings; of an individual with their im-ages, fantasies, suppositions, wishes, assessments,misperceptions; with their past, present and future; withtheir dream and their reality… Having achieved sponta-neity through the psychodramatic techniques of liber-ating the imagination of previously rigid and repeatedroles, the participant in these encounters is ready to

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take on the responsibility to make creative changes atthe moment of action, to face the conflict between theirinner needs and the forces of reality—finding in thatmoment, as a ‘revolutionary category’, an adequate crea-tive solution. Thus they will become an active agent andinitiator of changes and no longer a passive recipient.

What the psychodramatic approach can offer toeveryday life is the adoption of freedom in one’s ownimagination and faith in its power, as well as the abilityto check the possibilities for its realization in reality.Changes in the states of imaginative power of the hu-man mind finally result in changes of cultural laws. Af-ter all, in his imagination man has created God and themoral and all other laws of social life, as well as theorder that has to be respected by the individuals thatcreate that society. A person should allow themselvesthe freedom to check these constantly through the spon-taneous play of their imagination, with a responsibilityto life and survival, making new possibilities for thepresent and the future and finally with creativity.

How feasible this will be in the existing‘robopathic culture’ only time will tell…

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P R A C T I C E

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VIGNETTES(PSYCHODRAMATIC IMAGES)

IntroductionWork performed on the contents developed within

one scene enacted on stage is called a psychodramaticvignette. These are usually used for several purposes: as awarm up for the protagonist for further and deeper open-ing of the topic; as initial work in the psychodrama; as thesegment in the group treatment of a topic; as a model forresearch into the dynamics of the roles in a certain constel-lation; as an initial confrontation with internal resistance;with the aim of closure of previous work on oneself; as amodel for release from a role; when there is not enoughtime, etc. It can last from a few seconds up to severalminutes. In the text that follows, I offer more complexforms of vignettes in order to acquaint the reader withtheir potential power when working on different topics.

VIGNETTE No. 1: ‘ME AND MY NEGATIVE ROLES’

Protagonist: A thirty-year-old female member ofthe group who has been doing psychodrama for twoyears in a row.

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Topic: A meeting with her negative roles (dis-covered in the warm-up ‘Write down what is good andwhat is bad within yourself…’)

Director: - What are those negative roles? Posi-tion them on the stage…

Protagonist: (deliberates for a moment, thenclimbs on stage and places a chair in the middle of thestage) This is me… (Instructed by the Director, she se-lects a member of the group to assume the role of ‘I’and then places a large cushion at the left side of thestage). This is the first role. This is a group of adultswho always impose themselves and never change theiropinion…

Director: - Assume their role and present it tothe group.

The Protagonist assumes the role and enacts agroup of adult people with unchangeable principleswhich they use to influence others.

Director: - What is your main message for therole of I?

Adults: - You must work and behave properly!Just as we did, and those before us… One should stick tothe rules, not change them! The rest is unimportant…

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After this, the Director asks the protagonist toabandon the role and select someone else from thegroup to assume it. The Protagonist chooses one mem-ber of the group (who previously in the sociodramaspontaneously selected the role of the parent!) and thenthe Director asks her to reveal her next role. The Pro-tagonist places a cushion at the opposite end of thestage, to the right of the chair where her ‘I’ sits. This isthe role of self-assured children—teenagers who do notobey anyone. The Director instructs her to assume thisrole, to experience it and address its main message tothe role of I.

Children: (addressing the message to the chairwhere the member of the group in the role of I sits):We will do only what we want. We know what we wantand we don’t change our attitudes. I listen to no one; Iknow everything (she puts her hand under her head ina theatrical manner and with a challenging gaze).

The Director instructs the Protagonist to aban-don that role and select a member of the group whoshould assume the role instead. The Protagonist re-veals her third role by placing a chair for that role to theright and very close to the chair where the role of I sits.

Protagonist: - This is the role of people who can-not manage in life, who always ask for help and atten-tion. I is always focused on them to help them.

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Director: - Assume this role and address the roleof I. See what the main message is that this role sendsout to it.

Role: - I am helpless… I need help, I can’t man-age. Come on! Help me, please, I can’t make it on myown. Listen to my misfortunes, see how hard it is forme… It is always so hard for me, I don’t know what todo… I am the role of HELPLESSNESS.

The Director asks the Protagonist to abandonthis role and select someone from the group to playthis role. When the chosen member sits on the chair ofthe role of helplessness, the Director asks the Protago-nist to reveal her last role. The Protagonist places yetanother chair to the right, near the place where shepositioned her previous role, in the direction of the roleof the CHILDREN. Instructed by the Director, she as-sumes her last role and enacts it. Soon it becomes clearthat this is a role of negative people; that is, peoplewho always find bleak meanings in everything and in-terpret all events in their environment with a negativeconnotation. The Director instructs this role to addressits ‘main message’ to the role of I.

Negative Person: - Everything is negative. I can’tsee anything good in anything that happens. This is nogood, that is no good… Think about it, it is no good… Youshould be trying to dissuade me, but you should knowthat I don’t give up my negative conclusions easily.

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When this last role has been introduced, the Di-rector pulls the Protagonist out of it, helps her select anassistant from the group who would take up this role andasks her to leave the stage. At this moment, only those inthe roles of I, ADULTS, CHILDREN, HELPLESS AND NEGA-TIVE PERSON are left on stage. The assistants to whomthese roles have been allocated wait for a signal from theDirector to bring their roles to life. The Director sends theProtagonist to find a place in the psychodrama theatrefrom whence she could easily follow the events on stage.Next, he instructs the assistants to start bringing to lifetheir roles one at a time, following the same order in whichthey were staged and by using the body language andwords demonstrated during the introduction of the roles.The role of ADULTS is the first to speak, followed by theothers with their main and closing messages for the roleof I. Throughout all this, the Protagonist observes thestage actions with utmost interest, reacting occasionallywith strong facial expressions, changes in the position ofher body and in the rhythm of her breathing, as well aswith pressing her right hand against her face. When it isover, the Director instructs the assistants to re-enact thesame scene but without following the exact order, devel-oping spontaneous communication on the stage. This leadsto greater dynamics: the stage is astir and the tension isup both on the stage and in the audience.

Director (to the Protagonist): - What is happen-ing on the stage? How do you experience this and doyou have any comments?

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Protagonist: - I must somehow sort out this pres-sure on me which I can see on the stage. It can’t go onlike this anymore… It’s been too long.

Director: - Assume the role of I when you feelready and try to change something, the way you feelthat you should.

Soon after, the Director restarts the scene onthe stage with the Protagonist assuming her role. Shechooses the option to elaborate her relations with eachrole separately, starting with ADULTS. By reversing theroles several times and through focused psychodramatictechniques, the Protagonist first discovers the originsof this role in her relationship with her parents. Thenshe faces her own resistance to change and the variousforms of its internal and external manifestations. Hav-ing done this, she is ready to resolve her previous rela-tionship with this role, gaining an insight into the possi-bility of an integrative solution. The Protagonist ad-dresses her last message to the role of the ADULTSwith a visible relief:

Protagonist: - You are free to keep your prin-ciples, I am sure that mine are OK.

This is followed by a similar psychodramatic actwith the role of CHILDREN. At one point during thepsychodramatic enactment of the scene, the Director

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instructs the Protagonist to recognize the relationshipcreated on stage: that is, to think of the person whocould be on the other side in real life, playing the roleof CHILDREN. The Protagonist quickly recognizes her-self in this role when she was a child and a young per-son—that is, her stubborn and rebellious patterns ofthought and behaviour whose negative effect on herpresent self she has not been aware. Then she addressesher last message to this role:

Protagonist: - It is good that you have survivedintact, alive and kicking. But from now on, I will followa different path, the path of wisdom.

This is followed by a confrontation of the Pro-tagonist with the role of HELPLESS. This encounter isinitially dominated by a pattern of persistent unsuccess-ful attempts to help someone else, whose state of help-lessness no assistance could change. By role reversaland through focusing techniques and psychodramaticamplification techniques suggested by the Director, theProtagonist reaches the conclusion that she has beenunnecessarily and unsuccessfully playing the role of a‘saviour’. Eventually, she discovers that this role depletesher energy unnecessarily and that HELPLESS should bereferred to professionals for help. This resolution of theunnecessary and unconscious feeling of guilt leads to agreat release of tension in her and to a feeling of per-sonal liberation. The closing message is:

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Protagonist: - I really cannot help you. You needprofessional help. And if you do not seek it, that will beyour own choice.

The last encounter is with the role of NEGATIVEPEOPLE. The development of the psychodramatic en-counter with this role leads to an insight that there aremany negative roles around whose messages bringdown the Protagonist’s mood and motivation with greatpower. The Director’s interventions enable the Protago-nist to recognize persons from real life who play thisrole in her life. Subsequently, the Protagonist choosesto resolve this relationship through a change of her at-titude toward these persons. Her final message is:

Protagonist: - I don’t want to share your nega-tive attitude towards life. Life for me is beautiful and Iwant to live it in a positive way. You can remain nega-tive if you want, but without me.

Following this resolution, the last assistant leavesstage and the Protagonist is left alone. Her face is illu-minated, her body is visibly liberated and moves spon-taneously. The Director invites her to use the followingfew minutes for a spontaneous action. The Protagonistexpresses a wish to stay on stage a bit longer. She movesand gazes at the empty chairs on the stage with plea-sure, she sits for a moment on her chair, she looksaround for a couple of seconds checking other details

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on the stage, then she stands up and with a smile onher face she leaves the stage and joins the group.

Commentary:The vignette in this example was used for

the discovery of roles which participate in theformation of the protagonist’s internal conflictconstellation: that is, for an initial insight intothe psychodynamics of her needs and resis-tances. In this vignette, through the techniquesof role reversal and addressing main messages,I allowed a certain degree of satiation of the‘hunger for enactment’ while simultaneouslytesting the status of certain Ego-capacities.

VIGNETTE No. 2 ‘STOMACH-ACHE’

Protagonist: A thirty-five-year-old female partici-pant in the seminar; a beginner in psychodrama.

Topic: While attempting to formulate the topic,after a long period of deliberation, the protagonist an-nounces that she is unable to do so, that she doesn’tknow what she could work on… She is evidently tense,becomes more and more restless, falls silent and staresat the floor. She covers her stomach with both handsand presses it with them unconsciously. The directornotices the importance of this nonverbal communica-tion and follows the signs of her body language. He

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focuses the protagonist on defining the dominant inter-nal experience and subsequently the Protagonist an-nounces that she is overcome by severe stomach-ache.

Director: - Let’s set this on the stage… Placesomething on the stage which will represent you.

Protagonist: (after a little consideration andsearching with her gaze, finally picks up a chair andplaces it in the middle of the stage) - This is me.

Director: - What could represent the ‘stomach-ache’ in this sculpture? Try to find something in thisspace which could be used to represent it and place iton the stage in a way in which you feel that, at this verymoment, the pain is related to the chair which repre-sents you in this psychodrama.

The Protagonist reacts quickly; she is evidentlyeager now to work on stage and chooses a large cush-ion that she puts over the chair. The Protagonist re-sponds to the Director’s comments that, within the sculp-ture, the size of the cushion dominates over the size ofthe chair, with the following words:

Protagonist: - It’s that way because this is a caseof severe pressure on the stomach.

The Director invites her to assume the role ofthe pressure and to demonstrate her role to the group

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in a nonverbal manner. The Protagonist puts her handson top of each other and, with her arms straight, pressesthe cushion on the chair directly and strongly. The Di-rector then guides her into a state in which she will beable to recognize the message of this role and verbalizeit in the form of a ‘main message’.

Pressure: - I am your pain… I am your pain…(the Protagonist’s eyes are soon brimming with tears)

This is followed by the Director’s instruction to aban-don the role and select someone from the group to be the‘pressure’ and then to assume the role of herself. TheProtagonist chooses one member of the group and sits onthe chair putting the cushion over herself and hugging itacross the middle. The assistant previously selected forthe role of the pressure assumes his role and starts simul-taneously applying pressure on the Protagonist’s stomachand repeating the main message, addressing it directly tothe Protagonist. The Protagonist’s face screws as the painin the stomach increases. She starts crying…

Director: - What is going on?

Protagonist: - I feel a severe pain in my stom-ach. I feel a great turmoil within…

The Director instructs the Protagonist to try andrecognize the duration of this pain and its impact onher psychological behaviour. This leads the Protagonist

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to the realization that this pain has been present withinher for a long time—since her childhood. This pain makesher insecure, with a low level of self-confidence, con-fused and indecisive…

Protagonist: - I am unable to make the rightchoice. It makes me feel furious…

Director: - Be in touch with the feeling you areexperiencing at this moment… Try to surrender to itand sense where it is taking you, to what time, whatspace and situations…

The Director gives a signal to the assistant toreassume the role of the ‘pressure’. After a short enact-ment of the stage action, the Protagonist announceswith excitement that she can remember the period whenit all started, and that is the time when she was sup-posed to choose in which high school to enrol.

Protagonist: - Along with elementary school, Iattended a ballet school. The only thing I really wantedwas to continue my education in the secondary balletschool… But my father would not hear of it. He saidonly, ‘Your salary would be low. Choose something else,’and that was the end of it. I stayed silent, I repressedeverything, but severe pain has persisted since… (cries).I regret not having chosen the secondary ballet school.

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I regret not having said anything… (cries again). Noth-ing has worked for me since. I can’t finish anything I’vestarted. I feel helpless and unsuccessful.

Director: - Would you like to meet your fathernow, on stage, and tell him about the feelings and real-izations you are experiencing at this moment?

The Protagonist immediately accepts this ideaand, instructed by the Director, she selects a memberof the group who, as an assistant, would take up therole of the father. The Director instructs the Protagonistto assume the role of her father briefly so that he canbe portrayed and warms up the participants for theensuing encounter. The portrayal of the role of the fa-ther discloses a person with the usual opinions aboutlife and with the single goal of preparing his child forsafer professional roles in her future life. After she hasportrayed her father, the Protagonist returns to her ownrole and the assistant adopts the role of the father. TheDirector signals that the stage action should begin. TheDirector focuses the Protagonist on the importance ofexpressing the feelings which she reached in the previ-ous scene concerning her choice of secondary school.

Protagonist: (thoughtfully) - We haven’t actu-ally talked since then. I never tell him anything when Isee him.

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Director: - It seems the right time to try and tellhim all you have suppressed that concerns him and hisinfluence on you and your decisions since then.

The Protagonist is silent for a while and avoidslooking her father in the eyes. With support from theDirector and the rest of the group, she starts telling herfather about the consequences she has suffered in herinternal world since her decision. She pronounces hersentences with difficulties; she is tense and avoids look-ing at her father directly. At one point, she asks him whyhe decided what he decided then and why he didn’t ac-cept her wishes. The Director then interrupts the enact-ment and asks the Protagonist and the assistant to re-verse their roles. In the role of her father, the Protagonistdiscovers that, at the time, he was not aware of the emo-tional importance of his decision for her and of the im-pact it would have on her future psychological balance.

Father: - If I knew then how important it was toyou and that it would significantly affect your life andefficiency, I would certainly have supported you to en-rol in the secondary ballet school.

The Director gives another signal for a reversalof roles between the Protagonist and the assistant. Now,in the role of herself, the Protagonist concludes thatshe might have contributed to the development of sucha situation by remaining silent and suppressing her own

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feelings, as well as by automatically expecting that herfather must have been aware and understanding of herfeelings and intentions at the time. This insight furtherleads to evident release of tension and to closer com-munication with the father. This is followed by a closingmessage addressed to the father:

Protagonist: - We should talk more often, thetwo of us… I feel we can talk about many things.

During the final messages, the Protagonist spon-taneously thrusts aside the cushion which was on herstomach and, after a consultation with the Director, shesends the assistant playing the role of the pressure backin the audience. Finally, she takes leave of her father.

Director: - How do you feel now? Do you stillsuffer from stomach-ache?

Protagonist: - I feel completely unburdened andfree, with no pain in my stomach and no pressure uponmy body. I feel sure and confident after so many years…

The Director suggests that the Protagonist re-main on stage and in touch with herself as long as shefeels it necessary to reach stabilization of the achievedinternal equilibrium. After a while, the Protagonist leavesthe stage and returns to the group and the members ofthe group immediately start sharing their impressions.

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Commentary:This vignette serves as an example of how

to externalize, concretize physical sensationwith focused psychodramatic techniques andhow to transform repressed content into the in-terpersonal relationship from which it was de-rived. Within the same scene, the main prohibi-tion, previously ‘somatized’ in her relationshipwith the father, is then worked upon. The vi-gnette also served as an initial experience andintroduction into psychodramatic techniquesand a warm-up for future, more profound workon herself.

VIGNETTE No. 3: ‘I DON’T KNOW…’

Protagonist: A fifty-five-year-old female memberof the group, involved in psychodrama for several yearswith occasional interruptions.

Topic: Having completed the warm-up, this mem-ber of the group puts herself forward as a potentialprotagonist. In the process of further selection, sheconfirms her readiness to be one of the four protago-nists who will each enact a vignette on stage. However,when the topics which are to be treated are discussed,the protagonist falls into a state of confusion and whenrepeatedly asked about the topic on which she wantsto work, she repeats her answer ‘I don’t know…’ and

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stares absently either at the director and the group ordownwards at the floor.

Director: - Let us stage this ‘I don’t know’. I wouldlike to ask you to assume this role and present it to us.

At first, the Protagonist directs her surprised gazeat the Director and the group and then, with a sly smileon her face, takes the central space at the back of thestage. The Director then instructs this role to present her-self loudly to the audience. The Protagonist still glancesslyly either at the Director or at the others, remains silent,intermittently sways the upper part of her body and re-peats several times: ‘I don’t know’. This is followed by theDirector’s instruction to select someone from the groupwho would take up the role of the Protagonist. This selec-tion is then followed by an instruction to address a mes-sage, from the role of I DON’T KNOW to the Protagonist,that is, to the assistant playing the role of the Protagonist.

DON’T KNOW: - I don’t know… (She gazes enig-matically into the Protagonist’s eyes)

The Director issues an instruction to reverseroles.

Protagonist: - What do you mean you don’tknow? You repeat that all the time… do you know whatyou do to me with that I DON’T KNOW…?

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The Director issues an instruction for anotherrole reversal.

DON’T KNOW: Remains silent, nods with herhead and shrugs her shoulders.

After several role reversals, the Protagonist man-ages to gain insight into all areas where this internalrole obstructs her everyday life, and especially the inhi-bition of any spontaneous expression of emotions thatthis role triggers. Since the agreement with the Direc-tor is to work within the framework of one vignette, theProtagonist ends her stage action with a message forthe future, that she will soon meet this role again andthen she will explore it and resolve it completely. Afterthis concluding message, the Protagonist and the Di-rector return to the group and start the group sharing.

Commentary:This is an example of a vignette in which a

defence mechanism is selected as the main con-tent for psychodramatic treatment because it op-erates as a component of the protagonist’s ‘char-acter armour’. The choice of this defence mecha-nism is owed to its taking the role of theprotagonist’s central unconscious resistance toher psychotherapeutic progress. I used the vi-gnette for ‘first confrontation’ and ‘mild clarifi-

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cation’—that is, as basic preparation for furtherwork on the protagonist’s resistances.

VIGNETTE No. 4: ‘POSITIVE ME’

Protagonist: A thirty-five-year-old member of thegroup who has been attending the psychodrama groupfor more than a year.

Topic: This member of the group explained hisdecision to put himself forward as a potential protago-nist of one of the vignettes with the sentence: ‘I’ve hadenough of working only on negative things… For once Iwould like to see positive things on stage!’ When askedby the Director what the positive topic at that momentmight be, after short deliberation, the Protagonist re-sponds: ‘I would like to see my positive characteristicsstaged, those on which I could rely now and in future.’

The Director then instructs the Protagonist to dem-onstrate on stage the positive characteristics he wouldlike to meet. He suggests that he should select someonefrom the group/audience for each of them and positionthem on the stage in the same manner as he feels thatthey are positioned in his ‘internal space’. The Protago-nist starts pacing the stage and, every now and then,chooses someone from the audience and assigns themwith a role. The first role he stages is ‘my creativity’ and

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positions it to the right of the centre stage. Immediatelyafter, he selects a member of the group for the role of‘relaxation’ and positions them to the left of the centrestage. He positions ‘intuition’ behind the central space ofthe stage and ‘entrepreneurialism’ in the front. The Di-rector instructs him to assume each role separately andpresent them to the audience; then he instructs him toexit the roles and asks the selected members of the groupto ‘take up their roles’ and enact them. The Protagoniststands aside and observes each presentation of the roleswith great attention. Occasionally, a smile appears onhis face, which he hides with his hand over his mouth.When asked by the Director about his experience of thesepositive roles observed from a distance, the Protagonistresponds with pleasure:

Protagonist: - They appear very good, seen likethis, from a distance. Can this continue, I would like itto last longer…

The Director gives a positive answer and instructsthe Protagonist to be in touch with himself and stop theaction when he feels a need to do so. Having observedstage action for a few minutes while the roles developspontaneous communication, the Protagonists gives asignal to the Director that he wants to interrupt it, an-nouncing his need to join them and take up centralposition. When asked by the Director what is going on,the Protagonist responds:

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Protagonist: - I would like to see how I wouldfeel inside, running such a ‘machine’…!?

With the Director’s approval, the Protagonisttakes up the central role and takes a seat in a comfort-able chair he has chosen himself. The Director theninstructs the other roles to continue with the enact-ment. After a short while, the Protagonist starts instruct-ing each role himself and helps the enactment. Havingcome under the impression that the ‘machine’ is coor-dinated, he sits back in his central position and directshis gaze ahead of him in the distance with a pleasedand visionary expression on his face. At one point, heturns towards the Director with a request to share hiscurrent feelings with the group. When asked by theDirector, the group gives a positive answer.

Protagonist: - I feel brilliant with free intuitionbehind me, making good observations and steering di-rection. The entrepreneur in the front deals greatly withthe resolution of tasks in a precise and successful man-ner. The wings on the sides, relaxation and creativity,make the flight of this machine beautiful and peaceful.That’s it…

Having taken his time, he gives the Director asignal that he has finished with his enactment. He re-mains alone on stage for a short while, in central posi-tion, ‘breathing in’ this new internal constellation and

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then slowly raises and goes to his place in the group.The group starts the sharing.

Commentary:This vignette was used for construction

and testing of a new assumed internal reality,achieved through the technique of ‘surplus real-ity’ and ‘future projection’. Psychodrama is oneof the rare psychotherapeutic techniques whichsuccessfully allows for such manoeuvres, as wellas for an attainment of concrete trial experiencethrough stage enactment.

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SHORT PSYCHODRAMA

IntroductionShort psychodrama is a stage action which oc-

curs in several scenes. It lasts longer than a vignette,usually over a time span of half an hour to an hour. It ismost commonly used when there are two or more po-tential protagonists with a high degree of enthusiasmwhich convinces the director that psychodramatic workmust be performed with them without any delay. Shortpsychodrama is also recommended when the protago-nist is not yet prepared for more concise insights andemotional catharsis of a higher level. It is also used formore profound exploration of roles than that of a vi-gnette.

ExampleA twenty-six-year-old member of the group an-

nounces after the warm-up that she is prepared to workon herself, ‘but not too much’. The group agrees to herbeing the protagonist in the period which follows thewarm-up, planned for the enactment of a ‘short drama’.The Director invites the Protagonist to go on stage and

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present the topic on which she would like to work. TheProtagonist slowly climbs on the stage, moves slowlyacross it and stands next to the Director, staring at thefloor.

Topic formulation

Director: - How could we formulate the topic onwhich you would like to work now?

Protagonist: (deliberates while staring at the floorand swaying her body, and then raises her eyes to-wards the Director with a curious expression on herface) - Where am I here?

Scene 1

Director: - Let us assume that this space aroundyou on the stage is your ‘here’… Be in touch with thisspace, move across it and see what that contact bringsabout.

The Protagonist remains immobile for a whileand then starts moving across the stage.

Protagonist: - I am afraid…

Director: - Continue moving and try to feel whatyou are actually walking on.

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Protagonist: (moving somewhat stiffly) I wouldlike to live here and now, not in the past!

Director: - Be here and now and see everythingwhich belongs to it. Move in this space… Communicatethrough movements. Roll over. Crawl on the floor. Sampleall possible movements. Touch the ground, what youfeel here and now…

The Protagonist is more and more spontaneous,starts moving freely, then walks in circles, rolls over onthe floor, performs cartwheels. Soon after, her laughtercan be heard, released as she moves.

Director: - Choose the positions you would liketo explore.

Scene 2

After short deliberation, the Protagonist choosesfive positions/poses and guided by the Director she pre-sents them and reveals their messages. She starts witha position in which the Protagonist is lying stretched onher stomach on the floor with her head resting on herarms ahead of her body and the message is: ‘This is howI usually think and send myself to sleep’. The next posi-tion is when she is lying on her back: ‘Daydreaming. Thisis when I feel the best.’ This is then followed by a posi-tion where she is lying on her side with her legs folded:

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‘This is how I cry.’ The following position is a yoga posi-tion with the message: ‘Safety’. The fifth position is onein which she is sitting on the floor with her legs crossedbefore her and her body reclining on her arms stretchedbackwards: ‘I feel good and I communicate freely.’

Director: - Explore each role separately.

The Protagonist chooses to start with the posi-tion on her side. Having selected an assistant, the Di-rector brings the scene to life with an instruction to theassistant to take up the role and say the main message‘This is how I cry’ addressed to the Protagonist. This isfollowed by a reversal of roles.

Protagonist: (having heard the message ad-dressed to her by the role) - You are a part of me. Youappear when I am supposed not to ‘freak out’. But some-times you shouldn’t, I am not that strong…

Position on its side: - You should be controllingme. You should learn how to control me.

Protagonist: - When did you appear? Why didyou appear? I am bothered when you’re here. You’relike a leech… You bother me!

Position on its side: - You can’t remain a child allyour life. You should be responsible. You relieve your-

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self through me, you feel alive. What am I supposed todo when you identify yourself with me?

Protagonist: - I sometimes feel you are a need.But you appear irrationally, very often. I don’t like you!

Position on its side: - I don’t understand whatyou want of me. When and why should I appear? Tellme how I should control myself?

Protagonist: - When there is a real need, real pain,that’s when you should appear. But when I don’t needyou, do not come uninvited. When I move ahead, don’tcome to me. You’re not letting me live a normal life.

Position on its side: - All right. However you de-fine me, that’s what is going to be.

Protagonist: (concluding message) You are a partof me; do not push it. I will control you. You should beassisting me. To think… Well.

The Protagonist abandons this role and turnstowards the other roles on the stage. She selects theposition ‘I feel good and I communicate freely’ withlegs crossed in the front and the arms stretched back.

Protagonist: (final message) - I need you seventypercent of the time. Many people like you. Stay as you are.

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In the role reversal which follows, this positionconfirms her readiness for cooperation. This is followedby an encounter with the daydreaming part.

Protagonist: - I need you too, but not as much.Appear when I ask you to, when I have concrete aims,related to health, when I’m working on something…

Role: - I will appear when I really need to helpyou. But you need to control yourself when you reallyneed creative aims, motivation in that sense… Don’tpush it.

Having integrated with these messages, the Pro-tagonist meets the rest of the roles/positions in the samemanner. After her exchange of messages with the roleof safety and the yoga position, the Protagonist inte-grates the possibility of calm and peacefulness. Withthe role of thinking and sending herself to sleep - theposition of lying on her stomach with her head restingon her arms stretched forward, she agrees upon a use-ful dosage of its necessary presence in the future.

Director: - It seems that the pleasant emotionsset themselves on one side and the negative on theother. Where are you most often?

Protagonist: - With the negative emotions or in-between…

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Director: How often do you find yourself in-be-tween?

Protagonist: - Very often. Always…

Director: - Let us see what it would look likewhen enacted on stage!? Would you like us to set thosetwo sides and you in between them on stage and thento explore what is actually going on?

Scene 3

The Protagonist gives a positive answer and, as-sisted by the Director, sets the roles on both sides andherself in the middle with her arms stretched. At theDirector’s signal, both groups start pulling the Protago-nist to their side.

Director: - Surrender yourself to what is hap-pening. Be in touch with your feelings and see where itwould lead you.

A scene follows in which the Protagonist is tornbetween the two sides which pull her each towardsthemselves. The Director observes that the event tak-ing place on stage is very similar to the image/collagewhich the Protagonist brought in prior to this psycho-drama. This image consisted of butterflies and a tree inthe right bottom corner, a river running diagonally across

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the picture, and human figures in various positions inthe top left corner. The river divides these two sides,just as the Protagonist does in the sculpture occurringon stage at the present moment. Faced with this obser-vation of similarity of both compositions, the Protago-nist suddenly adopts a firm physical stance on the stage,making attempts to control her being pulled away intwo opposite directions.

Protagonist: - I can’t continue like this anymore!I don’t feel well, as if I have butterflies in my stomach…

Director: - Try to do something about what isgoing on with you at the moment. You can build a sculp-ture which would include all roles and feelings impor-tant to you at the moment and construct a figure whichwould have the right composition with a meaningfulmessage for the future.

Scene 4

The Protagonist leaves her previous role and dis-tances herself briefly from the stage, observing the entiresituation progressing on it. She returns on stage withquick steps and with spontaneous movements placesher assistants in certain positions which represent partsof the final sculpture. While doing so, she provides themwith the messages which they are supposed to containwithin themselves, so that later they can address them

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to her. Eventually, a sculpture appears on the stage madeout of the group of assistants who, each from their ownrole, send messages for the future to the Protagonist.The Protagonist is instructed by the Director to remainin contact with them as long as she needs to integratethese messages and, if she feels she needs to, to re-spond to them with her own messages or questions.Soon after, the Protagonist expresses her gratitude tothe messages and addresses her final message to themthat she will try to achieve continual cooperation withthem in the future.

After the conclusion of this scene, both the Di-rector and the Protagonist return within the psycho-drama group and start the third stage, group sharing.

Commentary:This example was selected for its use of

non-verbal expression— that is, body language—as well as for its spontaneously expressed ques-tion for the formulation of a topic which previ-ously the Protagonist could not formulate andwhich turned out to be very important to her atthat moment. I continued using the Protagonist’snon-verbal expressions in the course of this shortpsychodrama, which were usually renderedthrough body language and psychosomatic re-actions, in order to start the exploration of theinternal roles which ‘spoke’ through them, as

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well as the emotional complexes related to thesetypes of unconscious manoeuvres and resis-tances. By applying the techniques of voicing,concretization, sculpture and role playing, I en-abled the Protagonist’s encounter with them onstage, as well as her first attempt at experienc-ing integration.

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PSYCHODRAMA AND ANXIETY DISORDERS

IntroductionPsychodrama is potentially a powerful tool when

working with anxiety disorders. The main requirementbeing that the Director who conducts thepsychodramatic treatment is knowledgeable in the areaof the psychodynamics of the unconscious as well asexperienced in practical work with stress disorders. Oneof the characteristics of these disorders is that mentalcontents are always blocked with phantasms of the typedescribed as ‘bad thoughts’. They can exercise pres-sure from the unconscious, thus provoking anxiety, orcan emerge in the consciousness through forced rep-etition, causing experiences of panicking fear. I cite thefollowing example in order to demonstrate the specificpsychodramatic approach to the treatment of thesecontents.

ExampleA thirty-four-year-old member of the group has

attended the psychodrama group for more than a year.Prior to this, he underwent individual analytic therapy

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for almost a year. After his initial scepticism regardingthe efficiency of psychodrama and group work, he ac-cepts the method of psychodramatic treatment withenthusiasm and becomes a regular member of the groupand often acts as a protagonist, being prepared to sharehis internal reality with the other members of the group.At one point, during the second day of the seminar, hebegins sharing with the group his experience of ‘enthu-siasm’. He announces to the group his need to be theprotagonist in the current session, but also the absenceof any ‘clear topic’ in his head…

Formulating the topic

Director: - Focus on your internal feelings andthe emotions you are experiencing at the moment.

Protagonist: - I experience a strong feeling ofimprisonment (his face becomes more and more tense),tautness… (starts breathing heavily). I feel it moststrongly as a powerful pressure in my chest and neck…(turns his head right and left, touches his neck withone hand and covers his chest with the other).

Scene 1

Director: - Can you present your chest and neckon stage the way you experience them. Build a sculp-ture out of the objects you can see here in your sur-

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roundings. Choose and act spontaneously, as you feelat the moment…

The Protagonist picks up two large cushions andplaces them next to each other and identifies them ashis ‘chest’. He places a smaller object above them in therole of his own ‘neck’ tightened with a belt. Above the‘neck’ he places a plastic bag which represents his ‘head’.

Director: - Now, look at this figure from a dis-tance. Is anything missing?

After short observation, the Protagonist an-nounces that the chest should be pressed from the sideand places two chairs on both sides to press the ‘chest’- cushions.

Director: - Take up the role of the part of thesculpture which presses the chest and try to discoverthe main message of this role.

The Protagonist sits on one of the chairs andtakes up the role of the ‘side pressure on the chest’. Inthis role, he discovers the main message addressed tothe interior of the chest (represented by cushions inthe sculpture) and expresses it as: ‘ I won’t let youbreathe freely’. He accompanies this with a non-verbalexpression of this role by pressing the cushions— the‘chest’—with both arms and legs. The Director instructs

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the Protagonist to abandon this role and select mem-bers of the group who would play the roles of the ‘sidepressure on the chest’. Having selected the assistantsto play the role, the Protagonist is further instructed bythe Director to take up the role of the ‘neck’ and dis-cover the main message of that role.

Protagonist (in the role of the neck): - I can’tbreathe, I’ll suffocate…!! (a message to the Protagonist’s‘interior’, physically expressed by clenching his handsaround the ‘neck’ of the sculpture).

The Director ‘pulls him out’ of this role and in-structs the Protagonist to select a new assistant for therole of the neck. Having selected the assistant who takesup the role of the neck, the Protagonist is instructed bythe Director to assume the role of the head in order todiscover its ‘main message’ in this sculpture and to ‘voiceit by announcing it aloud.

Protagonist (in the role of the head): - Manythoughts… too many thoughts which cause chaos! (Thisis physically represented by lying on the side with hisback to the neck and the chest and facing the wall).

Having instructed the Protagonist to abandonthe role and select an assistant from the group to playthis role, the Director also instructs the assistants toassume their roles and occupy their positions, and then

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directs the Protagonist to the position of the ‘interior’,asks him to assume the role of the chest. He then givesa signal to the assistants to bring to life and enact theirroles, both verbally and non-verbally, and in a sponta-neous interaction with the Protagonist. Having assumedtheir roles, assistants start expressing the messagesaddressed to the Protagonist and acting with their bodyin the manner presented before. The roles of the pres-sure on the chest press the Protagonist’s body with theirhands and legs, the role of the neck starts stranglingthe neck with controlled pressure (‘to be enacted with-out any harm’) and the head addresses her message tothe Protagonist from her lying position with her back tothe audience. Before long, the Director observes thatthe Protagonist suffers from increasing unrest, paraly-sis and suffocation. This induces him to stop the actionby signalling to the assistants to stop and release theProtagonist.

Director: - What is going on? How do you feelnow?

Protagonist: - Extremely pressed…, with no roomfor breathing…

Director: - What does this sensation remind you of?

Protagonist: (after short deliberation, with onehand holding his neck and the other pressed on his

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chest) Of a scene in a film that I saw as a boy. A manwas trapped in a coffin… buried in the ground, unableto get out! I felt as if it was me in that coffin now.

Director: - Are you familiar with this sensation?Have you experienced it before in your life?

Protagonist: - Yes, certainly! Many times… Thisis one of the things which constantly restricts me and Iam frightened that it will re-emerge in important situa-tions. It makes me insecure… And recently more thanever.

Director: - Would you like us to explore this sceneand resolve it?

The Protagonist nods with his head turning hisgaze towards the stage where he expects continuationof the enactment.

Scene 2

The Director instructs the Protagonist to ‘build’the coffin buried in the ground on stage. Following thisinstruction the Protagonist searches for props/auxiliaryobjects in the space around him. He chooses the largecushions again—moved aside in the meantime—whichhe places one over another, thus building a ‘coffin’. Fol-lowing the Director’s next instruction, he selects an as-

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sistant—asking the person for a permission and obtain-ing it—who will assume the role of the man trapped inthe coffin buried in the ground. He instructs the assis-tant himself and finally places him in the ‘coffin’, cover-ing him with cushions. Than he observes the image onthe stage.

Director: - What does this scene look like nowwhen you observe it from a distance?

Protagonist: - Horrifying…

Director: - Do you feel ready to resolve this sceneyou have had in your head for a long time and which attimes can have such a great impact on you?

Protagonist: - Yes.

Director: - Reverse roles then with this man inthe coffin and enact what you have in your head inrelation to this scene. Enact the dying you experiencein your thoughts and your death, if you are ready to doso now…

Scene 3

The Protagonist stares at the ‘coffin’ on the stagewith a fixed gaze for a while. Then he approaches it,pulls the assistant from under the cushions and takes

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his place covering himself with cushions entirely. TheDirector allows for some time to lapse in silence, heturns off the lights in the room and noiselessly, withgestures, instructs the two assistants from the previousscene to re-assume their roles of ‘pressure on the chest’.Assistants assume their roles and start applying pres-sure from the side on the Protagonist’s chest coveredwith cushions. The pressure increases and moaning canbe heard from under the cushions. The Director givesthe assistants a signal to increase the pressure. Moan-ing turns into screaming and pushing of the cushions inan unsuccessful attempt to escape from the ‘coffin’. TheProtagonist’s catharsis ends with powerful blows withhis fists on the floor accompanied with an intensive andlong scream. This is followed by the Protagonist’s sud-den silence and immobility and he remains buried inthe ‘coffin under ground’. The Director instructs theassistants to end their pressure and lets the silence lastfor a while. The Protagonist remains calm throughoutall this time under the cushions piled over him. After awhile, the Director lifts a cushion from the Protagonist’sface and switches back the lights on the stage. TheProtagonist continues lying on the floor with his eyesclosed, completely silent and peaceful.

Director: - How do you feel now?

Protagonist: (with eyes still closed and in a si-lent voice) Peaceful… carefree…

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Director: - It seems that it agrees with you, thisrole that you are in now. A passive role…

Protagonist: - My glasses have broken and myattention was directed at that…

Director: - Does it happen often that small thingsdivert your attention from the big and importantthings…?

Protagonist: (opens his eyes and removes thespectacles from his face) - Yes. It has happened to mebefore to be distracted by trifles and unimportant thingsfrom what was important at that moment. Now, too,this story of mine about the glasses… I say that eventhough they are not important. I always carelessly breakthem, anyway, and money is not a problem if I need tobuy new ones.

Director: - It seems that something had to gowith your ‘dying’ on stage. Something that has to go,so that something new can come… But, would you liketo finish this scene or would you like to stay like this inthe coffin?

After having thought about it for a while, theProtagonist starts pushing the cushions away from him-self in such a manner as if he is getting out of a coffin,closes it, and stands up on the stage.

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Director: - How do you feel now?

Protagonist: - I still feel a sense of responsibilityand guilt as a transferred message from my parentsthat I’m doing something which is not good… There, Ifeel that strongly now, and I don’t know where it hascome from!

Director: - Would you like to meet your parentson stage in relation to this feeling?

Protagonist: - No. I don’t want to meet themnow. It would be useless… (After this, he continuesstaring at the floor lost in thoughts)

Director: - Would you perhaps like to meet thefeeling which transfers the messages from your par-ents? Would you like us to explore this relation whichyou have inside you at the moment?

Protagonist: - Yes. That would be all right.

Scene 4

The Director instructs the Protagonist to build acharacter on stage—the role of the feeling—by askinghim to assume the role first and present it. Assumingthe role, the Protagonist announces that those are hisparents’ prohibitions and instructions. The main mes-

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sage of the mother in this role is ‘…always have self-control on your mind…’, while the father’s main mes-sage is ‘…you’ll see, you’ll eat stones in future, becausethe way you are, you’ll never succeed…’ The Directorthen guides the Protagonist to select an assistant whowill take up the role. After the selection of the assistantand him ascending to the stage, the Director gives asignal for the scene to begin with the main messagesaddressed to the role of the Protagonist’s I. The scenecontinues with a series of role reversals reaching thefinal message which the Protagonist addresses to him-self (his I) from the role of the feeling:

Feeling: - I am your need for freedom. You shouldfinally accept me!

Protagonist: - I would like to. I have desired thatfor a long time anyway… How can I liberate myself?How can I become free?

Feeling: - Open up and accept me…

Protagonist: - All right, I’ll try. As much as I can…

The Protagonist remains alone at centre stage.He turns toward the Director with a questioning look.

Director: - Try to open up your body. From yourhead downwards, the chest especially. Let it flow through

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you freely… This is your time. You have your own timein this world…

Scene 5

The Protagonist considers this for a while andthen a smile appears on his face. He crouches on thestage with his knees apart facing the group directly,with his head and arms raised upwards. His breathingbecomes deeper and freer, reaching a full catharsis witha release. After this, he continues breathing freely andlaughing aloud, looking intermittently upwards and atthe group. This lasts until it slowly settles and ends.The Protagonist then stands up, drops his arms downand gives a signal to the Director that he has finished.The Director asks him to come back to the group andasks the group to start the sharing.

Commentary:What makes this psychodrama special is,

first of all, the enactment of the phantasms ofdeath, that is, one’s own ‘dying’ in the third sceneof this psychodrama. The reader of this bookmust be aware of the fact the enactment of suchscenes is not recommended for ‘newcomers’ topsychodrama because of the potential risk whenapproaching deeper topics and the possible psy-chosomatic reactions which this might cause andwhich only an experienced and well-trained

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therapists can translate into a useful therapeu-tic action. The next interesting moment is theconfrontation with the defence mechanism of‘deadening’: that is, the passive surrender to re-gression as a component of the adopted armour.I used this confrontation and the ensuing rec-ognition to guide the protagonist to his deepersource of conflicts and fears, to an encounterwith his parents on stage. Finally, through psy-chosomatic and mental catharsis, psychodramahelped the protagonist in the process of partialresolution of his old fears and the achievementof a new internal equilibrium. This psychodramacan also be understood as a model of the eternalstruggle between Eros and Thanatos which oc-curs in every modern personality.

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173


WORKING ON SUPPRESSED ANGERIN PSYCHODRAMA

IntroductionOne of the major contents to be resolved in all

types of psychotherapy is suppressed anger. If not re-solved and removed, it threatens to continue with per-sistent ‘destruction’ of the interior of the person whosuppresses it or is unaware of its existence. It is dem-onstrated in practice that occasional provocation of ca-tharsis is necessary as a part of the therapeutic proce-dure. I have selected an example which demonstratesthe power of psychodrama in working with such con-tents.

ExampleThis psychodrama was preceded by the process-

ing of a previous psychodrama enacted at an interna-tional seminar which had ended several days before.The Director’s work was analyzed, as well as the groupprocess which developed particularly intensely amongthe members of the group in the course of the seminar.Observing that its consequences had transferred onto

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the current work of the group, I used this as an oppor-tunity for a warm-up and selection of topics on whichthe members would work in the course of the sessionthat followed. Three potential protagonists emerged,amongst whom one female member of the group wasparticularly enthusiastic to start working on stage assoon as possible. The group accepted this choice ofprotagonist. She was a twenty-three-year-old studentwho had attended this psychodrama group once a weekfor almost a year and all local and international semi-nars organized in this period.

Topic

Protagonist: - I want to work on my anger.

Scene 1

The Protagonist and the Director come up onstage. The Protagonist is thoughtful, her head is downand she moves from one end of the stage to the otherwithout a word.

Director: - Continue moving. Assume the role ofyour legs. Be legs in movement, here and now… Andvoice what they are saying while moving.

Protagonist: (assuming the role of her legs) - Ihave to walk… I have to continue… I have to fight…

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Director: (addresses his question to the legs thatmove and whose opinions can be voiced) - Who areyou? What are you? What is your role in her life?

Protagonist: (in the role of her legs) - I am herstrength. I keep her from falling down. I make her con-tinue… Otherwise, she becomes powerless. (The Pro-tagonist suddenly assumes the position of powerless-ness; her body becomes limp as if she is ‘hanging froma coat hanger’).

Director: (asks her to abandon the previous roleand issues further instructions) - Abandon this role…Be the ‘strength’ and show us what that role looks likeand how it works. Select someone who is going to as-sume your role of ‘powerlessness’ and show us how‘strength’ affects you.

The Protagonist abandons the role, selects a mem-ber of the group for the role of ‘powerlessness’, standsbehind him and assumes the role of ‘strength’. In hernew role, with both her arms she holds ‘powerlessness’from behind, who rests himself against her completely,in order not to fall on the floor. The Director signals tothe role of ‘powerlessness’ to start voicing her message.

Powerlessness: - I am powerlessness. I need thisstrength so that I can endure… From one struggle toanother… From one injury to another…

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The Director stimulates the ensuing stage ac-tion through the techniques of focusing and role rever-sal to reach the ‘essential experience’ which this sceneconveys for the Protagonist. This experience leads theProtagonist to a certain insight.

Protagonist: - I need to resolve my attitude to-wards men.

Scene 2

The psychodramatic action is transferred to a scenewhich was enacted two months before. In this scene theProtagonist sits together with a young man with whomshe was in a non-committal relationship. At one point,assisted by the Director, the Protagonist discovers the maininternal experience which this scene conveys for her.

Protagonist: (speaking to the Director and thegroup, sharing her insight into the concealed needswhich she experiences in this scene) I feel a need tohurt him… I can see (blinks with her eyes) that some-thing is wrong with him… (Instructed by the Director,she delves deeper into the role of the internal voice)Good God! He is going to fall apart! Doesn’t matter, Iwill push it to the end. I’ll reveal myself to him!

The Director continues helping the Protagonistto focus on her prevalent feelings and to associate themwith other similar feelings in her life. The Protagonist

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soon goes back to an event which happened when shewas fifteen years old.

Scene 3

This scene takes place in a café at night, wherethe Protagonist is having an evening out with her friends.It is important that, at that time, she has her first boy-friend with whom she has been together for only a shortperiod of time prior to the event. The main event of theevening, psychodramatically enacted in this scene, oc-curs when her close friend announces publicly and loudlyan unpleasant piece of news with regards to her boy-friend.

Friend: - I have to tell you that your boyfriendhas ‘dumped’ you!

Everybody falls silent and stares at the fifteen-year-old girl who is utterly confused at that momentand whose dumbfounded gaze switches from her friendto the others. After a while she speaks out in anger.

Protagonist: - Why are you gaping at me? I cando just fine on my own!!

The Protagonist finishes this message with tearsin her eyes. The Director instructs her to concentrateon the prevailing feeling which overcomes her at thatmoment, and that is anger. He suggests that she fo-

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cuses on further resolution of that anger which has con-tinued to permeate her life and influence her relation-ships with men. The Protagonist first chooses to meether boyfriend at the time so that she can sort out her‘unfinished business’ with him.

Scene 4

This scene takes place in a corridor where theProtagonist at the age of fifteen meets her first boy-friend. The Director instructs the Protagonist to be si-multaneously in touch with her anger and to establishcommunication with her boyfriend in such a mannerthat she can ‘recall’ and resolve her internal angerthrough psychodrama. The Protagonist moves directlytowards her boyfriend, looking sternly straight into hiseyes. Suddenly she hits him on his shoulder and statesher main message.

Protagonist: (staring directly and provocativelyin his eyes) - You piece of shit!

A short series of role reversals ensues which dis-closes that there is not much suppressed material left.Anger has ‘melted’ and the Protagonist’s energy levelshave increased and her spontaneity has returned. Whenasked by the Director who she would like to meet next,the Protagonist replies that she would like to talk toherself about her future plans.

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Scene 5

The Protagonist builds on the stage two parts of‘herself’, one of them representing her ‘present I’ andthe other her ‘warm I’. In her encounter with both parts,which in the meantime are enacted by assistants se-lected from the group in a psychodramatic manner, theProtagonist receives instructions and main messagesconcerning her future plans, especially concerning herrelationship with men. At the end of this scene, theProtagonist manages to integrate her ‘ warm’ and her ‘present’ self with an evident development of positiveemotions. At the end of this scene, the Director is per-mitted by the Protagonist to check her new emotionalstate. By applying the technique of ‘surplus reality’ heguides the Protagonist into the following closing scene.

Scene 6

Director: - A man will appear on the stage now,a psychodramatic prototype of someone who you mightexpect in future and who is completely all right. Dosomething here and now in this encounter, somethingwhich you consider a spontaneous expression of yourpresent emotional state.

At the Director’s signal, an assistant appears onstage playing the role of the ‘man’ for this occasion. Onthe stage, he moves in front of the Protagonist, walks

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around freely and spontaneously. The Protagonistwatches him for a very short while and then approacheshim, takes him by the hand and, with a light step and asmile on her face, she takes him for a walk. This actionlasts as long as it is necessary for the Protagonist tofeel completely fulfilled with her new role. Then shecontently rejoins the group and the Director issues in-struction for the sharing stage to start.

Commentary:At the onset of this psychodrama I used

focused psychodramatic techniques aimed at theProtagonist’s body language, expressed as psy-chomotor tension, unrest and strained body pos-ture. This helped to release anger from thesedepots and to substitute mental contents whichwere first recognized and then transferred backto the interpersonal sphere where they were con-ceived before they were suppressed. This wasfollowed by work on the process of resolutionthrough the application of ‘regular’psychodramatic techniques of communication.Through the correction of certain emotional ex-periences, this psychodrama enabled a degreeof development of the previously suspended pro-cess of emotional maturation.

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PSYCHODRAMA AND TRAUMA

IntroductionWorking on traumatic experiences is one of the

most risky undertakings in any type of therapy. For allnew and inexperienced directors and all interested par-ticipants in psychodrama, I would like to stress the im-portance of several rules which are to be followed inthe psychodramatic treatment of traumatic experiences.Firstly, the trauma should be ‘re-enacted’ on stage byassistants who are truly prepared to assume the roles,because this kind of game can either trigger or repro-duce their own traumas from the past. Secondly, theprotagonist must never enact his own role from thepast in the key image of the scene which has trauma-tized them because of the danger of re-traumatization.Thirdly, the protagonist should be guided towards finalresolution of the scene only when the previous re-pro-cessing and treatment of the cluster of contents re-lated to the event has been completed. Fourthly, onemust be careful with the process of sharing within thegroup after the enactment, paying special attention tothe process of ‘abandonment of the role’ on the part of

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the assistants who played the roles of the violent per-petrator or the victim.

ExampleA psychodrama group consisting of students who

have continually undergone experience and training inpsychodrama once a week for two years. During thistime, a group process has been developed which allowsfor safely delving deeper into the members’ more inti-mate contents. At the start of the session, the groupshares the remaining experiences from the previous psy-chodrama session. This treated a scene of violence per-petrated on one member of the group as a traumaticexperience from their past which then, and in the mean-time, opened a process within the other members of thegroup with similar experiences. One female member ofthe group states that the previous session reminded herof her first sexual intercourse which she experienced asa sort of rape. When the group sharing has finished, thismember of the group announces that she feels very readyand that she would like to be the protagonist for thatday. The group accepts her need and immediately after-wards the Director and the Protagonist go on stage.

Scene 1

Director: - Let us set the scene. Let us first deter-mine where this scene is taking place, in what kind of space.

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Protagonist: - In his room…

Director: Position in space everything that is im-portant, the people and auxiliary objects important forthe enactment of this scene. Set and present the eventson stage as a figure, as sculptures…

The Protagonist sets the scene. She and her boy-friend are in a room. There is a bed at the back of thestage and this bed is the setting of the main action thathas left traumatic marks in the Protagonist’s memoryas well as caused problems in her future emotional func-tioning. She selects assistants from the group to be thefigures, representing her and her boyfriend standing ina certain position. In this position, she tries to push herboyfriend away with her arms stretched in front of herwhile his are over hers, holding her tight and pullingher towards him. The Director freezes thepsychodramatic action at this level and asks the Pro-tagonist to reveal the main messages which these fig-ures express non-verbally in such position. As her ownfigure, the Protagonist voices the hidden message ‘Ithurts me, stop it!’ while the message of the figure ofthe boyfriend is ‘There is no chance that I’m going tostop now…’ The Director then issues instructions to en-act the scene in that segment. After the completion ofthe scene, the Director asks the Protagonist how shefeels at that moment.

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Protagonist: - Powerless… As if I can’t do any-thing about it.

Director: What does this remind you of?

Scene 2

The Protagonist is suddenly flooded with memo-ries from her childhood; she goes back to the age offive or six. She used to play often with a boy from theneighbourhood and whom she says she used to ‘love alot…’ and told others that she ‘…would marry him…’ Thenshe focuses on the main event in that relationship, whichis essentially related to the previous scene. This is ascene in which he invites her to join him in the base-ment to play there. There are other children in the base-ment who stay and watch their game. He suggests thatshe take off her underpants and he takes off his own,too. He starts touching her and showing his actions tohis friends. This becomes a problem only later whenher mother learns about their game. The scene endswith her furious mother beating her up for taking partin the event, sending her messages such as: ‘Why didyou do that? What will the others say about you now?’

Director: - How do you feel now, at this moment?

Protagonist: - Dejected… (There occurs a changein her body language; it expresses the spoken contententirely)

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Director: - This is your present experience. Letus go back to the age of five or six and let us see howyou experienced this same scene then and compare…

The Protagonist accepts the Director’s sugges-tion and they move to the next psychodramatic scene.

Scene 3

Director: - Be a child of five or six! Assume therole and release your spontaneity…!

The Protagonist assumes the role and very soonbecomes spontaneous, behaving like a child at that age.The Director follows the stage act dominated by gamestypical of little girls of that age. At one point, he inter-rupts the action in order to discover the Protagonist’sinternal positions.

Director: - What are you interested in at this age?

Protagonist: - Dolls… Ballet…

Director: - Be in touch with those things and seewhat you experience in this role.

The Protagonist becomes completely involved inher games with her dolls which she has selected fromthe psychodramatic kit of auxiliary objects. Then sheperforms ballet figures across the stage with shrieks of

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pleasure. Having assumed the role completely, the Pro-tagonist is then interrupted by the Director who asksthe Protagonist to stay in the role she has developed.

Director: - As a child at this age, are you stillembarrassed by what happened?

Protagonist: (with a bewildered expression anda smile on her face) - No, of course not!

Director: - Certainly, that was only a child’s game.It is normal for children at that age to play such gamesand to explore…

The Director then instructs the Protagonist tothink about the associations that the scene of hermother’s punishment incites. After brief reflection, theProtagonist announces, with an expression of havingexperienced revelation on her face, her association: amemory which then takes the psychodrama into its fol-lowing scene.

Scene 4

Protagonist: - This reminds me of a situation withmy mother while I was still a student at university, whenI informed her that I was not going to take the exam.The exam session was the last for that year. And whenmy mother started beating me…

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Director: - Can you enact that event on stage.

The Protagonist sets the scene in her room atthe time on the stage. In it, there is a bed on which sheis lying with her mother standing above her. Her mothertries to hit her with her fists and occasionally pulls theProtagonist’s arms which cover her body in defence fromthe blows.

Mother: You are going to take that exam!!

Protagonist: I won’t!!

The Director allows this scene to develop, whichmainly consists of the mother’s persistent and unsuc-cessful attempts to realize her idea in practice throughphysical compulsion. The non-verbal action is realizedin the pulling of the Protagonist’s arms which is verysimilar to the main action in the first and the secondscene. At a certain point, the Director interrupts thescene and confronts the Protagonist with this repeti-tion which has become a common denominator of allthree scenes.

Director: (continuing his clarification) - In all threescenes you are in a passive role. What do you thinkabout that?

Protagonist: - It is true… but what about it?

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Director: This is a psychodrama. Everything ispossible in it… Try to do something which would helpyou resolve this situation. You can try out an idea whichyou believe might work in reality…

Protagonist: (after short deliberation) - I wouldlike to talk to my mother about this scene.

The Director issues instructions to repeat a partof the last scene. At a certain moment, the Protagoniststops being passive, with a firm stance she fights backher mother’s insistence on forceful resolution and ad-dresses her with a resolute voice.

Protagonist: - I am not a small child anymore tobe beaten like that! I know that you are fed up with myprotracted studies… But I am the one who is going todecide when to take an exam and when not. I need youonly as a support and let me push along on my own.

In the following role reversal and exchange ofmessages, her active stance and spontaneous commu-nication win the Protagonist her mother’s support andunderstanding. Thus she resolves her traumatic experi-ence and at the same time integrates a new stance andcommunication form. The Director initiates a new scenefor resolution of the observed mechanism of traumaticrepetition.

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Scene 5

Director: - Now let us return to the childhoodscene and let us try and resolve that situation in apsychodramatic manner. How would you resolve it now,after you have resolved the previous scene?

Protagonist: - I would like to speak to my motheragain…

They go back to the scene from childhood andher mother’s reaction. The Protagonist is evidently freerin her communication; she looks straight in her mother’seyes and states her messages peacefully and resolutely,with a firm voice.

Protagonist: (after several role reversals, she ad-dresses her final message to her mother) - It is just agame. Nothing else!

The scene ends with a resolution and acceptanceof a realistic interpretation of the situation. This en-ables the integration of this experience with its new,healthy meaning. The Director initiates the resolutionof the remaining traumatic situation and apsychodramatic ‘closure’ of the conflict material, whichwas derived from this psychodrama.

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Scene 6

Director: - Let us go back to the first scene again.Let us try and resolve that as well…?

In obvious good spirits, the Protagonist immedi-ately accepts this offer. Under the Director’s instruc-tions, the first scene in which the Protagonist is withher boyfriend in his flat is brought back to life. A newattempt to overpower and drag the Protagonist to bedagainst her will is enacted, to which the Protagonistresponds with static resistance which does not allowthe other to realize his idea. This is followed by newattempts which also end with static resistance.

Director: - What are you going to do now? Willyou let it remain as it is?

Protagonist: - No. I want to express what I feelnow and what I didn’t tell him then.

In the following attempt in which her arms arepulled, at one moment, the Protagonist stops in placevery firmly not allowing her boyfriend to drag her intohis bed and looks piercingly into his eyes.

Protagonist: - Stop! I don’t want this to con-tinue. Can’t you see that you’re hurting me! You don’tcare about my feelings at all…

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Director: - End this scene the way you feel youneed to. Feel free to use physical power, in apsychodramatic manner, of course…

The Protagonist spontaneously takes initiativeand with strong movements of liberated energy shedrags her opponent from the stage. Then she removesthe rest of the objects from the stage and on the emptystage she remains alone for a short period of timebreathing freely and looking around herself with plea-sure. When the Director signals that it is enough, theDirector and the Protagonist return to the group. Thestage of sharing experiences of this psychodrama is next.

Commentary:One of the basic mechanisms that trigger

‘compulsory repetition’ of traumatic experienceis the feeling of powerlessness, as well as thelack of mechanisms for ‘overpowering’ the eventthat caused the psychic trauma. I selected anexample of sexual trauma in which the key un-conscious defence mechanism which allowed fulldevelopment of a traumatic situation is relatedto previous experiences and relationships withthe parents. Having assessed the protagonist’scapacities at that moment, and on the basis ofmy extensive experience, I decided to reach itthrough the technique of sculpturing and byadoption of the non-verbal role of the combina-

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tion of factors occurring within the protagonist,without further introduction into the key imageof traumatization. Non-verbal communication isvery often a direct route towards the discoveryof unconscious defence mechanisms and the con-tents related to them. When the Protagonistmanaged to recognize and overcome the mecha-nism of ‘paralysis’ which kept her in the state ofpowerlessness, I allowed her re-enactment ofthe first scene to reach resolution of the trau-matic content.

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TRANSFERENCE IN PSYCHODRAMA

IntroductionPsychodrama is an action method of group psy-

chotherapy. It can strongly induce and develop variousphenomena of what is called a ‘group process’ among themembers of the group. Transference relationships are apart of it. On the psychodrama stage, the protagonist’s‘introjected objects’ and ‘representations of the self’ tendtowards externalization, concretization and transferenceonto the other participants in the scene: the assistants,doubles, and the director, as well as onto thepsychodramatic auxiliaries, using them as ‘transitional ob-jects’. When working on transfererence, specific techniquesshould be used in the psychodrama, mostly based on se-lected role reversals which serve as therapeutic means forthe director in his efforts to achieve ‘reparation’ of theinternal objects and representations of the self, as well asimprovement in the functioning of ‘reality testing’.

Example 1 (1993)After the completion of a process from the pre-

vious psychodrama and the usual break, at the begin-

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ning of the session one female member of the groupannounces that she has ‘…an idea which has resultedfrom the previous process…’ and that this idea emerged‘…when the Director [me] said something concerningthe protagonist…’. I check whether this could formulatea topic on which this member of the group would liketo work and the group and I receive a positive answer.This is followed by an inspection of the level of readi-ness of the other potential protagonists to work on them-selves, which results with this member of the groupbecoming a protagonist in the current session.

Scene 1

Director: (addressing the Protagonist) - I pro-pose we set the scene in an identical manner to theone that occurred during the process. So, all that werepresent in the process should come on stage again andposition themselves on their chairs in the same placesin the circle as they did then. With only one exception:my place in the circle will be occupied by someone else—that is, someone you will select to ‘play’ me.

The Protagonist selects an assistant to assumemy role, that is, the role of the Director and leader of theprocess which took place half an hour earlier. I stand tothe side of the group sitting in a circle and instruct themto re-enact the key scene from the process, the one whichprovoked the Protagonist so powerfully to want to work

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on it in this session. All who took an active part with theircommentaries during the process reassume the sameroles. The Protagonist sits in her chair and observes theaction. It is evident that the communication taking placein the group has a strong impact on her in the sense thatshe becomes more and more tense.

Director: What do you feel at this moment?

Protagonist: I feel anger, revolt…

Director: Aimed at whom?

Protagonist: - At the Director (pronounces myname).

After this, I instruct the Protagonist to abandonher role and select someone in the group to take up therole (her). When the assistant assumes the role, I in-struct the Protagonist to assume the role of her ‘anger’and to present it to us. Having assumed the role of theanger resulting from this unconscious reaction, the Pro-tagonist stands behind the assistant who took up herrole. I give the assistant in the role of the Protagonist asignal to repeat loudly the messages of the role, andinstruct the ‘anger’ to demonstrate its effects.

Anger: (addressing the message to the seatedProtagonist) Don’t! Don’t react…!!

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This is then followed by several role reversalswhich lead the Protagonist to the recognition that sev-eral months ago, she experienced a similar emotionalreaction in a situation at her university. This transformedthe transference relationship which started as aimed atthe Director (me) into a suppressed content which istranslatable into regular stage action!!

Scene 2

In the setting of the space on the psychodramastage in which the situation is to be enacted, a remark-able similarity, almost identicalness, with the setting ofthe previous scene can be observed. This was the firstdiscovery of repetition as an indicator of transferencerepetition. Namely, at one end of the stage is the groupof students sitting in a circle, the Protagonist amongthem, while at the other is the lonely professor. At onemoment, of key importance for this scene and the rep-etition, the professor announces resolutely that studentsshould come back again in a few days time, which stu-dents experience as an unpleasant provocation. TheDirector freezes the scene and asks the Protagonist tofocus on her internal experience.

Protagonist: - I feel tension, anger…

The story continues with the professor’s depar-ture leaving the students alone. The Protagonist sud-denly stands up and starts organizing the group. Then

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she goes to another professor, a forty-year-old femalewhom she experiences as ‘good’, unlike the previous‘bad’ professor. She recounts the entire incident to her‘good’ professor, experiencing this situation as benefi-cial and positive. Having detected an opportunity fordeeper psychodynamics through further exploration ofthis ‘triangle’, the Director instructs the Protagonist tobuild the following scene.

Scene 3

Following the Director’s instructions, the Protago-nist sets the scene by adding the ‘bad’ professor and‘good’ professor to the group on two opposite sides andthen joins the group. At the Director’s signal, assistantsplaying the professors address the group with their dif-ferent messages and opinions about the same event,while the Protagonist simultaneously focuses on her in-ternal experience of that communication. At one mo-ment, guided by the Director, the Protagonist recognizesthat behind this play of roles ‘between the one who pro-tects and the one who rejects’ lies the basic relationshipbetween herself and her mother and father. An associa-tion emerges concerning a recent situation which oc-curred in her home, similar to the one just enacted.

Scene 4

This situation occurs in a domestic environmentwhere the whole family is gathered in the living room.

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Father watches television, the Protagonist sits next toher mother on a nearby sofa and her sister sits on achair far away in the space. Stage action mostly revolvesaround the Protagonist’s need to convince her father tolet her get a job in an antique-shop while she is stillstudying. The father is against it, the mother is silentand, as if not there, the sister is completely neglected inthe space. The main messages of this scene are:

Protagonist: (a message for her father) - I wouldlike to talk to you about this private antique-shop!?

Father: (states his message still watching TV) -There is nothing to talk about. You won’t do that! I willgive you money.

Mother: (message for the Protagonist) - Don’toppose him. You know that he will start yelling. Youshould resign yourself…

Sister: (internal speech) - As if I don’t exist forthem at this moment. They talk to each other and I justkeep staying out of it. It is a common course of events…

During the events that follow, the Director guidesthe interactions on stage through the main messagesso that they can fully develop, which provokes ever-stronger reactions of powerlessness and anger in theProtagonist. Scene ends with the Protagonist intently

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staring at her mother demanding help from her in sup-port of her plea with her father. Mother remains silent.Following the discovery of the Protagonist’s ‘essentialexperience’ in relation to this scene, the psychodramacontinues into the next scene which conveys the same‘triangle’ relationship, as well as the unconscious fixa-tions which transfer onto particular situations in her lifeinvolving her relationship with authority and her emo-tional reactions to those relationships.

Scene 5

This is a childhood scene. The Protagonist is inthe back of the car with her sister, her mother and fa-ther are in the front. The Protagonist persistently de-mands something from her father and expects supportfrom her mother, who remains silent. Sister is also si-lent in this scene, as she was in the previous. The sceneends with her mother’s message addressed to the Pro-tagonist.

Mother: - Why are you getting angry when youknow that you will have to obey your father. Don’t op-pose him!

The essential experience of this scene is similarto the previous, amplified to utmost proportions. Thisputs the Protagonist in touch with an old memory fromher early childhood, at the start of her schooling.

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Scene 6

This is a scene in which the Protagonist stronglyopposes the teacher and his instructions. The sceneends with the teacher slapping the little girl on the faceand provoking a state of anger in her which she sup-presses at that moment and later adds onto it a state ofpowerlessness to fight back. This reinforces the ‘fixa-tion’, previously produced by the ‘Oedipal triangle’ inthe family, which later in life ‘transfers’ unconsciouslyonto all relationships with authority. The Director alsodetects defence mechanisms of suppression, evasionand projection, which he introduces in the followingscene in a psychodramatic manner in order to elimi-nate them and release the ‘conserved’ energy and trans-mit it into a more spontaneous flow.

In the scenes that follow, the Director first al-lows satisfaction of the Protagonist’s internal ‘act hun-ger’; that is, the release of a flow of suppressed angerand elimination of the mechanisms of evasion. Psycho-drama is always powerful in such situations and allowsfor realization of such aims through creative and safestage actions.

Scene 7

After the recognition and insight into the uncon-scious dynamics of this transference, the Director in-structs the Protagonist to encounter her mother andresolve the mechanism of ‘anaclisis’ which has also trans-

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ferred throughout the Protagonist’s life onto female au-thorities with demands for understanding, support andpermission from them.

Scene 8

In this final scene, the Director creates for theProtagonist a situation of ‘surplus reality’ for an encoun-ter with her father and an attempt for resolution of therelationship of ‘repetition’. The Protagonist manages toreach a certain level of spontaneity to start establishinga different relationship through reversal of roles withher father during which she gets his support.

As a result, this psychodrama, which started witha transference relationship with the Director, was suc-cessfully translated through specific psychodramatictechniques into stage contents, accessible for furtherdeeper treatment through the usual techniques of role-playing.

Commentary:I would like to stress for the reader that,

at the beginning of the first scene, a very spe-cific technique was applied, in which the trans-ference onto the Director is translated into regu-lar psychodramatic action. This technique I amproud to refer to as my own innovation, which Iintroduced into psychodrama in the early 1990sat a certain moment of spontaneity, working asa director on the treatment of a transference re-

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lationship which at that point was strongly di-rected at me. By doing so, I have confirmed inthis psychodrama the power of psychodramatechniques in the process of detecting and treat-ment of transference contents which are usu-ally the most difficult for working through in allother psychotherapeutic techniques except forpsychoanalysis. This deep psychological workrequires good theoretical and practical knowl-edge of psychoanalytic psychotherapy on thepart of the director.

Example 2 (1997)This example originates from the demonstrative

workshop I held at the Balkan Psychodrama Confer-ence in Ohrid, Macedonia, in 1997, which I attended inthe capacity of the President of the Organizational Com-mittee. Its title was “Working on Transference in Psy-chodrama”.

Warm-upThis warm-up was a continuation of the group

process which had developed in the previous TA work-shop at the conference. In it, the group underwent a‘discounting interaction’ in which the members of thegroup assumed the roles of ‘discounters’ and addressedmessages of this type to each other.

At the onset of the psychodrama session, thedirector focuses the members of the group on sharing

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experiences incited by the previous workshop. After ashort sharing, the director instructs the members ofthe group to assume the same roles which they had inthe previous workshop and play them by stating theirmessage to their neighbour on one side after they haveheard the message from their neighbour on the otherside in the circle. After the end of the first round, thedirector instructs them to re-enact the same messagesin the second round, but this time with ‘amplification’through body language and intonation when stating theirmessages. In addition to this, he also instructs themembers of the group to use their real-life experienceof people who remind them of the roles which theyhave chosen when stating their messages. In the fol-lowing ten minutes, the group undergoes a lively playof roles with released spontaneity in their enactment.In the short sharing which followed, members of thegroup share their predominant feelings provoked by thiswarm up. Several potential protagonists emerge andthe group selects those most ready for a short work onstage.

EnactmentThe first scene begins with a physical sensation

overcoming the protagonist, which is basically a pres-sure she feels in her chest. Applying focusing psycho-drama techniques, the director amplifies her internalexperience, which results in the release of a great emo-tional charge. The director then instructs the protago-

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nist to place these emotions in an adequate space andtime and in their adequate balance.

In the second scene, the protagonist’s sister ap-pears on stage which translates the previous uncon-scious transference onto the intonation and behaviourof the member of the group during the group experi-ment into a real relationship wherefrom the transfer-ence originates. A ‘prototype’ relationship between twosisters is constructed and explored on the stage.

The psychodrama is then enacted in severalscenes, in which the protagonist struggles with power-ful, physically ‘incorporated’ feelings in order to estab-lish a new stance and style of communication with hersister. She also goes through ‘corrective emotional ex-periences’. Throughout the entire process, the protago-nist, guided by the director, confronts the recognitionof her own ‘transference’ of such contents onto othersin her life.

In the last scene of ‘surplus reality’ the protago-nist manages to ‘repair’ the prototype relationship withher sister. This incites a release of the physical blockand suppressed aggressive feelings and establishmentof more spontaneous communication and more creativebehaviour.

SharingIn this stage, the other members of the group,

inspired by the protagonist’s work on stage, share simi-lar experiences with important persons in their lives.

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PSYCHODRAMA AND CHARACTER ARMOUR

IntroductionDirectors in psychodrama, as well as other psy-

chotherapists, often overlook the resistance hidden inthe person’s ‘armour’, created by a combination of de-fence mechanisms, psychosomatic blocks andcharacterised patterns of behaviour. This resistance is,of course, always unconscious and productive in its cre-ation of roles which are then repeated by reflex, andthe person gets used to them and gradually acceptsthem as a constitutive part of their identity. WilhelmReich was the first to undertake more profound researchand the creation of various techniques for ‘melting’ thisresistance, which often obstructs efforts towards insight-ful resolutions and changes in the individuals subjectedto psychotherapeutic treatments. I present an exampleof my work on this armour, in which I employedpsychodramatic techniques, having previously madepsychoanalytical assessments of the contents for work.

ExampleAt the beginning of the second day of the seminar,

the subject of which is ‘What would I change?’, the Direc-

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tor invites the group to share the experiences from thefirst day of the seminar. He also reminds the members ofthe group that they can now finish their unfinished pro-cesses with the topic that they started a day earlier. Aftera short while, a thirty-five-year-old female member of thegroup announces that she hasn’t encountered anythingin her life that she would need to encounter in the man-ner of psychodrama. When asked by the Director whethershe feels ready enough to do that immediately, she givesa positive answer. The other potential protagonists acceptthat she should be the first to work on her content.

Formulation of the topic

Director: - How could we formulate a topic whichyou would like to explore now?

Protagonist: (she reflects for a while with an ex-pression of sadness on her face and speaks with a weakvoice) - Something exhausts me…

The Director checks whether this could be thetopic for the Protagonist’s psychodrama and, having re-ceived a positive answer, he issues instructions for thefirst scene to be set.

Scene 1

Director: - Try to present on stage somethingthat exhausts you.

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Protagonist: - As if I have five minds…?!

Director: - Build a sculpture which would helpyou present these ‘five minds’.

The Protagonist is thoughtful for a moment and then,with a smile on her face, leaves the stage looking for some-thing. She soon finds what she is looking for, takes it andreturns on stage with it. The Director and the members ofthe group realize that it is one of the sculptures/assem-blages which the members of the group had the task ofbuilding in advance and bringing in for the seminar so thatthey could use them for warm-ups. This sculpture resemblesan ikebana, consisting of various kinds of leaves and a standto which these leaves are attached. The Protagonist firstplaces this sculpture on her head as a crown and then startsmoving, with a smile on her face, among the members ofthe group, occasionally bowing to certain individuals show-ing them her crown of ‘5 MINDS’. This sculpture was entitledby its creator ‘Horus Kupus’ (cabbage) the previous day.

Director: Could we now try to bring all thoseminds to life here on the stage? It is to be done by youtrying to assume each of those five roles and present-ing them to us by stating their main messages…

Protagonist: I’ll try…

Director: Choose which one you are going topresent first.

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The Protagonist assumes the role of the ‘firstMIND’ and addresses the assistant who she has chosenpreviously to represent herself. The main message ofthis role is ‘Relax.’ Then, in turn, she presents all otherroles in the same manner, stating their main messagesin the end. The message of the second role is ‘Do notrelax.’ The message of the third role is ‘You think toomuch.’ The message of the fourth is ‘You should dosomething’, and the message of the fifth role to theProtagonist is ‘Where am I?’

Director: - Select members of the group, one byone, who will assume these roles which you have justpresented.

Scene 2

The Protagonist selects assistants from the group,one after another. The Director checks whether they haveremembered their roles and main messages. He arrangeswith them to give them a signal at a certain moment tojoin in the scene speaking aloud. He then arranges themin a circle around the Protagonist, whom in the mean-time he has instructed to close her eyes and stay in herplace. Soon after, the Director gives a signal to the assis-tants to start articulating their messages aloud, address-ing them to the Protagonist and increasing their loud-ness as they move closer and closer to her. The Protago-nist very soon after covers her ears with her hands look-

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ing down at the floor. After a while she raises her arms inthe air demonstratively and turns towards the Directorwith a powerless expression on her face.

Protagonist: - Enough!! I can’t listen to you any-more!

She wants to escape. She breaks through thering around her and for a short while hides behind themessage ‘Where am I?’. However, at the Director’s sig-nal, the other roles quickly surround the Protagonistagain and continue addressing her loudly and directly.The Protagonist spontaneously turns to the role ‘Youthink too much’ and starts a conversation.

Director: - Reverse roles!

The Protagonist reverses roles with the assis-tant and continues developing that role in communica-tion with the role of the protagonist which was previ-ously assumed by the assistant.

Director: - What does this role remind you of?

Protagonist: - Of my parents…

Director: I have an idea… Would you like to meetyour parents now, here on stage? At this age, as old asyou are now?

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Protagonist: (after short deliberation) Yes.

Director: - Then abandon first this role. Next,set the scene with your parents in a way in which it willimpart a typical, prototypical relationship between youin the present.

Scene 3

The Protagonist positions the sofa at one end ofthe stage. She places her father on it in a horizontalposition, watching television. At the other end of thestage she positions her mother standing, working overthe cooker in the kitchen.

Director: - Now assume the role of your fatherand present him to us.

The Protagonist assumes the role of the father,presents him and makes comments about the scenethat follows from the role of her father. The Directorthen instructs the father to announce his main mes-sages aloud, which messages are covertly addressedto the protagonist in this scene.

Father: (stating three main messages of that role)Why have you moved so far away, over there, so that Ican’t see you!? You never listen to me. You’re stub-born… You should have graduated from Law School

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and kept music as your hobby (The Protagonist activelyplays a woodwind instrument alongside her office job)...!

After this, the Director instructs the Protagonistto abandon the role of the father and assume the roleof the mother, to present it and then ‘extract’ from thatrole the main messages she brings to this scene.

Mother: - You’re stubborn… Relax! You just keeprushing around… Come on, have a baby!

The Director now pulls the Protagonist out ofthe role of her mother and brings her back into her ownrole. He instructs her to select assistants from the groupwho would be suitable for the roles of the father andmother. Agreeing to play the roles, assistants come upon stage and assume their roles. The Director then in-structs the Protagonist to take her position in the spaceand the physical stance which reflects the relations es-tablished on stage. This done, the Director gives a sig-nal to the assistants to voice their messages on stageand to address them to the Protagonist. He also indi-cates to Horus Kupus to start sending his messages tothe Protagonist aloud in the same manner as in theprevious scene. The Protagonist, listening to the mes-sages on stage, starts swaying her body and pacingthe stage, evidently upset.

Director: - Who would you like to talk to first?

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Protagonist: - To my father… (she turns to thefather) You don’t understand me! None of my boyfriendswas ever good enough for you, to become my husband…

Father: - What am I to understand when you’restubborn?! You never listen to me and then you makemistakes.

Protagonist: - I want your blessing for my musicplaying and for my choice of husband.

Father: - I am just afraid that you will repeat mymistakes in your choice. Because I am not sure that Imade the best choice moving all the time.

Protagonist: - You talk to me about this for thefirst time? I feel connected to you through unrest. I willcontinue playing music…

Father: - I wasn’t aware that I was questioningmyself, and I wasn’t sure about my decisions. My inse-curity derives from there, but that’s my problem. It isbecause I liked music that I enrolled you in the musicschool. As far as your choice of a partner is concerned,if he makes you happy, I will be content. Don’t suffer…

Protagonist: - Thank you.

The Protagonist approaches her father and hugshim. This embrace lasts long enough, as long as it is

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necessary for the Protagonist to ‘inhale’ this new rela-tionship with her father. Then she retreats and turns to-wards the Director expectantly. The Director instructs herto continue with her encounter with her mother, to tellher what she feels she needs to tell her at that moment.Immediately after, he issues instructions to the assistantto repeat the main messages of the role of the mother.

Protagonist: (stands before her mother lookingstraight in her eyes and listening to her messages) Howcan I relax? Look at yourself?!

Mother: - Don’t make the same mistakes as Idid. You should relax…

Protagonist: - How can I relax when all my life Iwatch what you’ve been doing? Thinking that I have todo the same…

Mother: - Don’t say that. I have two children.When are you going to have children of your own? Whatare you waiting for?

Protagonist: (with her arms crossed across her chest)- I am afraid that when I have a baby I will be trapped in thehouse and that I will do what you are doing. You two aretrapped in this space all the time. That’s why I left home…

Mother: - Looking after children is a responsiblething and I had to do it that way. It is not easy to raise

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a child; it involves denying yourself many things in life.All my life I was tied to you, trapped. But, it was to beso! Now, the times are different. Much more liberated…I will help you. At least I could leave the house… Relax!

Protagonist: (approaches her mother) I am sorryyou’ve had such a life. (She hugs her)

The Protagonist stays in her mother’s embracelong enough, exchanging physical messages with heruntil they reach a new equilibrium. Then she slowlydetaches herself and turns towards the Director.

Director: - If you have finished with your par-ents, clear up the stage and let us meet Horus Kupusagain!?

The Protagonist leads the assistants who playedthe roles of her parents off the stage and back into thegroup. She then clears up the auxiliary objects off thestage leaving it empty with only the Protagonist andthe Director on it.

Scene 4

The Director instructs the assistants, previouslyselected for the roles in the second scene, to come upon stage and assume their positions. He instructs theProtagonist to decide with which role she would like to

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continue her conversation and resolve her relationship.The Protagonist selects the role ‘You should do some-thing’ as the first she will meet on stage. The Directorthen issues instructions to the assistant to start withthe messages of his role. Then he issues instructionsfor a reversal of roles.

Role Y. S. D. S.: - It all depends on you (this isfollowed by a multiple reversal of roles)

Protagonist: - It does not depend on me…

Role Y. S. D. S.: Do something, finally. But don’tavoid conflict situations. Do what you should in yourown way, without conflicts. Be more resolute and getmore involved with things, especially with decision-making and concrete activities in your music ensemble.

After this ‘final message’ received from this role(one of her own MINDS from the first scene), the Di-rector instructs the Protagonist to continue with en-counters with the other roles in order to receive theirfinal messages. The encounter with the role ‘Relax.’ isnext.

Role R.: - Enjoy yourself!

Protagonist: - Remind me nicely to do so when Iforget how to relax.

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Role R.: - I will.

Having completed her integration with this role,the Protagonist chooses the role - MIND ‘You think toomuch’ for her next encounter and announces her finalmessage to this role.

Protagonist: - I need you only for some things,not all.

This is followed by an encounter with the role‘Don’t relax’.

Role D.R: - Don’t mix me up with your father.Use me when you need to be focused on importantbusiness.

After this final message, the Protagonist turnsto her last role ‘Where am I?’.

Protagonist: - We have resolved many things so far.

Role W. A. I.: - From now on it would be easierfor us to solve the problems you’ve got. I am with you.

Protagonist: - Thank you! (She hugs the role)

The Director checks the Protagonist’s presentneeds for further work. The Protagonist announces that

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she has satisfied the needs she had at he beginning ofher psychodrama, and that she has worked enough forthe day. The Director leaves the Protagonist some timeto complete her integration of the new experiences andthen he leads her off the stage and directs her togetherwith him towards the group. When all have sat down ina circle, the group starts sharing their separate experi-ences instigated by this psychodrama.

Commentary:Firstly, I detected that the state of exhaus-

tion was a result of the impact of the characterarmour on the protagonist’s person. Then Ihelped her discover and concretize the roleswhich are involved in this constellation of un-conscious forces. Through the techniques of roleplaying and role reversal, the protagonist startedrevealing the background of certain segmentsof the armour and establishing different relation-ships with important persons as a result of theserevelations, achieving new internal integration.The release of a certain level of spontaneity andcreativity eventually determined the point ofconclusion of this psychodrama.

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PSYCHODRAMAAND PSYCHOSOMATIC DISORDERS

IntroductionThe treatment of psychosomatic disorders is al-

ways very specific. Therapists who take upon them-selves the responsibility of treating such disorders mustbe aware that they are undertaking the resolution ofsuch constellations of forces which assist psychosomaticdisorders and originate from several dimensions anddepots hidden in the human organism. Therefore theyshould expect conflicting contents to be intertwined witha multitude of defence and control mechanisms as wellas resistances which human mental and physiologicalsystems simultaneously create within the person. Anyincautious and inept therapeutic action can trigger anavalanche of unbalanced psychosomatic reactions whichcarry the risk of further psychological, functional andtissue damage. Experiences in psychiatry to date clearlydemonstrate that at one end of the psychopathologicalspectrum are these psychosomatic disorders, while atthe other are psychotic derangements, with the latentpossibility of unexpected transformations of the one into

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the other. Experiences from psychotherapeutic practice,on the other hand, demonstrate that an unprepared‘revelation’ of hidden emotions can lead to a suddenaggravation of the psychosomatic disorder.

In general, psychosomatic disorders should beobserved as one of the outcomes of a deeper suppres-sion of emotions which the person experiences as ‘for-bidden’ and which then grasp their organs, togetherwith the resistances which accompany them. Thus theyconcurrently exist as a suppressed ‘conflicting memory’of traumatic experiences and relationships with others,concomitant with the character armour. On the otherhand, if this ‘physical block’, with trapped and unre-solved negative energies endures for a long time it cancarry the risk of damage to the organs which are in thezone of the block or are functionally related to it.

The role of psychodrama is useful in ‘unblock-ing’ and ‘externalizing’ the grasp over the body by thesesuppressed conflicting contents through the applicationof certain psychodramatic techniques, always combinedwith other methods of psychotherapy. Psychodramahelps translate the contents which exist as ‘organ ten-sion’ into stage interactions with ‘important others’ andsituations from the protagonist’s life with whom and inwhich the conflicting contents were created in the firstplace. Through this, the ‘speech of the organs’ is con-cretized and externalized in psychodramatic enactment,releasing the organism from the grasp that blocks it.

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ExampleI presented this example as a specialist paper at

the Second World Congress of Psychodrama in Jerusa-lem, Israel, in 1996. It was the result of years of re-search and practical psychotherapeutic experience intreating psychosomatic disorders. This was my seventhcase of treating thyrotoxicosis among other psychoso-matic disorders in my practice.

A twenty-three year old girl joins the psycho-drama group following a proposal by her friend whohas attended group sessions for a while. She immedi-ately presents her problems in various areas. She saysthat in the last four years she has been withdrawn inher social life and unmotivated in relationships, thatshe has stopped her studies and that she has beencompletely inhibited in her professional work, with noplans for the future. She has also been suffering fromthyrotoxicosis which is very difficult to control.

She spends the first year in the psychodramagroup lacking motivation, with frequent absences anda minimum of sharing with the others of the group.Verbal inhibition, emotional restraint and rigid, tensenon-verbal expression are prevalent in her communica-tion. Constant ‘lack of energy’ is evident in the will-power area. After several vignettes and shorter psy-chodramas in which the contents were explored mostly

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through non-verbal communication, some conflict rela-tionships in the social nucleus—her immediate family—have become discernible. This is followed by an unan-nounced absence of several months from the psycho-drama group, which was a sign that the first major un-conscious resistances have emerged.

She reappears one day in my office for privatepractice, asking to work on herself through individualpsychotherapy. After the first interview, some trial in-terpretations and the necessary information about cer-tain specificities of the therapeutic program, for the fol-lowing several months she undergoes a procedure ofpsychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy, with a fre-quency of one visit a week.

In the first stage, her individual psychoanalyti-cal psychotherapy consists mainly of analysis of herdefence ‘armour’ which manifests its exterior throughnon-verbal expressions in her bearing and behaviour.This often results in ‘acting out’: that is, enactments offthe tangent of the analytical course, followed by re-turns to the main course and continuation of analysis.In the second stage, her unconscious resistance, apartfrom through her bodily armour, starts manifesting it-self through transference reactions. After a focusedanalysis of these contents and the defence-mechanismsrelated to them, we manage to open the doors towardsrecognition of her unresolved relationship with her fa-ther, accompanied with a profound fear of her own un-controlled aggression and destructive phantasms. Sup-

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pressed aggression in combination with a feeling of guiltand the bodily armour are, as we have stated before,always in the heart of psychosomatic disorders. In suchcombinations, aggression always turns to the host’sorganism—that is, becomes auto-destructive.

I realize that the time has come to suggest thatwe should analyze these contents employing the pow-erful techniques of psychodrama. I suggest that sherejoin the psychodrama group where, through the tech-niques of role playing, surplus reality, auxiliary egos androle reversal, we could safely ‘bring to life’ and enactuntil resolution her suppressed conflict situations. Sheaccepts and we agree that she will work on herself inpsychodrama only when she is ready for it and feelssecure that her psychodrama will progress graduallyand with no pressures.

In the first several sessions she does not putherself forward as a potential protagonist but becomesincreasingly active in the warm-ups, as an assistant inother people’s psychodramas and in the sharing afterthe enactments.

Eventually, she appears one day informing thegroup that she would like to work on herself but thatshe ‘doesn’t know on what exactly’. Her unrest is expe-rienced by the other members of the group as readi-ness to work and she, all tense, goes on stage. To myquestion, in the capacity of the director of the psycho-drama, as to how she feels at the moment, she re-sponds that she feels extremely tense and ‘as if in a

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cage’. This is followed by my instructions to explorethat content. In a very short while, her father appearson stage in a domestic environment, while the protago-nist manifests very intensely all previously observedphenomena of armour, inhibition in communication andrising unpleasant tenseness. I let this internal tensiondevelop to extreme but still controllable proportions andthen I guide the protagonist to assume this role andexplore it better. Thus we reach her suppressed anger,which on the stage, with my permission, becomes moreand more ‘animated’. I guide this role to the point ofcatharsis which is necessary for the protagonist’s tem-porary release from its overpowering influence which,for many years previously, has ended with physical andverbal blockage. This also resolves the illusion abouther great internal destructiveness, which has to be con-trolled at all times, in reality based on her unconsciousfear of the phantasms of destruction.

Now, applying the technique of surplus reality,she can enact the encounter with her father on stage,during which the protagonist, released from her fear ofdestructiveness, is prepared to state her feelings andattitudes directly, which she wasn’t able to express be-fore. This also involves an encounter with her uncon-scious feeling of guilt, suppressed and related to vari-ous elements of her armour and her network of inter-nal inhibitions. She also comes to an important recog-nition that her physical block is most intense on herneck, which has had an evident swelling in the region

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of the thyroid gland for years, as an obstacle to speechand free verbal expression. Namely, that this also is akind of symbolic concretization of the ‘cage’ imposedon her own body. After role reversals and further en-actments on stage, psychodrama leads very safely to-wards resolution of this—for the protagonist, most im-portant—relationship, in the origins of her current con-flict. Some trans-generational contents are also ex-changed as secondary triggers of powerful internalblockages. The final messages in this scene, in additionto improving her present relationship with her fatherand opening opportunities for further encounters andanalysis, simultaneously lead the protagonist to resolu-tion of other important relationships in the family.

At the end of the psychodrama, the protagonistis spontaneously manifesting freedom in her speech andverbal action. For the first time in several years, shestarts planning her future and manifests signs of hav-ing freed up her creative energy. Thus, this psycho-drama achieves its planned aim.

The following day, after this session, the girl callsto inform me with excitement that the swelling on herneck has disappeared overnight. It does not return inthe following months, during which the clinical historyof thyrotoxicosis indicates normalization of all medicalparameters. The results of her regular check ups in thenext two years are the same. Emotionally andbehaviourally she recovers and stabilizes quickly, bothin her private and professional relationships. In the lat-

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ter, this former protagonist proves very successful. Herpsychotherapeutic process continues after the psycho-drama described before with further analysis of con-tents, ending with several individual analytical sessions.

Now, more than ten years later, we can be as-sured that psychodrama, in combination with other psy-chotherapeutic techniques, has proved exceptionallysuccessful and powerful in a specific stage of the treat-ment of this complicated psychosomatic disorder.

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THE USE OF PSYCHODRAMAWITH CHILDREN

IntroductionPsychodrama can be used as an exceptionally

powerful psychotherapeutic method in the psycho-therapy of children, especially in treating neurotic dis-orders. Indeed, psychodrama was born out of Moreno’sfascination with children’s play and his realisation ofthe spontaneity and creativity released in such play. Theability of children to ‘get into’ their roles so completelywhen playing them in their fantasies or in their behaviourcan serve simultaneously as a possible basis for eithercreating or resolving neurotic disorders.

In the course of my long experience of psycho-therapeutic practice I have encountered numerous neu-rotic and other disorders in children and the need tocombine different psychiatric approaches in their treat-ment. I have very often combined, besides classic psy-chiatric and psychoanalytic therapeutic models, an art-therapy approach with the use of psychodramatc ‘in-terventions’. This combined model has yielded success-ful results in resolving certain neurotic behaviors caused

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by unconscious conflicts or traumatic experiences. Inother situations, when performing individual treatment,I have combined psychodrama with techniques of‘guided fantasies’, while in certain cases I have thoughtit necessary to apply a co-therapeutic approach involv-ing ‘two therapists with one patient’. In the latter ap-proach I have often created scenarios which, after thefirst interview and several sessions at the beginning ofthe therapy, were put into practice by my psychothera-pist colleagues and assistants under constant supervi-sion at our Centre for Human Relations. This has provedhighly successful in cases previously selected as appro-priate for such an approach.

For the purpose of this book, which is designedto be a sound basic textbook combined with certainpractical experiences, I have chosen two comparativelysimple cases to present.

Example 1 (1997)Having previously made an appointment by

phone, a mother and her seven-year-old son came fortheir first interview. From the facts the mother told me,the child’s disorders were characterized primarily by in-explicable inner restlessness, attacks of fear and panic,changes in behaviour such as withdrawal and avoidance,nightmares and stuttering followed by muscle-spasms inthe chest. These symptoms had appeared several monthsbefore without any obvious reason or possible explana-tion, either for the parents or the boy. The mother said

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that she could not recall any traumatic situations thather boy might have previously experienced.

The facts the boy related were bleak and unspe-cific. The greatest discomforts for him were the feelingof fear that lingered over him and his stuttering, espe-cially in front of teachers and friends and in situationswhen he had to perform a task. At nights he wouldwake suddenly from the deepest sleep, overwhelmedwith fear, and get up to check if everything was all rightin the apartment. He did not have any idea why thesymptoms had begun, saying that everything was fineat home and in school.

First SessionHaving noticed the child’s modest capacities of

verbal expression and free association, and on the ba-sis of my former experiences in work with children, Iconcentrated all my attention on his nonverbal expres-sion and possible expression and externalization of‘bodily’ (somatic) memories. Focus was directed on theconstant sensation of ‘chest tension’ and ‘loss of breath’,which had appeared suddenly and had lasted for sometime together with a feeling of strong fear. Additionalfocus was placed on the throat tension and stutteringwhich had emerged suddenly and had often been re-peated over the previous several months.

I gave the boy several sheets of paper and toldhim to draw the ‘images’ he had in his head as they

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came and caused tension in his throat and chest anddifficulty in breathing. After a little consideration, theboy started drawing fast and, to his mother surprise,handed me a drawing in which a child was standing ina child’s hospital bed with railings, gazing at a smear onthe floor near the bed.

In the following part of the session we discussedthe drawing and worked out the contents that emergedfrom the process. Firstly, it turned out that the drawingdepicted an experience that he had had when he wasfour years old. Following a tonsil operation, he wasmoved to a room with the little bed in the picture. Theboy explained that in one moment he felt his mouth fullof blood, which forced him to spit, and that spit wasshown in his drawing as a bloody smear near the bed.At that moment a nurse came in and rebuked him…

I decided to start the processing of this trau-matic event from the gaze in the drawing, which seemedto me the strongest nonverbal expression. I asked theboy ‘to get into the role of the eyes’ and to gaze againat that smear and, after identifying with the role, to tellme ‘what the eyes were seeing’. Having identified withthe role, the boy said that the smear was getting biggerand bigger in his view, soon filling it completely. I askedhim to draw what was appearing in his eyes at thatmoment. He made another drawing rapidly: this timeof a huge irregular smear covering the whole sheet ofpaper, followed by the boy’s expression of disgust. Igave him the instruction ‘to get into the role of the eyes’

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again and observe the smear. The expression on theboy’s face started changing spasmodically into the fright-ened expression followed by difficulties in breathing andthroat tension. At an crucial moment, I gave him theinstruction to say what he was experiencing throughone of the psychodramatic techniques called ‘soliloquy’.Under the impression of reliving the traumatic situa-tion, the boy said that he felt indescribable fear. Withmy help he connected the fear with the idea of ‘…drain-ing something enormous out of him… and that he woulddisappear…!?’ and that, after it had drained out of histhroat, ‘…he would suffocate..!’.

Thus the traumatic experience, combined withthe art-therapeutic approach and psychodramatic tech-niques, was ‘decoded’ and translated from bodilymemory into contents available for further psychothera-peutic treatment. It was then followed by treatmentand working through the mental contents connected tothe traumatic experience with a new creative combina-tion of psychodrama and art-therapy. This resulted inhuge emotional relief and the disappearance of thethroat tension.

At the end of the session the boy was asked tobring new drawings to the next session, drawings de-picting everything that came to his mind connected withfear and chest tension whenever these happened,whether during the day or in his sleep. His mother wasan astonished and mute observer of the whole thera-peutic process. I asked her to leave the boy alone with

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me in my office and wait for him in the waiting-roomduring the subsequent session, provided that the boywould place his trust in me.

Second SessionAfter several days, the mother and the boy came

on time for the session. They were both content and ina good mood. The boy carried under his arm a drawingblock and gave me a significant look when he cameinto my office. His mother stayed in the waiting-room…

When the session began, the boy took a draw-ing out of the block and put it down proudly on mydesk. I took the drawing and asked him to come and sitnext to me and comment on what he had drawn. Iglanced at the main details in the drawing: a bed onone side of the drawing, a red-hot fire in the middle,and a child and a door on the other side. I noticed thathe had drawn the child with his face turned towardsthe fire…

The boy started explaining that it was a scenethat had happened in his room a few months earlier(!?). He had not been able to sleep peacefully sincethen because he was haunted by fear and nightmares.I asked him to comment on his drawing and on any-thing that came to his mind, slowly and in detail. I ex-plained to him that it would lead us to the possibility offinding a way to free him from his fears, chest tensionand stuttering as much as the situation depicted in thisdrawing had contributed to it. I also asked him to iden-

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tify, as he was explaining and commenting on the draw-ing, any parts of the story that affected him at thatmoment with a strong feeling of anxiety.

The boy started to describe fluently and in de-tail the event that had happened in reality a few monthsago. Namely, he had been left alone in a room and hadstarted playing with matches. Suddenly, several matcheslit up at once and he dropped them on the carpet infear. He went towards the door of the room in panic,opened the door and then turned around and saw thefire bursting out in big flames. He stopped, completelynumb and breathless (!!), unable to move either for-ward or backward… He thus remained ‘frozen’ at thedoor until suddenly his parents burst into the room andput out the fire. His parents did not scold him after thatand soon, as it seemed, everybody forgot what hadhappened. The only thing that remained was a trau-matic experience ‘somatised’ in my little patient, fol-lowed by occasional unexpected panic fears and night-mares that disturbed his balanced mental functioning.

After we had revealed ‘the content’, we startedrevealing and working out ‘the process’ that remainedas a consequence of having experienced that scene. Iasked him to get into the role of ‘the frozen look’ in thedrawing again and tell me what went on inside him inthat role. The boy began to feel enormous fear verysoon: his body stiffened, he stopped breathing... At thatmoment I asked him what was going on in his headand he replied that he had stopped at the door and felt

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completely unable to move (!!), to get out, and that hewould stay paralysed in the room and would suffocate(!?). I took him out of his role of ‘the eyes’ and in thenext few minutes I talked to him in order to connectthe experiences caused by this event with the inexpli-cable symptoms that he had developed over the pre-ceding few months.

After a short break, the final working out of thesituation followed until it was resolved with the applica-tion of psychodramatic interventions. Firstly, I explainedto my little protagonist what we were going to do in thenext twenty minutes, which was his ‘warm-up’ for theenactment of the scene, and the purpose of that thewhole process. The boy gladly accepted the offer to‘play’ the scene at the door again. We had agreed thatthe room in my office would be rearranged in order torepresent his room in the drawing so that the door wouldbe in the same position as it had been ‘then’, while thefire from the drawing would come to life by the movesof my hands and its burning would be accompaniedwith certain sounds that my voice would produce. Wehad agreed that he would be in contact with me duringthe enactment and that we would, if necessary, ‘changethe play’ at my suggestion. At the end of the warm-upwe agreed that I would give a signal for the beginningand end of the enactment.

I placed him at the door in the position he hadpreviously shown me and gave him a signal for the sceneaction to begin. After a moment, the boy was frozen

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with fear as he had been in reality, a possibility we hadforeseen before beginning. I thus ‘took him out of therole’ and gave him the instruction to find something inmy room that could ‘be him’ and to repeat the samesituation—only this time he would be watching it fromthe side. The boy chose a coffee-table with his coat tobe him and started observing the repeated situationfrom the side. At a certain moment I gave him the in-struction to do what he thought appropriate and to helpthe little boy who was in trouble, completely helpless inthe situation that was going on in front of him. Veryshortly after the re-enactment of the situation, the boydeterminedly stepped into the scene and started ex-plaining to ‘him’ that he needn’t be frightened and thathe could freely get out of the room and call his parentsto put out the fire. Then the boy took ‘him’ and led himout of the room, showing him how to do that. Havingfinished this scene, the little protagonist shared withme his feeling of happiness and joy for what he haddone, as well as his feeling of freedom.

Having noticed the release of such spontaneity,I led him towards the final working out of the traumaticsituation. I gave him the instruction to repeat the situ-ation once again and to get into the role of ‘himself’and to do what in the previous scene he had shownshould be done. The boy took his position at the door, Igave him a signal and the scene was repeated. At acertain moment, instead of being frozen with fear andwithout breath, the boy turned around quickly and went

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out of the room freely. After that I offered to repeat thesituation as many times as he needed, until he felt com-pletely free. The boy repeated the situation once againand at the beginning of the second repetition he stoppedthe scene action saying confidently that he was ‘cured’.He agreed with my remark that we should observe thesymptoms for the following few days and that the mainsign of success would be if they decreased or disap-peared.

At the end of this second session, I gave the boya task to draw his room in his drawing block the way itshould look now according to the feeling he had had atthat moment after the enactment. He sat down andquickly made a drawing in which he was lying in hisbed. His comment was: ‘Now I can sleep peacefully.’ Isuggested he take the drawing home and put it underhis pillow for the next several days until our next ses-sion as a reminder before he went to sleep.

Third SessionThe mother and her son came with smiles on

their faces as if in a film with a happy ending. Each ofthem told me that the boy was ‘great’ and did not haveany problems. There were no panic attacks, nightmaresor stuttering, while his bodily posture had changed inthe sense that he was now breathing freely with a re-laxed chest and no longer suffering moments in whichhe was left ‘without breath’, especially in front of au-thority-figures. I used this session to ‘support the con-

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firmation of the new state’, agreeing at the end thatthey should call me if the symptoms ever returned.

The mother called after a month to say that herson was great and was making progress in school andsports, and to express her gratitude. Thanks to psycho-drama as the greatest part of the psychotherapeutictreatment, the boy has been successfully cured and iswithout any symptoms to this day (10 years later).

Example 2 (2004)A mother brought an eight-year-old boy to my

office for his first interview. She said that she could notremember how many years it had been since her childhad had a fear of buttons. She explained that if a but-ton was somewhere close to him, he would go red inthe face and start suffocating, developing explosive ten-sion, panic, and an impulsive need to run from thatplace, no matter how or where to. He would refuse tolet his parents wear shirts or other clothing with but-tons at home or in front of him, especially at the tablewhen he was eating. In the latter case, immediatelyafter the beginning of the meal, he would vomit hisfood on the table and refuse to eat until a button wasremoved from his view.

At the beginning, the boy did not give detailedor specific answers to my questions. He repeated sev-eral times that whenever he saw a button his neck wouldautomatically stiffen, he would lose breath and soonhis stomach would send the food right back through

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his mouth. My further questions were focused on hisbody language and more specific areas. I asked him totry to remember anything that reminded him of thetension in his throat and suffocation or whatever cameto his mind connected with that and to tell me freelyabout it or to draw it on the sheet of paper in front ofhim. The boy started thinking and we spent the nextfew minutes in silence while he was thinking over thesheet of paper. During that time, his mother began show-ing signs of nervousness and whispered to me that theyall lived ‘in special conditions’, with the immediate andextended family all together in one house. Then sheremembered what her mother-in-law had said six yearsago about something that had happened when thegrandmother tried to comb her two-year-old grandsonas they were preparing for the family wedding.

Upset by this, the boy stirred and gave me asignificant look. To my question as to whether he re-membered what exactly had happened, he nodded inconfirmation and immediately began retelling the eventas he remembered it. His story was that when his grand-mother was trying to put a bow-tie around his neck,she had pressed him so hard that it frightened him andhe had run out of the room screaming. Since then hehas been afraid of buttons and does not let anyoneclose to him wear clothes with buttons.

The first interview was brought to an end with anadditional request to the mother that she try to recallwhether the boy had experienced any other traumas,

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which she denied. She gave only vague and evasive re-plies in response to my attempts to learn more about theatmosphere at home and any impaired relations theremight be in the family. This response helped determinemy final plan for the therapeutic action which was tofollow in the next two weeks. I explained to the motherthat the child’s work on his fear would take the form of acreative workshop which would be conducted with thehelp of my two co-therapist assistants in psychodrama. Iintroduced them to each other and immediately after-wards we arranged the time for our first session.

First SessionBefore the boy came to his first session, I had

prepared a scenario that I explained to my assistants.The main goal was to ‘get into the role of buttons’ withthe help of psychodramatic techniques and through ex-ploring any potential inner contents of the child thatwere being ‘projected’ onto these objects. Having pre-viously noticed the real possibility that the child mightblock this therapeutic plan through unconscious innerdefences, I prepared my colleagues for the situation bygiving them concrete instructions to recognize and toovercome the expected defence mechanisms in prac-tice during their work. The scenario assumed a gradualcourse of guidance ‘from the periphery towards thecentre’ with obligatory ‘warm-ups’ for every scene, roleand action that would be enacted. We also arrangedtime for supervision after the session.

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When the boy arrived, my assistants first did ashort warm-up with him in the form of a simple nonver-bal game and interesting role reversals. The boy likedit: he relaxed and they gained his trust. He got used tothe room and he released the first dose of spontaneityfor role playing. They talked freely about his fear ofbuttons. They agreed that he would draw several but-tons on sheets of paper, one for each sheet. Soon theboy stopped drawing and showed two drawings. Thefirst one showed one big button which the boy describedas ‘… bad button… frightens children…’, while on thesecond was drawn a small button which he defined as‘… good button, cannot even frighten a baby…’.

The drawings were placed on two empty chairsand then the instruction was given to reverse roles witheach of them. From the role of ‘the big and bad button’the boy gave ‘himself’ a message that he was a big boyand should not be afraid because it was only a button.For the role of himself he chose one of the assistants,while the other took the role of a director. From the roleof ‘the good’ button he gave ‘himself’ a message that itcould not frighten a baby and he was not a baby any-more. Role reversals resulted in the boy’s acceptanceof these messages, after which he spontaneously andat his own initiative started talking about a real-life situ-ation connected with a button which had frightenedhim. Namely, after he had come home from school oneday, he had sat down at the table to eat a pie. Then hisfather had come home and the boy stopped eating (!?),

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left to wash his hands and went straight up to his room.The father called him to come back to the table to fin-ish the food, but he refused. The boy accepted the sug-gestion that he show us what had happened with hisfather in the room, i.e. to reenact the scene where hewas at the present moment with the help of my assis-tants.

The co-therapeutic pair helped the child to setthe scene and enact it together with them. This wasfollowed by role reversals, the most important of whichwas a role reversal with his father in which messageswere exchanged that eventually brought about com-plete mutual understanding and reconciliation. The lastmessage of the father to the boy was ‘I am very happy’.The first session ended with a brief sharing aimed atconnecting all the findings and changes derived fromthe enactment during the session.

Second SessionThe second session began with a conversation

about the things that had happened in the period sincethe last session. The boy announced that he felt muchbetter, that he had even tried to put on a shirt withbuttons. After this, one of the assistants asked the boyif he was ready to deal with the situation from the wed-ding. Upon agreeing, the boy was asked whether thiswas a situation which he remembered or one that hadstuck with him as a result of its being retold by thoseclose to him. The boy said that he did not remember it,

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but he had the situation in his head through the storiestold to him by the members of his household.

It was agreed to enact together the situationfrom the wedding according to the ‘picture’ in the boy’shead. The situation was set up and enacted in accor-dance with the rules of psychodrama required for theenactment of traumatic situations. The boy was placedto one side to observe and give instructions on settingthe scene, deciding on the messages and interactionsbetween his grandmother and himself—the roles thatthe co-therapists played on the scene. The main actionreenacted his grandmother’s putting a bow-tie on theboy and his starting to suffocate. After the enactment,as the boy had it in his head, the co-therapists steppedout of their roles and asked him how he felt and theboy said that he felt bad. ‘Now you are eight and youcan help the two-year-old boy to overcome his fear ifyou want to’ was the next instruction he got from theco-therapeutic pair. Soon afterwards, the boy ap-proached the role of the two-year-old boy, removed thebow-tie from his neck and placed it in an improviseddrawer, telling him: ‘You shouldn’t be afraid any more,I’ll help you to overcome this.’

From that moment on, the resolving of the fearwas well underway with the boy remaining in the roleof ‘a grown-up boy’ for as long as he needed to, in-structing the frightened two-year-old boy towards acorrect understanding of and relation to his fears. Hav-ing received confirmation from the little boy through

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the role reversal that he was freed from the fear of abow-tie and suffocation, our protagonist, in the role ofthe grown-up boy, continued resolving other situationswhich frightened the little boy. Thus he returned to thesituation with his father where he had run off to hisroom frightened without finishing his pie. The scenewas enacted under his guidance and was successfullyresolved with his returning from the room to the kitchenand his father without any fear and finishing the situa-tion that had previously been interrupted due to fear. ‘Iam not frightened any more!’ was the final message ofthe two-year-old boy to his leader and trainer, the eight-year-old boy.

In the next few minutes the two-year-old boyunderwent the psychodramatic ‘rapid growth’ withoutfear up to his present age of eight. Thus was performedanother psychodramatic operation to correct threaten-ing emotional experiences interwoven with the past thatexercise immense influence on a person’s development.

Third SessionFollowing the previous supervision and assess-

ment of the achieved therapeutic effect, the third andfinal session in resolving the eight-year-old boy’s fearof buttons involved another two planned phases. Thefirst phase of this session was to verify the real accom-plishments achieved in the previous sessions.

On arriving for this session, before the child wentinto the office, his mother informed us that her child

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was unbelievably better: he ate without any problemsand did not show any signs of panic or fear when see-ing buttons or people dressed in normal clothes. In themeantime, the boy had become noticeably more good-humored and spontaneous in communication with ev-erybody in the house, including his father, and not oncehad he manifested any sign of unrest or tension in situ-ations which usually provoked these symptoms.

Through drawings and other art-therapeutic in-terventions combined with psychodrama, the first partof the session was dedicated to checking and once againworking out the reactions in scenes and situations whichhad previously been the cause of neurotic maneuversin the boy. Since the direct psychodrmatatic evaluation‘in vivo’ provided successful results, the co-therapiststook the boy to the next phase planned for this session,which was also the end of the focal therapy of this dis-order.

The boy was introduced into scene actionsthrough ‘rehearsals of roles’ from reality which occurreddaily in his household, according to a draft-plan whichhad been made previously and in whose preparationthe boy had also taken part. Thus, scenes of joint mealsand communications with every member of his house-hold and his family, i.e. with every ‘important person’from his close surroundings with whom his neurotic dis-order was connected, were explored, rehearsed andverified. After the successful working out of all impor-tant situations and relations in the form of ‘surplus real-

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ity’, it was obvious that the boy had regained his natu-rally determined basic spontaneity and creativity.

In the course of the following months, the boy’smother telephoned us to say that everything was allright with her son and that everybody in the family wasvery happy with the outcome of the treatment.

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SOCIODRAMA

IntroductionSociodrama offers limitless possibilities for ex-

perienced, skilled and creative psychodramatists in theirwork with groups of people. For many years I haveclaimed publicly, as well as shared with my collabora-tors, clients and students, that the range of applica-tions of sociodrama is much greater than that of a clas-sic psychodrama. I believe that its power to improveindividuals and groups is at present more needed inthe human community than ever before. The example Icite belongs to the area of trans-cultural relations.

ExampleThe goal of the seminar during which this

sociodrama was to be enacted was to research and applythe methods of psychodrama and sociodrama in thearea of trans-cultural relations in the contemporaryworld. The seminar was international, attended by al-most sixty participants from several countries, most ofthem from Serbia, England, Israel, the USA, Macedonia,Croatia and Montenegro. It took place in Belgrade at a

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time when the host country and the region had justemerged from a period of mass war traumas, and at atime of their political, social and economic transition.Internationally, this was the time when the notion andthe influence of the newly created construction calledthe ‘international community’ became increasingly im-portant. This international community had played a sig-nificant role for the past decade in the region and hadhad a great impact on the events in the host country.

During this three-day long seminar, three ‘major’morning sessions were planned with the attendance ofthe entire group. Afternoon sessions were anticipated forwork in smaller groups with the active participation ofyounger trainers and subsequent supervision of their work.

I had the honour and the responsibility to bethe leader of a large group on the second day of theseminar and was given freedom of choice in the methodof work with the group. After long reflection, guided byassessments of the needs of such a mixed group andthe possibilities of psychodrama, I decided to create amodel of sociodrama which would contribute towardsthe elucidation of certain aspects of trans-cultural rela-tions on the one hand, and fit in the group process ofsuch specific group on the other.

Warm-upAfter a short introduction, time arrangements,

and arrangements concerning our joint work and co-operation, I instructed the group to start with the warm-up. It proceeded in two short sections.

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In the first, participants were supposed to per-form physical exercises individually, in pairs, and in smallgroups. These exercises included: spontaneous move-ment in space; movement accompanied with deepbreathing; directed movement (in a straight line, zig-zag, backwards, etc.); work in pairs with mutual con-trolled pushing, stretching, etc. The aim of these exer-cises was to release physical spontaneity from previ-ously created psychomotor blocks, as well as to helpthe ‘abandonment’ of regular, everyday uniform roles.

In the second section of the warm-up, the groupwas divided into pairs. The participants were given freechoice in selecting partners among themselves. Theywere then involved in a small workshop of ‘guiding’ inwhich the partners alternately reversed their roles. First,one member of the pair guided the other, whose eyeswere closed, and then there was a reversal of roles, theaim of which was guidance and experiencing the roleof ‘being loved’ in reverse.

At the end of the warm-up, the members of thegroup were given a short period of time to share someexperiences, important both for the individuals and thegroup. After the completion of this part, I led the groupinto the previously announced main stage of the ses-sion, the sociodrama.

SociodramaI told the members of the group that the space

they were in was divided into several sections. In thosespaces they were supposed to ‘bring to life’ certain roles

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which would represent selected target groups in the con-temporary world. Then I pointed at one end of the space,which was elevated and was used as a psychodramastage in other sessions, as the position for the groupwhich would assume the role of ‘the world media’. At theother end was the position of the group in the role of‘children’. In between these two, in the central space,was the position of the group in the role of ‘ordinary,normal people’. The leftover space on the sides, wherethe chairs were, was to be occupied by the group in therole of ‘the cultural heritage’. Having checked whetherthe group understood my previous instructions, I contin-ued with the scenario, instructing the members of thegroup to choose spontaneously and freely in which spaceand which group they would participate.

I waited for the members of this large group totake up their positions in their new groups so that Icould issue instructions to research, for some twentyminutes within their groups, the main characteristicsand importance of their role in the human community.At the same time, they were to explore and, throughopen communication in their groups (sharing, feedback,analysis and confirmation), come to shared conclusionsabout the significance of the role they were discover-ing, including the important parameters of the groupthey represented, as well as the internal rules uponwhich the group was based.

Within the allotted time a lively discussion de-veloped among the members of all groups with active

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participation of all present. After a couple of minutes, itwas obvious that the level of readiness to ‘enter’ thesociodrama and the interest in the role playing was ris-ing fast. When the allotted time elapsed, I checkedwhether the process of ‘building the group and the grouprole’ was complete and whether the optimum degreeof group cohesion had been achieved in each group. Irequired that each group end this stage of preparationswith an address of their main message to their environ-ment, the target groups in this sociodrama.

This was followed by my instruction to the groupsto position themselves in the space in a manner whichwould express their non-verbal attitude toward the othergroups. It was noticeable that the members of the ‘worldmedia’ group had adopted strict and ‘important’ expres-sions on their faces, accompanied with ‘snooty’ looksdirected at the others in the space. The members ofthe ‘cultural heritage’ group spontaneously climbed onchairs in order to amplify their importance. The groupof ‘ordinary normal people’ sat themselves on the chairsin the middle with a humbled physical bearing and gaz-ing downwards at the floor, spontaneously building agroup which appeared to the observer as a bunch ofoverburdened, confused and worried people. Almostall members of the ‘children’ group turned their bodiesand looks in the direction of the group of ‘normal’ peoplein a position of readiness to establish contact with them.All these signs indicated the readiness of all participantsin the seminar to enact the key sociodramatic action.

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My announcement of the next action followed. Iasked all participants and groups to prepare, at my sig-nal, to start playing the roles they had assumed. Intheir enactment they were supposed to pay attentionto the main messages, i.e., which messages to addressto whom, and to do so spontaneously and creatively.When we had established that all participants wereready, I gave the signal to start action. Soon after, itwas plainly obvious that the groups representing ‘worldmedia’, ‘cultural heritage’ and ‘children’ turned towardsthe remaining group of ‘ordinary, normal people’, ad-dressing their messages mainly to them. As time passed,these three groups addressed their messages more andmore ardently to the ordinary people, who were moreand more noticeably withdrawn, their stance indicativeof avoidance of communication with any of the groups,their verbal expressions non-existent. This led to evenmore ardent attempts by the other three groups to at-tract their attention, and when their messages wereignored and there was no response coming from the‘ordinary, normal people’, a majority of the members ofthe three groups started moving closer and closer tothem, addressing their messages vociferously. Soonafter, the members of the ‘children’ group took the lib-erty of beginning to pull the ordinary people towardsthemselves by their arms, legs and other parts of theirbodies—sending them messages that they were indis-pensable for their development, that they needed theirlove, attention and understanding, as well as their con-

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stant presence. The members of the ‘cultural heritage’group, with extremely serious voices, tried to make theordinary people accept the fact that constant union withtradition was a necessity and that it was of utmost im-portance to preserve it with regular observance of im-portant dates, events and rituals. The members of the‘world media’ group, with a superior and monotonousvoice, informed of various catastrophes, wars, murders,accidents which happened in continuity throughout theworld, sending the message that people were constantlythreatened by something.

At that moment, observed from a distance, itwas obvious that an extremely tense atmosphere hadbeen created among the groups, completely ‘engrossed’in their roles. Relations were created, rife with aggres-sive, almost violent behaviour and with panicking at-tempts by the three groups to attract the attention ofordinary people, who defended themselves with utterpassivity, confusion, stubbornly staying put in theirplaces with glassy looks in their eyes which avoidedcontact with the surroundings. There were individualattempts at even ‘dragging’ some of their members, orat persuasion by demanding their consent with regardsto certain attitudes. At that moment, my idea about theimportance of such enactments of sociodrama was re-alized, my aim was fulfilled in the sense that the de-sired group-dynamics were achieved and a process wasconstructed which was to be further analyzed in orderto gain an ultimate and significant insight into the im-

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portance of the idea. I allowed the dynamics to inten-sify even further in the next ten minutes, intermittentlyreminding the members of the group to be in touchwith what they experienced when playing their roles.In this last period, there occurred exceptionally sponta-neous actions in the role playing, with complete identi-fication, observable in some of the members of thegroups. This indicated that we should move to the nextstage of this sociodrama.

SharingI interrupted the stage action and asked all mem-

bers of the group to abandon their roles and to returnto the ‘circle’ of the bigger group. I also asked them toremember the impressions and experiences which re-sulted from the sociodramatic enactment so that theycould share them with the other members of the biggergroup. After I had them seated in a circle, I asked themto concentrate on the important aspects of their expe-riences and to try and recognize them in a social, groupand personal context. I suggested that they start fromtheir personal experience in the process of building theirrespective groups, to continue with their experiencesin the enactment of their roles and to finish with theiropinion about the significance of their role in relation tothe other enacted roles in the previous scenes.

Since most of the participants were more thananimated after the sociodramatic action, the sharingstarted immediately and several participants readilyshared their experience. It was evident that the shar-

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ing quickly resulted in some essential recognition of therelations within and between the groups in thesociodrama and their correspondence to the existingrelations in the world. There ensued a quick recogni-tion of the considerable influence which the world me-dia, cultural heritage and the responsibility of bringingup children commanded over the group of ‘ordinary,normal people’. The group also established that an in-visible game of ‘aggressors/harassers and victims’ hadbeen at play as well as that some concealed interestsof the group roles had been involved in the sociodramaticenactment. Sociodrama led to a better insight into theessence, that is, to a revelation of the real positions,interests and powers of certain target groups in thehuman community of today, as well as into their inter-connection and interdependence. This was the mainaim of this workshop: to recognize the value of psycho-drama at this level.

This was followed by a more profound insightinto their personal experiences as members of thegroups; that is, into the way in which these experienceswere related to the roles they had in their own lives andto other roles in their environment, as well as into theimpact of these experiences and the interdependencesthey create. The group found the experience of thegroup of ordinary people most significant. Their com-mon impression, which they shared with the others,was the feeling of being threatened, burdened, andsubjected. They recognized the responsibility, power-lessness and the limits of absurdity which they had to

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face in that role. When observed from a distance, theimpact of sociodrama on the further development ofthe process in this ethnically and culturally diverse groupbecame evident. It resulted mostly in tacit avoidance ofthe recognition of the role of one’s own ethnicity in theinternational community and the process of analysis ofthe experiences assumed a more general direction to-wards common human imprisonment in certain life roles,similar to those enacted in the psychodrama.

Group processThe division of the group which preceded the

sharing also led to more concentrated attention on in-tra-psychological contents and to increased tension ofsome in certain members of the group. All this causedthe process to change direction towards instigation andprojection of transference contents which, in actual fact,bore the essence of the relations instigated in thesociodrama. Having observed this development of thegroup process, I directed its work towards selection ofthe potential protagonists and a final choice of the pro-tagonist for the psychodramatic session which was tofollow after a short break. In this session, as was to beexpected, the group worked on relationships with au-thorities, starting with personal powerlessness in therealization of important life roles. Sociodrama ended itswork by becoming an integral part in the personal de-velopment of all members of this international trans-cultural workshop.

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THE APPLICATION OF PSYCHODRAMAAND SOCIODRAMA IN THE TRAINING OF

HUMAN RESOURCES

IntroductionPsychodrama can be a potentially very powerful

tool in the area of human resources training if appliedadequately and in accordance with the standards whichsuch programs require. Having been seriously involvedin trainings in this area for more than twelve years, Ihave often come across various different institutions,companies, teams and individuals in need of training ofthis type. In the same period, this region has had toendure wars, suffering, mass psychosis and transitionalsocial processes which have demanded the creation andapplication of both standard and specific programs forthe training of a professional and voluntary workforce.

I have acquired interesting experiences in en-counters with fellow trainers who have come from vari-ous parts of the world to perform certain types of train-ing, paid most often by international foundations inter-ested in the breakthrough and acceptance of this ap-proach on the territory of former Yugoslavia. In the last

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few years, this has become a common practice in thedevelopment of human resources. What made us dif-ferent as trainers were generally two things. The firstdifference was in our educational background, since wasmost commonly in the areas of social and technical sci-ences, while mine was based upon a more profoundunderstanding of individuals and groups owing to myprevious education and professional practice in the ar-eas of medicine, general and therapeutic psychologyand psychopathology, clinical neuropsychiatry, psycho-analysis, psychoanalytical psychotherapy, group dynam-ics, psychodrama, stress management, etc. The sec-ond and more crucial difference lay in the fact that, inthe training of professionals and volunteers, I introducedthe techniques of ‘role playing’ and several other im-portant elements of psychodramatic guidance. Thisproved exceptionally successful, owing to the opportu-nities it gave for faster learning and acquiring skills incomparison to the other approaches applied in the re-alization of the training programs.

It would help the reader gain an initial orienta-tion in this vast area to know that the training of humanresources is divided into three general directions: train-ing for the non-governmental sector, training for thegovernmental sector, and training for the business sec-tor. All these sectors have their own specific character-istics to which the training programs are adapted. Thispresumes a detailed knowledge in these areas on thepart of the trainers, as well as a wide range of highly

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developed communication skills in work with such spe-cific groups. In accordance with the aim of this book, Ihave decided to offer the reader a basic insight into thepossibilities of psychodrama in this area through briefexamples from my own practice.

TRAINING INTHE NON-GOVERNMENTAL SECTOR

Example 1I chose this example both for the specific char-

acteristics of the target group and for the uniquenessof the program which I created for it. I hope that itmight be of help to a certain group of professionals intheir future work and make interesting reading for thelay reader.

In the mid-1990s, while wars still raged on theterritory of former Yugoslavia, I was invited by the In-ternational Red Cross, as a neuro-psychiatrist and ex-pert in the area of stress and crisis disorders, to con-ceive and organize a training program for their teams.In my preliminary conversations with the head of themission, I found out that the training was needed fortwo teams of doctors who worked with refugees fromBosnia, one of the teams consisting of Bosnian doctorsand the other of Médecins Sans Frontières. The mostimportant problems, as stressed by the head of themission, were ‘…helplessness, detachment and loss of

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interest…’ from which the members of this team ha-bitually suffered after spending a certain period of timedoing fieldwork. The doctors simply became non-re-sponsive to the emotional needs of the traumatized refu-gees and thus unable to complete the mission to whichthey were committed, despite their conscious efforts.My task was to assess the problems of these teams, tocreate a path to their resolution and to improve thesedoctors’ knowledge in the areas of trauma and stressdisorders and their skills in working with people suffer-ing from such disorders.

Having conducted several additional interviewsand gathered the necessary data, I reached the con-clusion that their problems and needs could be groupedinto three focus points. First was the insufficient knowl-edge of the problem area which the doctors had totreat in this case and which required additional special-ist knowledge in the areas of stress and crisis and post-traumatic disorders. The second was insufficient famil-iarity with psychotherapeutic techniques and skills inapproaches to the resolution of the needs of the targetgroups. The third and, at the same time, the foremostin the presumed realization of the training programs,was related to ‘burn-out’ syndrome, that is, to the in-sight that the doctors suffer from this burn-out syn-drome in their work with severe pathology in practice.In the language of psychoanalysis, due to their insuffi-cient knowledge and training, the members of bothgroups were ‘over-contained’ with contents which they

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had ‘introjected’ during their work with traumatizedpersons and which rendered them ineffectual for fur-ther work. On the basis of these conclusions, I sug-gested two simultaneous workshops for both groups.The first was labelled ‘healing the healers’ and was aimedat emotionally unburdening the doctors, while the sec-ond was a combination of theoretical lectures and prac-tical work on the improvement of basic psychothera-peutic skills for helping people in crisis.

My suggestion was promptly accepted and westarted with the training. Psychodrama was employedat important practical stages of the first workshop im-mediately after its commencement, while the secondworkshop started with a series of my selected lecturesin the area of psychiatry and stress management. Afterthe guided warm-ups, the doctors were steered towardsacceptance of the technique of ‘sharing’, that is, com-municating their main emotional experiences related totheir field work. This initiated a constructive develop-ment of the group process through reciprocated open-ness, recognition of shared professional and emotionalproblems and a definition of the prototypical problem-atic situations from their field work. This enabled us towork on their process of ‘burning-out’ with a combina-tion of various techniques through group work in anatmosphere of complete mutual trust.

This soon became doubly beneficial for thegroup. On the one hand, optimal cohesion was achievedwithin the group; on the other, we managed to gain

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insight into the situation common to all of them whichrequired further exploration. At that point, I improvedthe group work by introducing the techniques of role-playing, with situations from reality enacted on an im-provised ‘stage’ on which, from scene to scene, thedoctors discovered with enthusiasm the power of psy-chodrama as well as their personal spontaneity and cre-ativity when building and enacting these situations. Thusenthused, they could proceed by employing the tech-niques of role reversal in order to explore more pro-foundly the more important elements of the traumaticprocesses suffered by the refugees they interviewed,as well as the needs they projected onto the doctorswho worked with them. Simultaneously, they also ex-plored to a greater depth their own roles in certain cru-cial moments in their communication, allowing theminsight into their personal unconscious processes of trau-matization by ‘containment’ of such contents, which wereto be released in this group.

The same situations were then used for assess-ment of their therapeutic techniques and the need forimprovement, as well as simulation models for acquir-ing and testing new psychotherapeutic skills, previouslyanalyzed in theory. The doctors were fascinated to dis-cover how quickly they had acquired new knowledgethrough these techniques, experiencing the process oflearning as a wonderful and creative game. After sev-eral weeks of observing and improving their actual field-work with constant supervision and new psychodramatic

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enactments, results became apparent both in their prac-tical work and in their personal psychological balance—results which were to everyone’s satisfaction. In thespace of three months, the head of the mission and Iagreed that our goal had been achieved and that thisproject should end with a period of observation andgradual separation. It transpired that others within theinternational network of this organization had becomeaware of the success of this project. I was informedsoon after the conclusion of my workshops that expertsfrom other countries visited the participants in the work-shops to gather important information and experiencesthat they could then apply in other environments.

Example 2I hope that the following case will arouse the

interest of readers with affinities towards social work,as well as that of psychodramatists who find work inthis field appealing.

In the late 1990s I began a temporary but fruit-ful period of cooperation with the team of Caritas Inter-national through my Centre for Human Relations. Oneof the training projects we were supposed to conductfor this organisation was aimed at the specialization oftheir teams for work with elderly people. In my firstinterviews with their management and operative staff,the aim of which was the assessment of their needsand problems, I noticed that the common denominatorto which all interviews could be reduced was ‘… old

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people are dissatisfied…’ and, furthermore, that theirdissatisfaction was demonstrated freely before the mem-bers of the team without any explanations as to thereason for their dissatisfaction. My further analysis foundthat they were more dissatisfied with the manner inwhich they were treated than with the quality of thematerial support they were getting. For this reason, Icreated a specific program which I called ‘How to un-derstand the other?’. My proposal was immediately ac-cepted by the leader of the team.

This program was centred on two main focuses.The first was to provide the volunteers with a betterunderstanding of their target group, while the secondfocus was on the adoption of the basic techniques ofcounselling of the Rogers type. During the preparationsbefore the start of the training program it became clearthat by employing psychodramatic and sociodramatictechniques I could provide the participants in the semi-nar with both the most expedient and most interestingmodel of learning. This soon proved to be the rightchoice to the great satisfaction of all interested in thesuccess of this training program.

At the start of the seminar, its participants weredivided into two groups, one representing the volun-teers, the other assuming the role of the elderly people.The aim of the first group was to try and understandthe needs of the other group, while the aim of the sec-ond group was to discover ‘from inside’ and define theirneeds and expectations which were to be met by the

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first group. This sociodramatic enactment allowed fortheir confrontation, where the disagreements in the ini-tial perceptions of the first group became obvious. Thiswas followed by a role reversal whereby the first groupassumed the role of the second, and the second groupassumed the role of the first. This manoeuvre allowedfor a more complete understanding of both the generalneeds and a range of specific needs of the target group,which were to be recognized by the volunteers and theprofessionals working with them. When the enactmentwas complete and the attendants of the workshop aban-doned their set roles, they were invited to share theirexperiences, which eventually resulted in clear conclu-sions and the adoption of practical directions for fur-ther work. This sociodrama workshop also helped theparticipants in the training to release their spontaneityand creativity and enabled them to continue with theirwork in the next stage which involved techniques ofrole playing.

The participants started the second part of theworkshop with a warm-up in which they were given thetask to consider and write down, each for themselves, alist of prototypical situations which they encountered ona regular basis in their everyday practical work with eld-erly people. When they had completed their lists, I askedthem to show and explain their lists to the groups, oneat a time. Having heard each other, they were instructedby me to work out the priority and the prototypes of thesituations they had cited from their practice. To achieve

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this, we applied one of the contemporary leadership tech-niques of group facilitation and this soon resulted in ajoint list of the most common and most difficult prob-lems in their communication with their target group. ThenI instructed them to work in pairs and select a situationwhich, with my assistance, they would analyze beforethe group. At the completion of this stage, we agreed to‘start with the action’ after a short break.

This stage started with pair work, whereby,through the use of the techniques of role playing andtargeted role reversals, the unique power of psycho-drama and its advantage over other approaches in thepractical training of the participants in the seminar be-came evident. Roles were divided between the pairs insuch a way that one represented the volunteer and theother the elderly person whom the volunteer met intheir fieldwork. Under my instructions, they first en-acted the situation from their practice as it had hap-pened or as they expected it to happen. The next stepwas a joint analysis of the technique of communica-tion, as presented by the volunteers, accompanied withattempts at assessment of the elderly person’s needs inevery case and suggestions by the participants as to itsoptimal resolution.

This was followed by verification of the partici-pants’ understanding: that is, whether the main goal ofthe seminar named ‘How to understand the other?’ hadbeen achieved. In this case also, the choice of psycho-drama as the foremost technique of the seminar was

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fully justified. At the moment when I issued instruc-tions for role reversals with the ‘others’, meaning theelderly persons with whom they were involved in com-munication, the principal dilemmas in the understand-ing of the problems, previously discussed at expert meet-ings for months in a row, were quickly resolved. In therole of the other, guided by precise questions, theymanaged to give their interlocutors, i.e. the partner whoassumed their role, clear and direct instructions andexplanations of their main needs and problems. Thiswas followed a by a group discussion in which the par-ticipants expressed their appreciation of the stage ac-tion which released their spontaneity and creativity, aswell as their amazement at the ease with which theyachieved the aim of this stage of the workshop.

The next and final stage was marked for ‘roletraining’, for practicing the new techniques of counsel-ling. On the whiteboard I noted down the steps whichthey had to go through and the main messages foreach of them which were to be used in the key mo-ments of their work with the others. Then I asked thegroup to work in pairs again and allowed each pair topractice their new knowledge, applying thepsychodramatic techniques of assuming roles, role play-ing and role reversal. While doing so, they had to fol-low the specific steps on the board and ‘build them intothe role’, going through counselling on the spot, in situ,as if they were doing field work with the characters andpersons which we had got to know better on the psy-

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chodrama stage. At the end of the workshop, they wereall under the impression that they had attained moreknowledge that they had expected before it began.

This seminar proved its worth very soon as thevolunteers became much more successful in their field-work than they had been before it. The magic of psy-chodrama, which the participants experienced in thecourse of this seminar, remained in their memory as some-thing beautiful to share in all our future encounters.

Example 3In 1999 I was invited to carry out training ses-

sions in the Council of Europe. The subject of the train-ing was ‘Intercultural Learning’ intended for the educa-tion of thirty-six Directors of youth centres from variousEuropean countries. In my preceding conversations withthose in charge of this project within the European YouthCentre, I was informed that the target group consistedmainly of young people in whom substantial investmentshad been made in order to improve their knowledgeand create a basis for future high quality ‘networking’. Iwas also advised that the majority of them attendedeach seminar with great expectations, actively commu-nicating during group work, as well as that some indi-viduals frequently asked ‘awkward questions’.

During my preparations, I decided that the coreof the seminar would be aimed at the acquisition ofdirect experiences in this area through a combinationof dramatic and psychodramatic techniques with addi-

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tional brief theoretical explanations. I simply wanted to‘thrust’ them into a practical workshop and detach themfrom the theorizing and philosophizing to which theyhad become accustomed in their previous classic andexperimental workshops and to which people of theirage are usually prone. In addition, people at that ageand of that status are most commonly hindered by ‘nar-cissistic barriers’ in their understanding of the other side.And this understanding was precisely the main constitu-ent of the ‘process’ of intercultural relations, i.e., thesubject of the seminar itself.

The seminar started with several short warm-ups, both individually and in pairs, in order to releasepsychomotor action and achieve spontaneous interper-sonal communication. Then the large group was dividedinto two smaller ones which were each presented withthe task to ‘build an internal culture’ in the followinghalf an hour, using the group tools I had given them.After the completion of this stage, I issued them withinstructions to select a representative who would speakfor them in the face-off with the other group which wasto follow immediately. In a short period of time, throughthe application of sociodramatic and psychodramatictechniques, both groups obtained the visible featuresof their newly composed identity, ready to interact withthe ‘environment’.

‘Negotiations’ ensued between the two groups,carried out through their representatives, concerningtheir values and the possibility of finding a way of ex-

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changing these values with the aim of their improve-ment. All members of the groups quickly understoodthe aim of the workshop. They assumed their roles andenjoyed the enactment and the creativity arising onstage. In the discussion that followed this stage, theybegan ‘associating’ the sociodrama and the significanceof the enacted roles with the aim of the seminar. Theyrecognized that the ‘culture of the group’, which theyhad created spontaneously and concretely, representeda kind of a prototype formation of a culture of a humangroup, regardless of the place where it had been cre-ated or by whom.

The second part of this workshop was dedicatedto the ‘play of masks’. Every member of the workshopwas first given the task to make a drawing which wouldcontain the key attributes of the culture of their owncountry which they usually put on view for the others.This drawing was to be coupled with another drawingon the back of the sheet of paper which would containthe major traits hidden in the ‘flipside’ of their culture.They were then invited, one at a time, on the smallimprovised stage, to present through role-play the maskand the flipside of the culture of their country to theother participants of the seminar. With modest assis-tance on my part through facilitation, all members ofthe seminar demonstrated exceptional spontaneity andcreativity in this game, which in a very short time ledthe participants in the workshop to important insightsinto the essence of the subject of the seminar. This

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practical part ended with ‘rejection of the masks’ andthe members of the group achieved spontaneous com-munication by establishing a ‘bridge of understanding’based upon general human values.

The seminar was concluded with a short theo-retical lecture in which I used telops as visual matriceswhich united the experience acquired in the practicalworkshops into a cognitive unit. In the closing discus-sions, all participants expressed their unreserved en-thusiasm for the techniques of role playing—thepsychodramatic approach to group work.

TRAINING IN THE BUSINESS SECTOR

Introduction

The area of training in the business world is oflimitless proportions and with ever-increasing demands.The part that is concerned with advancement of theworkforce can be divided into two areas: professional‘communication skills’ and ‘management of human re-sources’. These two fields usually overlap and whendrafting a training plan for companies, interest groupsand individuals, one is usually guided by assessmentsof their needs and consequently creates standard ornon-standard (‘tailor-made’) training programs.

In my experience in this area, of twenty years tothe moment of writing of this book, I have had to ad-

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dress the needs of a world which operates in a totallydifferent manner to that of psychotherapy from whenceI had stepped into this world. In the world of businessthere is only one goal: success! And this goal is achievedruthlessly, through battles in which the opponent isdefeated, unlike psychotherapy where the ‘other’ isgenerally spared. This was a challenge to me as a trainerto acquire knowledge from the areas of economy andmanagement so that I could meet the demands of thetarget groups and individuals successfully.

I have managed so far to complete successfullyabout a hundred projects in various sub-areas in thisfield of expert work. I have worked mostly on the de-sign and realization of training programs in the area ofpsychology of communication skills, conflict manage-ment, negotiation skills, presentation skills, public per-formance, staff selection, team-building and team lead-ership, training for top managers, assessment andpreparation of individuals and teams for special pre-sentations, specific mental training, as well as engag-ing in combined consultative work. Whenever I haveconsidered it necessary I have employed psychodramatictechniques in combination with other approaches, whichhas proved exceptionally interesting and successful inthis highly responsible area of work. I feel free to claimthat this is the quality that distinguished me from othertrainers, as my clients and I, as well as my team oncertain occasions, were able to make prompt and cor-rect assessments followed by the efficient acquisition

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of new knowledge by the target groups and individualsthrough employment of the techniques of role playing.

Contemplating my choice of examples in thisarea, I soon realized that my experiences to date, of-fering an abundance of material, open up a realisticpossibility for writing a separate book on this subject.For the purpose of this book, which is dedicated to ex-periences which demonstrate the power of psycho-drama, I will cite only certain elements of psychodramatictechniques in the corpus of human resources training.

Example 1I was invited several years ago by a leading tele-

communication company to offer a training programfor one of their sectors, i.e., for the people working intheir information centre. The company requested thedesign and realization of an adequate training programfor their twenty call centre operators. In my interviewswith the company people in charge of this task, whoseaim was the ‘assessment of the needs’, I found that themain problems and needs of these professionals de-mand focusing on several issues. The first was theirproblem in communication with ‘difficult clients’, whichoften resulted in long and pointless conversations rifewith conflict and which, instead of achieving their goal,only drained and dispirited the employees. The secondissue concerned the enhancement of their basic skillsin business communication. The third issue was theirchronic fatigue, lack of motivation, and marginal beha-

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viour in their relations with the staff working in the othersectors of the company.

A functional analysis of the gathered data led tomy decision to create a training plan which involved acombination of various approaches and techniques. Itsfirst part was anticipated to improve aspects in thesphere of modern business telephone communication.The second was aimed at learning and perfecting voiceand speech techniques that would facilitate the me-chanical part of their communication, generally con-ducted over the telephone and, due to the operators’inadequate training, soon led to physical tiredness. Thethird part was dedicated to the resolution of conflictsituations in their every day work with a focus on ‘con-versations with difficult clients’. The fourth was antici-pated for stress management and was adjusted to thetarget group. Within this series of training programs, Iselected on expert team of five consultants/trainers,with myself as their leader. For the realization of thefirst and second stage of the training, I selected excel-lent professionals in these areas, who worked as asso-ciate consultants for my firm, while the third and thefourth stage were conducted by me in cooperation withtwo assistants. I proposed and explained my plan tothose in charge in the client company and after we hadagreed on specific concrete details, we began the real-ization of the training plan.

Psychodramatic techniques were employed in thethird stage of this training, the part related to ‘conflict

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management’. Before we started with the practical partof the training which involved psychodrama, I had fa-miliarized the group with the general theoretical direc-tives in this area. Actual psychodrama began with acreative warm-up in which the participants were guidedthrough psychophysical exercises to release their spon-taneity and creativity. This was followed by a spontane-ous group discussion of the conflict situations in theireveryday work and a selection of ‘prototype encoun-ters’. A specific characteristic of these ‘encounters’ wasthat they happened exclusively over the telephone,which focused the analysis of those situation on theirintonation and choice of words as a means of commu-nication.

Having determined the prototype models of theconflict situations and analyzed them in group discus-sions, I issued instructions for each of them individuallyto select a situation from their practice which they wouldlike to explore and to resolve by employing the newmodel of ‘conflict management’. I had previously expli-cated this model in theory and written on the whiteboardthe practical steps which they needed to follow in aconflict situation. I asked the group to split into pairsand each pair to enact the selected situations on theimprovised stage before the entire group, with my as-sistance, naturally. At this point, the group was enthu-siastic and curious, which indicated that we could be-gin with the game of role playing. I set the ‘scene’ byplacing two chairs on the improvised stage with their

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backs to each other to avoid any perception of bodylanguage and thus make the role playing as close aspossible to the real situation.

Situations were enacted by each pair, one afteranother, in the following manner. First, one member ofthe pair would present the selected communication witha ‘difficult client’ to the group. Second, they would sit inthe chair of the client, ‘assume the role’ and present itto the group. I guided the participants to enact theexact tone of voice and the exact words addressed tothe call operator, i.e., themselves on the other side, therole which at that moment was enacted by their part-ner. After these presentations of the roles and the pro-tagonists’ warm up, I instructed them to reverse rolesand begin with the action: the repetition of the sceneas it had happened in reality. With intermittent rever-sals of roles, they re-enacted the scene, i.e., the con-flict communication with a difficult client in reality. Itbecame obvious that the protagonist, his partner - as-sistant, and the entire group watching the enactments,were completely involved in the situation as if it werehappening there and then. This level of enthusiasmenabled me to undertake the key step in this training,which was a complete psychodramatic ‘standing in theshoes’ of the interlocutor and understanding the invis-ible reason for their hostile attitude towards the opera-tor in the call centre. To everybody’s great astonish-ment and amazement, we managed to understand thehidden conflict contents, prejudices and needs on the

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part of the caller, which were disclosed in the real situ-ation in a comprehensible form. This meant that wecould start with the formal part of the training. I in-structed the operators first to abandon their roles, toremind themselves of the ‘practical steps in conflictmanagement’ written down on the whiteboard, and thento sit back on their chairs on the stage and try andapply this new tactic in their communication.

The situation from real life was re-enacted yetagain, but this time with much more care and with morefrequent guidance and facilitation on my part throughreminding, instructing and assisting the protagonists totheir eventual overcoming and final resolution of theconflict material. All this was realized with constant ap-plication of the technique of role playing, frequent rolereversals, as well as with intermittent application of thetechniques of doubling, voicing internal speech, ampli-fication of hidden reactions, focusing on non-verbalcontents in the intonation and mirroring of the enactedsequences. By doing so, they eventually enacted thenew attitudes they had been learning and the tech-niques of resolving a conflict situation which, after theenactment, were additionally analyzed in a group dis-cussion in which the other members of the group couldconsolidate what they had learned from the stage ac-tion performed by one of the members.

The procedure was completed with the enact-ment of the situations experienced by the other mem-bers of the group, starting with the pairs that had taken

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part in the previous enactment on the stage. With eachenactment and subsequent discussion, the participantsbecame more skilled in their application of the newknowledge in their enactments of the real conflict situ-ations with ‘difficult clients’. Afterwards, we could evenenact ‘surplus reality’ situations: that is, imagined ‘un-solvable’ situations created in the participants’ fanta-sies as possible situations anticipated in the future. Theparticipants were amazed at the powers of psychodramawhich, with its simplicity and creativity, could quicklyreveal and understand the roles in the background andthus lead to the desired resolution.

This training received the highest rating amongthe participants in the seminar. Their superiors werepleased with their reaction, especially so because thisgroup soon demonstrated a departure from their hith-erto marginal role at company meetings and assumeda role of group spontaneity and freshness which wascaptivating for the environment. But the ultimate posi-tive evaluation, the reason why my clients ordered andpaid for this training, was the fact that, after a certainperiod of time, the time of the average communicationwith the clients (all communication with the clients wasrecorded and analyzed by the company) was reducedby sixty percent. Evaluation also disclosed that therewere no unresolved situations, that the clients weresatisfied and operators relaxed in their work, leavingtheir workplace at the end of the working hours invigo-rated and in a good mood. Let us just remind the reader

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that business is successful only when all parties aresatisfied and the company makes a profit!

Example 2Most of the training programs I have realized to

date have been dedicated to coaching negotiation skills.There is a growing need for such training in the busi-ness world as entrepreneurial activities are on the in-crease. I believe that negotiation is the greatest com-munication skill, practiced at all levels of communica-tion today, whether in the field of professional or otherkinds of social communication. I believe that the studyof negotiation skills, as the cheapest way of resolvingconflicts and most effective path to the realization ofone’s interests, even if fairly difficult to develop, shouldbe introduced in the regular programs of contemporaryeducation.

I have had opportunities to train various targetgroups and individuals in this area, ranging from com-pany owners, top managers and middle managers tofieldworkers. Most frequently, this training has been re-lated to sales. This type of training has been employedeither alone or in combination with other programs re-lated to psychology of communication skills and conflictmanagement or as part of a certain kind of selling skills.What is important for this book and its readers is thatthe introduction of psychodramatic techniques in somesegments of the program called the Harvard Model ofPrincipled Negotiation led to outstanding results. It is of

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particular importance that the employment of the methodof role playing created a unique opportunity for attain-ing practical experiences identical to those in reality, aswell as for practicing and testing the newly acquired skillsin a shortest possible period. For the purpose of thisbook, I selected several interesting positions in someprototypical sections of the realized trainings.

The first level is the employment of specificwarm-ups at the beginning and throughout the courseof the seminar, including psychophysical exercises de-signed especially for this purpose. What proved verysuccessful at the start of the seminars, in the sensethat it simultaneously released spontaneity and rein-forced the focus on the main subject, was to introducethe participants into various physical warm-ups with aclear aim as to the experience which was to be theirresult. This was usually achieved through several kindsof defined movements in space, whereby they assumedthe roles of a ‘body without a brain’ thus causing ‘en-counters with others’ which then resulted in differentexperiences later compared in the subsequent groupdiscussion to personal and shared experiences from reallife and—what is especially important for this kind oftraining—to experiences related to negotiation momentsin their business communication. The warm-ups I em-ployed in the course of the seminar could also be usedas a creative pause and preparation for the next stageof the training, most commonly organized as ‘play -test’; that is, as a riddle specially created for the topic

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of the seminar in the shape of an ‘action sociogram’ inspace. I often used games such as ‘walking on a rope’with various enigmatic situations positioned on it whichthe participants had to resolve if they did not want to‘drop out of the game’, i.e., lose against their ‘opponent’on the rope. In addition, they were given tasks for theirwork in pairs in which, having acted as opponents at thestart, they had to try at a certain moment to induce theirpartner through verbal or non-verbal communication toreach the targeted point, with them as winners and theiropponents as losers. Participants had to find a singlesolution, which was always related to the key position—that is, the attitude they needed to assume at a certainstage of the negotiation—so that they could achieve awinning communicational combination.

However, the principal power of psychodrama isdefinitely related to the application of its techniques inthe participants’ practicing the practical steps, in theiranalysis of the situations ‘in practice’. This was mostlyconducted through pair work or work in smaller groupswith my guidance and assistance on the part of myassociates in the training. Having selected prototypicaland specific situations from their business communica-tion and familiarized themselves with the theoreticalaspect of the ‘negotiation skills’ programme, participantswould then go on stage and, with my instructions, prac-tice negotiation employing the techniques of role play-ing, role reversal, etc. In this type of training, one ofthe most specific moments is ‘recognizing the

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interlocutor’s interests’, interests which are always hid-den, accompanied by numerous variations and alterna-tives in the attempted process of their successful real-ization through negotiation. This is where psychodramacan be, if applied correctly, a masterful ‘tool’ in recog-nizing these materials and detecting manipulations,unethical models of negotiation and other importantpositions in the negotiation process. This is the truestarting-point in the model of principled negotiation andin the process of ‘separating the person from the prob-lem’, that is, in the further process of the verification ofthe ‘values’ to be targeted and used correctly in thecourse of the negotiation through the tactics of ‘climb-ing the ladder’.

It is intriguing that, as my experience to datedemonstrates, there is always some subjective, specificand always different factor interfering with the nego-tiations, concealed within every person as an ‘uncon-scious resistance’ regardless of the conscious intentionswith which they start the process of negotiation. Psy-chodrama helps in this area, too. In addition to thebasic knowledge which can be acquired about the psy-chodynamics of people and groups, this resistance canalso be detected, concretized and ‘voiced’ in the role-playing on stage. This can also be added to the list ofvalues cultivated by the tactics of negotiation skills.

Finally, psychodrama is unavoidable in the prac-ticing of the new ‘roles of negotiators’ where, unlikeother methods, it leads to a speedy acquisition of expe-

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rience and a straightforward testing of the newly ac-quired knowledge. In addition to all this, psychodramais always attractive for its participants, keeping the levelof their attention and interest at the highest levelthroughout the training process.

Example 3Psychodrama is a method of choice in ‘team

building’ training. It is ideal for this area since in almostall its elements it satisfies the needs of a group, whichin the case of team-building training are of a muchsmaller scope than those in classic psychodrama. I wouldlike to remind the reader that psychodrama is definedas an ‘action method in group psychotherapy’ which,with measured creativity, an experiencedpsychodramatist can transform into an easy-to-govern‘action method of creative group dynamics’. The basictechniques of psychodrama, such as the creative warm-ups and sharing after group actions, can also serve asa basis for the creation of healthy group cohesion—akey factor which builds and reinforces the group until itacquires the functional form of a team.

I have completed about twenty training programsin this area, always different in some of their character-istics, depending on my assessment of the target group,the stage of the group process in which this target groupmight have been, and the needs of the company withinwhich this group operated. The fundamental factorwhich I felt I needed to make clear to the participants

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in these training programs was the difference in thestructure and the functioning of a ‘group’ and that ofthe ‘team’ and then to activate development of certainlevels of successful team communication in the groupthrough creative games and discussions.

I will only briefly demonstrate the possibilitiesfor the application of psychodrama in the section re-lated to ‘recognition of group roles’, which I often usedin my training programs of this type. Within a group ora team, there exist most often unrecognized roles whichthe employees assume spontaneously, in dependenceon the structure of their personality, their previous workhabits and intentions, and which they then ‘play’, thusbecoming a part of the ‘group process’. Problems usu-ally arise when this group process starts veering off theexpected direction, that is, when it becomes an ob-stacle to the achievement of the expected business re-sults and cannot be managed purposefully. Since it isusually ‘unconscious’, with strong resistance to change,and at the same time maintaining a powerful ‘matrix’which preserves the existing constellation, any attemptat changing this kind of system of group functioningand transformation of the group into an efficient teamrequires great knowledge and skills from the people incharge. For this reason, they often hire external expertconsultants to provide assistance in the process of thetransformation of dysfunctional professional groups.

The sociodrama workshop which I employ in thispart as my own ‘brand’ usually transpires in the follow-

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ing order. At a certain stage of the seminar, I introducethe participants to a workshop which I call the ‘magichat’, not unlike the ‘magic shop’ which is often used asa warm-up in classic psychodrama. In the hat there aresmall pieces of paper on which the names of the lead-ing roles in the group are written, as well as a shortscript describing how to enact them. In order to helpthe reader gain better insight into the importance of allthis, I should say that group roles are usually dividedinto three clusters: the first includes the roles directed‘towards the task’, the second includes the roles con-cerned with ‘preservation of the group’, and the thirdincludes the ‘individual roles’: that is, the roles whichoppose positive team organization and its focus on suc-cessful fulfilment of the projected goals. Every partici-pant in the workshop then pulls their ‘role’ out of thehat and follows the script when enacting it in the group.These roles remain secret until the end of the game.Every participant is then handed out a map of all roleswhich helps the participants in this game to guess theroles of the other members of the group.

An important part of this workshop is that ofsharing. Each participant shares with the group the ex-periences generated by the role that they pulled out ofthe hat and enacted. In the discussions that follow,slowly but surely the group starts recognizing the rolesthey ‘play’ in the everyday reality of their team, boththeir own and those of the others. This is then followedby recognition of the roles which their team actually

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needs and the allocation of these roles to each memberof the team in a manner which will enable the team tofunction successfully. I usually conclude this part with anew workshop for ‘team building’, this time applyingthe experience attained in the previous workshop.

This is where I would bring this part of the bookto a close, although the reader might have easilyguessed that this is only a minor part of my experi-ences in the application of psychodrama in the trainingof working teams and individuals.

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PSYCHODRAMA AS A HEALING ART

The practical magic of psychodrama achieves itsmost creative effects in one promising area, above all,an area which I have been referring to as the ‘healingart’ for a long time. In this past decade, the develop-ment of collective consciousness in the world has shownevidence of an increased use of this term and its gradualacceptance within various lexical concepts. Still, I haveto alert the reader that this term is most commonly‘misused’ or used incorrectly. Moreover, this term is of-ten ruthlessly abused by global totalitarianism—as areall other inventions from the end of the 20th and thebeginning of the 21st centuries—into a trend of ‘abuse’:more often than not, the methods hiding under its winghave intentions which are actually in complete opposi-tion to those that serve the wellbeing of humanity. Sadly,such is the civilization of today, and we are compelledto assemble our own tools to assess the reality andtruth about the struggle between good and evil, be-tween health and illness.

To deserve the name ‘healing art’, a system hasto meet certain requirements. The first requirement it

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needs to meet is to have a clear scenario, i.e. a conceptwhich includes artistic treatment. The second requiresit to be achievable, able to be realized in its entiretyand to have dynamics which can take place in a certainspace and time. The third requirement is that it pro-duce a certain and real healing effect which has beendefined, anticipated in advance and controlled by theauthor and the participants during its performance. Thefourth requirement demands that the system is man-aged by true experts, with excellent education and ex-tremely precise training for this kind of activity.

Creating a healing art will soon be one of theleading activities in the attempts of selected individualsand groups to have a positive effect on today’s extremelysick human civilization with the aim of ‘transforming’ itand reversing it back to its natural, healthy modes ofexistence. Simultaneously, it will serve as a principaltool for the ‘decontamination’ of the mass media andthe education of young people which have currentlyreached a frightful and definitely pathological level ofinfluence on their ‘consumers’. This might help explain,from a clinical point of view, the new form of psycho-logical disorders, especially among children and youngpeople, bordering on qualities similar to those of amutant or monster.

The role of the leading political, financial, de-fence and religious communities throughout the worldin the creation of this psychopathological model of in-fluence on normal people becomes increasingly obvi-

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ous. They suffer from a disease which they seem tohave contracted long ago: the disease of insane ideasof unlimited power, wealth and persecution of oppo-nents. Being sick themselves, they encourage the cre-ation of a ‘folie a deux’ situation, a shared madness,wherein they play the role of the inductor for normalpeople. Even though long hidden behind various sys-tems of ‘brainwashing’ and forceful initiation of changesin the world, the symptoms of their ‘inflated’ egos havebecome more obvious then ever, as have the symp-toms of their madness; but so too has the opportunityfor their clearer identification and the groups to whichthey belong.

The very same media which they use to ‘poison’young and normal people should be transformed into amedia of healing. Hence the concept of a ‘healing art’becomes more and more prominent. Psychodrama isideal for achieving such an influence and it should begiven enough space for application in this area. Let usremind ourselves that Moreno himself foresaw the needfor its application in the healing of society through amodel which he called ‘sociatry’.

For the purpose of this book, I have chosen twoexamples of psychodrama being used as a healing artin direct work with groups: the first being a specificscenario applied in a smaller group in a closed space,while in the other example, a specific scenario was ap-plied with an exceptionally large number of people inan open space.

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Example 1Ten years ago, my Centre for Human Relations

was visited by a Japanese non-governmental organiza-tion which had a proposal for me and my team of ex-perts to carry out a specific program for a certain tar-get group which should employ primarily artistic means.This idea seemed very unusual for the type of peopleusually engaged in such organizations and this attractedmy attention. However, soon after our first meeting Inoticed that the leader of the small delegation was afervent supporter of the idea of artistic means to beapplied in the work with traumatized youth. He arrivedwith a hoard of materials he had collected from theinternet and with which he tried to warm me towardshis idea that he did not know how to realize in practice.

To my question as to why he addressed us, hepromptly answered that he had long analyzed the pro-grams of the local expert organizations and the deci-sive factor was that, at the time, some of the activitiesin my centre were carried out in our ‘Small Artistic Cen-tre’. Within this project, we had already completed sev-eral successfully worked out programs for certain tar-get groups in the shape of theatre schools, photogra-phy schools, fashion design schools and jazz schoolsrun by prominent masters in those areas. In addition,these schools operated within interdisciplinary and in-tegrative projects, together with the psychodramagroups regularly attending the educative and experi-

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ence programs in our centre. It seemed realistic thathe should have presumed that all this might be an ex-ceptionally rare ‘resource’ capable of creating and imple-menting a scenario which would successfully realize theinitial idea.

In the stage of assessment of the problems andneeds important for the development of this project, Ilearned the important information that our target groupwas a group of about thirty children refugees at theages of between eight and sixteen who had lived forten years with their parents in isolation in an aban-doned chalet at a lakeside in a remote region near thecrossing of three state borders. This was accompaniedwith the information that institutions of the state werenot providing any care for their social needs and thatthe major problem with these children was their feelingof real ‘exclusion’ from their environment with a ten-dency of non-attendance of the existing schools in thenearby settlements and almost non-existent interper-sonal communication with the other children in the area.This resulted in a manifest passivity in their choice ofgames and rare outings from the camp. In addition,the team of this Japanese organization, which providedthem with basic supplies, was often approached by themothers of these children with appeals to organize somesort of event which would motivate, engage and cheerup their children.

Considering the concept of this project, after myinterviews with the people in charge, I directed the plan-

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ning of the scenario towards the state of emotional iso-lation which I had diagnosed as a group disorder whichtended to become an inbuilt segment of those children’spersonalities and which emerged as a result of the ex-perience of unjustified rejection and disaffection bothin their previous and their present environment. Thisscenario was also to pay special attention to the lack ofmotivation to communicate with the environment, whichled to a block in these children’s spontaneity and cre-ativity. All this resulted in the conception of a scenarioin which psychodramatic play was methodologicallyconnected with the use of artistic means, with differentteams running separate sections of this ‘performance’.I also realized that I should anticipate the moment of‘first contact’ with these children, who had already de-veloped a high degree of mistrust and reactive defencemechanisms of rejection of everything that ‘entered’their territory from the hostile outside world…

In practice, the scenario adopted the followingcourse. We set out on our journey in two large jeepswhich were big enough to fit the guide, the membersof my team—that is, the performers of this ‘travellingshow—and the equipment necessary for its perfor-mance. My team consisted of several musicians, re-nowned international jazz artists given to art therapyand several psychodramatists trained in play therapywith children, with me as their leader. Our equipmentcomprised two tam-tams, percussion instruments, tam-bourines, guitars, numerous toys, a large number of

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sheets of paper with crayons and felt tips in all colours,several balls of wool and rope, various masks, decora-tions, etc.

The performance started while we were still driv-ing, half an hour before our arrival, when, to the sur-prise of my team, I produced a bag which containedseveral hundreds of deflated balloons. I handed outthe balloons to all performers and asked them to blowthem up, tie them and throw them in the boot of thejeep. The same thing happened in the other jeep inarrangement with my assistant. All members of the teamaccepted the game enthusiastically, warming up for theawaiting performance and gradually releasing, throughlaughter and banter in the group, their spontaneity andcreativity. As I anticipated, through this game they hadalso ‘blown in’ a part of themselves into those balloons,whose aim was to establish a non-verbal ‘bridge’ in com-munication with the children and the youths who wereexpecting us at the camp.

Our arrival and the first moment of establishingcommunication happened as predicted in the scenario.The two jeeps drove through the gate of the camp andstopped in the parking space surrounded by childrenwho, with their bearing and distance, demonstrated non-verbally their mistrust and ready resistance to estab-lishing communication with us. Only the drivers got outof the jeeps and opened their boots. Suddenly, to thechildren’s astonishment, balloons in different sizes andcolours started pouring out of the boots of the jeeps—

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hundreds of them! In less than a few seconds, the chil-dren started chasing them with exclamations of excite-ment. They were all running around the car park tryingto catch them. This was a signal for all teams to get outof the jeeps inconspicuously and bring all their instru-ments and other props into the large room where wewere to enact our specific performance.

The stage was constructed with great speed withthe art section at one end, with large sheets of paperand colouring pens strewn around them, while at theother end, a small stage was created for the youngerchildren, scattered with toys. In the middle, betweenthese two stage spaces, we placed both tam-tams andthe rest of the instruments, including a large number oftoy instruments. The teams of performers took theirrespective positions on the stage and we all stopped towait for the children’s spontaneous arrival in the room.

We did not have to wait long for the children tostart coming in, one after another, hugging balloons intheir arms, losing them on the way and running back tofetch them again. When they saw the stage overflow-ing with new toys, instruments, decorations and inter-estingly dressed people, they started, one after another,dropping their balloons and running towards their newtargets. It was then that we moved towards the begin-ning of the main performance.

This performance ran in the following order. Thechildren first made a circle with help from my assis-tants, standing with their backs to the centre where the

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musicians were standing among the tam-tams and othermusical instruments. They were tightly tied to each otherwith their elbows intertwined and their upper armstouching. My assistants ‘fastened’ them to each otheradditionally, with woollen thread which ran across theirchests and around their shoulders. This was a symbolicrepresentation of the ‘wall’ of their defence mechanismof isolation, which hid their emotions, spontaneity, mo-tivations and instinctive reactions. I placed the rest ofthe adults present around this circle to represent sym-bolically the surroundings which they needed to ‘con-quer’. The task was to achieve this through spontane-ous and creative performance.

At my signal, the musicians started building upa rhythm with their instruments, quietly at first and thenlouder and louder. The children stood immobile for awhile, holding each other very tight. As time passed, itbecame evident that the rhythm of the music, chargedwith a high dosage of instinctive energy, caused a spon-taneous movement of their bodies backwards and for-wards. This movement was asynchronous at first, butthen became more and more synchronized and rhyth-mical until they started directing their gazes with morefreedom and motivation towards the ‘environment’,eventually focusing them on the playing objects whichawaited them in the space around them.

At a certain point, when all participants hadreached the stage of high enthusiasm and spontaneity,with a small facilitation by my assistants the children

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resolutely moved ‘forward’, freeing themselves from thestate of entrapment within their defence mechanismand simultaneous group fixation at that level. The tear-ing of the woollen thread signified the fall of their ‘wall’and coming out through the ‘environment’ to the de-sired objects in the room. The younger children movedtowards the toys and the older ones towards the paint-ing and musical part of the scene, picking up thecolouring pens, instruments and other objects strewnaround that space.

The goal of following part of the performancewas the creation of artistic work with aid from my teamsof assistants. The children first enjoyed these activitiesand were then fascinated by the works they created them-selves, whether compositions, paintings or short dramaticpieces. In the meantime, the younger children were in-vited to enact their stories with toys and dolls on thesmall stage, devised and prepared for this purpose.

In the following part of this performance, all ‘cre-ators’ had an opportunity to exhibit their works to the‘audience’ in a manner which, through application ofpsychodramatic practical magic, exposed the partici-pants to experiences identical to those from outsidereality. The performance was concluded with a stage of‘correction of emotional experiences’ and acquisition ofnew ones in the place of the old.

The end of the performance was indicated witha new joint circle with the participation of all present.In this circle we all danced to the rhythms of our travel-

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ling band of musicians to a full physical and vocal re-lease. Our released energy filled the enormous spaceand an emotion of utmost personal freedom and hap-piness was evident on the faces of all present, who hadlet their expression reach a level of maximum sponta-neity. This lasted as long as it was necessary for allpresent and then the atmosphere in the room began todefuse to a level of satisfied tiredness. With the an-nouncement of our departure, we enacted the ‘tropicalrain’ with the participation of all present in the produc-tion of the sound of rain by knocking on the floor withour fingers and hands. After this, the group was readyto separate from us and, at the same time, to retain theenergy level achieved previously, together with the newlyacquired experiences.

We parted, of course, with emotions related toen experience of closeness, but also with an uncon-cealed joy shared by all. Our two jeeps left the car parkof the camp with empty boots, but leaving happy peoplebehind. Psychodrama demonstrated yet again its powerto create a role play in a performance in which peoplesimultaneously feel freer and more connected with eachother. In the service of good, of course!

Example 2Psychodrama can also be employed as a healing

art for large groups, that is, for masses of people. Letus not forget, though, that it must be based on previ-ous careful diagnosis of the problems and needs of the

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target group and that its realization must meet the fourrules which apply to all ‘healing performances’. And,finally, it must serve the common good against evil.

The following example is a performance whichwas realized twice in an open space in the city park ofSkopje, the capital of the Republic of Macedonia. It wasperformed in both 2000 and 2001 with the participa-tion of several thousand citizens who spontaneouslyjoined this mass workshop created for special purposes.The aim of these workshops’ was to ‘decontaminatethe population’ of their ‘negative psychological contents’accumulated in the previous decade and especially inthe two years preceding the workshops.

This ‘toxic internal psychic material’ had built upfor years as a mass of unprocessed stress reactionscaused by strong stressors from the environment, suchas the dissolution of their former state, the change ofthe social system, wars in the former Yugoslav repub-lics, a continuous embargo by the southern neighbouringstate, denial of the national and state identity by twoneighbouring states, bombardment of the northernneighbouring state by a foreign army representing the‘international community’ which they experienced aslong months of military planes flying over and produc-ing threatening noise as well as endless military con-voys on the local roads—all this accompanied by un-bearably aggressive media propaganda and unbeliev-ably persistent campaigning on the part of the so callednon-governmental organizations (religious and others).

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This enormous pressure on the local population culmi-nated in a strange ‘war’ in this small country in the firsthalf of 2001, which resulted in a sense of powerless-ness among its citizens—a typical reaction to a strongstressor, in this case in the shape of a violent aggressor.This tipped the balance of the toxic psychic materialwhich the population had already been ‘swallowing’ andunsuccessfully ‘digesting’ for quite some time and, atthis particular moment, my interdisciplinary team and Istarted considering a project which would have a posi-tive effect on these people.

This state of affairs was further aggravated by acorresponding increase in drug addiction, prostitutionand violence in the local community and these weretotally unnatural models of behaviour, not characteris-tic of the local population prior to that. Our assessmentwas that, in the near future, the typical defence mecha-nism of ‘identification with the aggressor’ would takeup firm roots within the population. This was supportedby a clear insight into the evident changes, not only inpeople’s internal experiences, but also in their behaviour,caused by the influence of the aforementioned envi-ronmental factors. People had become grim, utterly dis-trustful, more aggressive and prone to manipulation andhostile attitudes rather than being friendly in their ap-proach to others in the way that used to characterizetheir traditional model of behaviour.

An agreement was reached between myself andthe team that the aim of this project would be the

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‘awakening and return to the beautiful within oneselfand the others’. The team consisted of experts fromour ‘Small Artistic Centre’ in the areas of psychodrama,theatre, photography, jazz music, literature, visual arts,plus technical assistants. This produced the slogan ofthis public campaign: ‘Beauty from Within’. We preparedthe scenario and the slogan, printed several hundredT-shirts, posters, and flyers, provided cardboard boxesfor the children’s workshop, billboards and spray paintsfor the visual arts section and numerous other props.We informed the press and the police, gave some intro-ductory interviews and chose the space and the neces-sary set in cooperation with the local authorities andother institutions which had openly supported this idea.

On the day of the performance, which was sup-posed to last for two hours, the spring weather was atits best. In the designated space, in the grass areaamong the trees, we positioned the workshops, whosescenarios and dynamics of action were interconnected.According to the scenario, the participating citizens weresupposed to enter through the symbolic ‘gate’ of thismass workshop and go through every single workshopwithin it, participating in their work assisted by ourgroups of experts and helpers. Our aim was that, whenleaving this ‘magical camp’, the participants should ex-perience a clear change from within, as suggested bythe slogan of this public campaign.

The first workshop at the very gate was the psy-chodrama workshop with the scenario in which ‘magicmessages’ were pulled out of a ‘magic box’. This magic

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box contained messages which every participant hadto pull out ‘blindly’ after a short warm-up within a groupand then enact them ‘on the spot’ assisted by the presentpsychodramatists. These messages are dubbed ‘magic’because, through synchronicity, they always maintaintheir magnetism of supplementing the lack of one’s ownspontaneity with the counterpoint imprinted on them.For example, when the mayor eventually pulled out amessage for himself after long vacillation, it read ‘Singsomething from your heart’. This immediately triggeredhis spontaneous reaction that he could never sing. Withassistance from the practiced psychodramatists, he man-aged to sing in public in front of the rest of the group,which eventually released his spontaneous loud laugh-ter and led to a very positive atmosphere in the work-shop. This principle of release of spontaneity led each ofthe two thousand or more people who participated inthis interactive happening to an encounter with their owncreativity and further work on ‘beauty from within’.

The following workshop was dedicated to pho-tography, where theatre costumes and decorated setsawaited the participants. They could choose partners withwhom they instantly created their own scripts for certainscenes with assistance from our experts. They wouldthen put on costumes and assume their roles, takingphotos of each other in the moments which they consid-ered most beautiful in the enacted scene. These photo-graphs were then exhibited on an enormous billboard.

Participants would then enter the literary work-shop with a well-known writer who sat at a table with

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boxes and sheets of paper in different colours. Everycolour signified a different emotional state: love, hate,joy, sadness, jealousy, etc. Guided by the writer’s open-ness and creative communication, the participants wouldspontaneously select a sheet of paper in a certain colourand write on it their life experiences and opinions re-lated to the ‘discovered’ emotions.

The theatre workshop was next and in it themembers of our theatre group, led by an expert onstage action, ‘sucked in’ the approaching people withtheir irresistible scenario. Participants could take part inand enjoy the enactment of various ‘games’, carefullyselected in advance and practiced in detail in order toachieve the desired effect.

This was followed by the art workshop, run bytrained artists who helped people express the beautifulpart of themselves with spray paint and other kinds ofpaint on the billboards positioned in the space for thispurpose.

The music workshop was the last. It was pre-ceded by a performance of various short compositionsby the twenty or so musicians who wanted to give theirown contribution to this event. Then this performancetransformed into a real workshop where, by playing thenumerous instruments positioned in the space on andaround the improvised stage, people could express theiremotions on an instrument of their choice and with as-sistance provided by the experts and students from our‘Small Artistic Centre’.

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In the space around, on the beautiful lawn, wepositioned small cardboard boxes made especially forthis purpose and containing plenty of toys, sheets ofpapers and colour pencils. This was the separate, magi-cal camp for young children. Without much of a prob-lem, they released their spontaneity and creativity,guided by our team of trained psychodramatists andart therapists.

In conclusion, I can assure the reader of thisbook that this project was exceptionally successful. Asproof of this, we were asked to repeat it next year bymany agencies while the citizens spontaneously sentus letters of gratitude and support for months to come.They would often come to express their enthusiasmand insight into the significance of this idea in person.The media covered the event at length and broadcasttheir coverage repeatedly for several days, often notknowing why. They used it mostly for comparisons.

Bearing in mind the ‘changes of direction’ whichhave taken place around the world in the meantime, Ibelieve that this project can serve as an example tofuture practitioners in the field of exerting a positiveinfluence on people as to how to create their own con-tributions. I look forward to the day when similar projectswill be executed through the media.

The road is long and the number of games islimitless…

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CHOOSE A ROLE AND PLAY!!

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CONTENTS

• Foreword .......................................................... 7• THEORY ......................................................... 11

• Historical Foundations ..................................... 13• Philosophical Foundations................................ 27• Psychological Foundations ............................... 41• Relations with Other Theories in Psychotherapy 51• Classic Psychodrama ....................................... 59• Nonverbal Communication and Psychodrama .... 83• Application and Education ............................... 93• Psychodrama and Theatre ............................. 101• Glossary of Psychodramatic Terms and

Techniques ................................................... 107• Perspectives ................................................. 121

• PRACTICE .................................................... 125

• Vignettes...................................................... 127• Short Psychodrama ....................................... 149• Psychodrama and Anxiety Disorders ............... 159• Working on Suppressed Anger in

Psychodrama ................................................ 173• Psychodrama and Trauma ............................. 181

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• Transference in Psychodrama ........................ 193• Psychodrama and Character Armour .............. 205• Psychodrama and Psychosomatic Disorders .... 219• The Use of Psychodrama with Children ........... 227• Sociodrama .................................................. 247• The Application of Psychodrama and

Sociodrama in the Training of HumanResources .................................................... 257

• Psychodrama as a Healing Art ....................... 287

Documents

The Power of Psychodrama - Zvonko Dzokiczvonkodzokic.com/books/THE POWER OF PSYCHODRAMA.pdf · The Power of Psychodrama HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS The history of psychodrama is closely