If you have ever responded to a scenario in a way that you regret, but you are not sure how you could have improved your reaction, then you could benefit from psychodrama. It is not always as dramatic as it sounds, but it can be. It is, after all, all about drama. Dr. James Moreno developed the psychodrama method to allow the group therapy dynamic to further evolve. In his mind, patients did not just need the opportunity to share their feelings. They needed the opportunity to experience them in a safe place.
How Does Psychodrama Work?
Psychodrama provides an outlet for you to express strong emotions and explore different perspectives about situations or people from their lives. Specifically, psychodrama provides for the following experiences:
- Getting to know each other – members of the group get to know each other and establish a base sense of trust in one another
- Acting – the group acts out a scene from one group member’s life based on their description. The method uses many varieties of scenes, ranging from mirroring to role-playing. The level of complexity is based on the group and the guidance from the leader (therapist)
- Sharing – group members share their thoughts about how the individual behaved in the scene and offer insight as to what they might have done differently or could improve upon
Why Does It Work?
Have you ever wished you would have behaved differently? Have you ever wondered how you could apologize for something when you did not know the right words? Or have you ever felt hurt by an event and never understood why it hurt you so badly? Psychodrama can help with those situations.
Studies indicate that treating trauma and addiction work best when they are approached in tandem. While pursuing recovery, you should be on the road to good mental health overall. That means that watching a scene from your life through the actions of others could help eliminate the mysteries behind the harm that experience caused you or others. Getting feedback from a group of trusted peers who have the goal of helping you see the many perspectives you might have missed is an invaluable tool in your recovery.
Guidance from our peers can be just as healing as guidance from a professional. Psychodrama is the combination of professionals and peers working in unison to solve one problem. This can be an effective way to help treat disorders you are struggling with while in recovery.
Recovery doesn’t happen all by itself. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes one to continue raising an adult. We’re not meant to go through this life on our own. We’re not meant to see the world only through our own eyes. Recovery is challenging even with an entire group backing you, so undergoing it by yourself is a burden no one should undertake. Methods like psychodrama are fascinating, useful approaches to encountering and healing our emotional traumas in a safe place. For more information, please call (855) 483-7800.