Psychodrama

Psychodrama is a therapy modality that arose in parallel to the classical psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud. It is sometimes used as an adjunct to the talk therapies frequently used in modern counseling and is designed to access the client’s emotional and psychological content that is otherwise beyond verbal description. Developed by the psychiatrist Jacob Levy Moreno (1889–1974), psychodrama is used to help the client (called a protagonist) obtain catharsis by revisiting a source of distress through reenactment. Reenactment (role-play, action, enactment, tableau) is the literal development of a scene [Page 813]with multiple actors, dialogue that is loosely scripted, and in vivo exposure. The goal of the reenactment is, with the support of those participating in the psychodrama, to facilitate recognition of how a past interaction ...