Psychodrama

Advances in Theory and Practice

Clark Baim, Jorge Burmeister, Manuela Maciel, Clark Baim, Jorge Burmeister, Manuela Maciel

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134112173
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Psychologie
• Sous-sujet: Psychotherapie

Psychodrama: Advances in Theory and Practice provides a comprehensive overview of developments in the theory and practice of psychodrama, integrating different psychodramatic schools of thought.

Psychodrama is one of the pioneering approaches of psychotherapy and is practised by thousands of practitioners and in most countries of the world. The editors of this volume bring together contributions from Europe, South America, Australia, Israel and the USA to explain and explore recent innovations. They look at how psychodrama has contributed to the development of psychotherapy, introducing concepts that have had a profound influence on other therapies. These include concepts such as role theory, the encounter, the co-unconscious, the social atom, sociometry, action research, group psychotherapy, the cycle of spontaneity and creativity, role play and many related concepts and techniques.

This book will be of great interest to all students, practitioners and trainers in the field of psychodrama. It will also appeal to professionals and students in the related fields of psychotherapy, counselling, psychology and psychiatry.

Part I

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New perspectives on psychodramatic theory

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The chapters in Part I bring new perspectives to psychodramatic theory developed by J. L. Moreno and Zerka Moreno more than half a century ago. These chapters reflect the wide diversity among practitioners in different parts of the world concerning theoretical progress in psychodrama. The authors formulate new concepts and address some of the assumptions and cultural conserves of the psychodramatic method. The rich theoretical explorations in this section enlarge and enhance psychodramatic theory while stimulating new thoughts and new paths of inquiry for us, the co-creators of its theory.

For example, in Chapter 1, ‘Meta-Theoretical Perspectives on Psychodrama’, Adam Blatner explains the need for an adequate theory of mind-in-society-in-culture and welcomes the presence of many component theories that may interconnect. In his eyes, psychodrama not only does not need to have its own single comprehensive theory, but in fact it will never be able to achieve it. Blatner argues that psychodrama can be used effectively within other structures because of the innate flexibility of the method. He observes that Moreno's role theory offers a unifying language that can serve as a framework for different theories.

Michael Schacht offers a fascinating model for understanding the process of change in Chapter 2, ‘Spontaneity–Creativity; The Psychodramatic Concept of Change’. Schacht links the concepts of spontaneity–creativity, human will and the process of change. He suggests a new way of viewing and analysing the psychodramatic process, evaluating each intervention and consequence in the light of his reformulated concept of spontaneity and change.

The chapter by Schacht links well with David Kipper's reformulation of psychodrama in Chapter 3, ‘Experiential Reintegration Action Therapy (ERAT)’, which offers a deeper understanding of why psychodrama is an effective approach to psychological healing. Kipper describes nine directorial strategies of ERAT and draws on major psychological theories and findings, including neurobiology. As a variant of the experiential group therapy approach, ERAT provides a psychological rationale and empirical foundation for a group therapy intervention that examines, alters, and enriches group members’ experiential repertoire. It brings to the surface experiences both traumatic and pleasant and reprocesses and restructures them. ERAT connects present experiences to a past that is given meaning.

In Chapter 4, ‘The Role of the Meta-Role: An Integrative Element in Psychology’. Adam Blatner takes as his starting place the Morenian concept of role theory and goes on to describe the concept of the meta-role. The meta-role encompasses a complex of psychological functions or capacities and may serve as a kind of inner director, the part of the mind that consciously reflects on, interviews, decides, and engages in other executive acts. This makes it uniquely both Morenean and also integrative. The meta-role may therefore be a key focus for therapy and education, and also a key in integrating different methods of psychology and psychotherapy.

Sue Daniel further develops the theme of role theory in Chapter 5, ‘Psychodrama, Role Theory and the Cultural Atom: New Developments in Role Theory’. Daniel presents an innovative framework for understanding and applying role theory. She discusses role theory's advantages for individual and group psychotherapy, and also points out the value of role theory as applied in a variety of settings, including the teaching and learning of psychodrama. She demonstrates how role theory may open up new ways of thinking systemically about a person in relation to others and their environment.

Peter Felix Kellermann focuses on one particular psychodrama technique in Chapter 6, ‘Let's Face It: Mirroring in Psychodrama’. In this chapter, Kellermann discusses the psychodramatic mirror technique with references to social psychology, object relations theory and self-psychology. He suggests a differentiation between three kinds of mirroring: idealizing, validating and subjective mirroring. These three kinds of mirroring represent a process of interpersonal growth in which a person moves from a primitive and egocentric state to a more mature and social level of self-development. While these three kinds of mirroring represent a possible pattern of growth for clients, they also may be seen as a combined perspective that might help to integrate psychoanalytic and psychodramatic theory.

In Chapter 7, ‘A Chaos Theory Perspective on Psychodrama: Reinterpreting Moreno’, by Rory Remer, Jaime Guerrero and Ruth Riding-Malon, Chaos Theory (ChT) is applied to Morenean theory, challenging the classic scientific view of cause and effect and offering new ways to understand what we are doing when we direct (or participate in) a psychodrama. After a brief review of the basics of ChT, the authors explain some of what they see as links and parallels between ChT and Morenean theory. They show that, with the lens of ChT, the unpredictability of a psychodramatic session does not necessarily provide more freedom for the director but might instead necessitate more sensitivity in order to focus on the core issue of spontaneity.

Continuing to explore psychodrama's links with other theories, in Chapter 8, ‘Existential-Dialectic Psychodrama: The Theory behind Practice’, Leni Verhofstadt-Denève illustrates her existential-dialectic model of personality and how this may inform psychodrama theory. Using six basic questions centered on the concept of Land Me’, she explains her view of the dialectic dynamic of human development. With reference to her model, psychodrama constitutes one of the ideal agents for human development: Its techniques favour the dialectic processes of self-reflection and selfclarification, and frequently address existential issues which encourage reflection on the fundamental issues of human development across the lifespan.

In Chapter 9, ‘How Does Psychodrama Work?: How Theory is Embedded in the Psychodramatic Method’. José Luis Pio-Abreu and Cristina Villares-Oliveira explain their understanding of a working model of psychodrama. They discuss how psychodrama obeys certain consistent rules, techniques and designations. Underlying this, there are ideas about the human psychic life and human development and psychopathology. The authors explore some of the central ideas within psychodrama and demonstrate how these ideas are put to practical use. For example, some of psychodrama's core techniques correlate with children's natural activities (e.g. spontaneous role play). Related to this, concepts such as human encounter, spontaneity, role and tele lead to an outward-driven rather than an inward-driven psychology. The authors suggest that psychodrama can be characterized as an open, client-centred therapy. They explain that this is concordant with psychodrama's humanistic tradition, and is in line with newer scientific contributions (for example, the discovery of mirror neurons in the brain).

Renée Oudijk, in Chapter 10, ‘A Postmodern Approach to Psychodrama Theory’, neatly draws together many of the ideas in Part I with her highly integrative and universal conceptualization of psychodrama. Oudijk observes that the human capacity to give meaning to life experiences is universal and all-important. This meaning-giving manifests in psychodrama as an experiential and social learning process of construction, deconstruction and reconstruction of reality. Oudijk explains that there are three cornerstones defining the theoretical essence of psychodrama: the concept of spontaneity and creativity; the theory and practice of action research; and the triadic structure of psychodrama. As Oudijk explains, psychodrama fits especially well with postmodern thinking, as it crosses the borders of scientific approaches and disciplines in highly integrative ways.

Chapter 1

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Meta-theoretical perspectives on psychodrama

Adam Blatner

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Introduction

This chapter offers a meta-theoretical consideration of psychodrama's place within the wider contexts of psychotherapy, psychology and culture. Metatheory addresses issues such as the purpose and importance of theory, whether theory should be closely woven or loose, how theory can operate at multiple levels, and how one theory can be integrated with other theories. There have been some unspoken beliefs about the theory of psychodrama as a form of psychotherapy that need to be articulated clearly, critiqued, and alternative approaches considered.

In the early twentieth century, Freud introduced a contaminating sensibility by treating those who would modify and expand his approaches – innovators such as Adler, Jung and Rank – as deviationists. Freud disqualified their ideas because he interpreted them as being motivated by envy and competition with a father figure. He thus made his approach less scientific and more like a religion, with orthodox believers and those who were more on the edge of revision.

In the mid-century, there were a number of schools of psychotherapeutic thought that were compartmentalized, and, as with religions, professionals tended to be ‘adherents’ of one or the other. Eclecticism seemed ‘shallow’ and was not a respectable alternative. By the late twentieth century, even as approaches to psychotherapy and theories of personality had proliferated, a corresponding movement towards intelligent eclecticism and the search for integrating principles had begun.

Several developments have fostered this movement towards a rethinking about theory, including:

• dramatic improvements in many conditions caused by appropriate medications

• research in neuroscience

• research about the effectiveness of different psychotherapies as applied to different psychological problems

• a greater appreciation of the pervasiveness and depth of the influence of trauma and the pathogenic power of addictions

• the potential of a more positive approach to psychology.

As a result, it is becoming less tenable to claim to be a ‘follower’ of only one approach.

As psychotherapy has expanded its scope, its methods are being applied increasingly with clients who are less psychologically minded, often less voluntary, and with a broader range of basic ego skills. People who Freud would have dismissed as ‘unanalyzable’ are being worked with using different approaches. From a meta-theoretic viewpoint, we should then recognize that psychotherapy may involve processes that operate differently according to the relative activity of two variables:

• One variable involves the client's awareness that a therapeutic process is going on, and a conscious joining with the goals of that process. This is not always present when working with children, delinquent adolescents and selected other populations.

• A second variable involves an extension of the first. This variable considers to what extent the client can actively join in learning and intentionally utilizing some of the operations of therapy such as selfobservation, detachment of identity from overinvolvement in the perspectives of a role, and the drawing in of more current values and aspirations. Some approaches to therapy, such as the hypnotherapy of Milton Erickson or some kinds of play therapy, require relatively little in the way of conscious, self-reflective collaboration, and there are some patients for whom this may be most effective.

In this regard, psychodrama should be recognized as a complex of methods associated with a variety of theoretical principles, but not so tightly organized that it cannot be modified and applied in a wide range of contexts. The lack of a certain ambition within the psychodrama field to explain all psychopathology within a coherent system is actually an advantage – it gives the method greater flexibility.

Theory has multiple levels

We should recognize that the understanding of the workings of a complex system may occur at many levels within the system (see Chapter 7 by Remer et al.). Regarding the mind, there are theoretical concepts that address the function of the chemicals and the nerve cells in the brain, relating to molecular shape, permeability of membranes, and the like. At a higher level, there are other theories that deal with whole structures within the brain, and higher, the interaction of brain and body, hormones, stress, and so forth. Higher still are the ways the mind operates largely beyond the physical-material realm, in its ‘intrapsychic’ dynamics, the various defense mechanisms or coping mental maneuvers, and inner conflicts and their compromises and resolutions.

Moreno was one of the first to remind psychotherapists that both difficulties and healing can be influenced by the interpersonal field as much as individual psychodynamics. He also extended this to social networks, families and groups, recognizing the power of interaction, feelings of belonging or alienation, and so forth. In developing the methods of sociodrama and axiodrama, Moreno further acknowledged the power of social role conflicts and cultural definitions of ideals to be significantly influential in sickness and health.

The point here is that different dynamics may be noted as operative at each of the more complex organismic and social levels, and different theories are continuously deserving of development, refinement, and further revision in light of the advance of knowledge. Developments in parallel fields – linguistics, anthropology, cultural history, child development, neuroscience and so forth – all suggest the need for that valuing of creativity and its implications, and the struggle to counter tendencies towards theory becoming rigid.

In addition to its various body, mind, and collective levels, psychodrama also juggles a variety of frames of reference, including political, economic, social, philosophical, spiritual, aesthetic (including poetic, musical, dancegesture, drama, the visual arts, and other integrations), humorous and playful, and irreverent and boundary testi...