Psychodrama is a amplification method I utilize in analysis to help my analysands become more creative in their day to day living. It is a useful method for amplifying, interpreting, clarifying, and experiencing conscious and unconscious motivations. Psychodrama seeks to integrate all levels of a human being: their thinking, their intellect, their imagination, their emotions, their body, and their actions. In many ways, I experience psychodrama as a way to bring a dream, or the underlying essence of a dream into waking life.
Under my guidance as analyst, likened in the psychodrama to a director, the method involves improvisational dramatic action. The script for this drama is "written", moment by moment, out of the purposes and concerns of my analysand, their conflict, their memory, or perhaps their dreamscape. Together we use minimal props and take active parts in the drama so that we bring the emerging motivations, emotions, or understandings as close to life as possible. In this way, the analysand may generate and practice new behaviours, uncover latent affects, and explore ways of being. Psychodrama offers an opportunity to test out new understandings for their impact before they attempt to do this in their actual work or life situation. The consequences of the psychodrama are experienced and analyzed so that new decisions can be made as to how to integrate the expanded understanding.
My experience both as participant in my own psychodramas or as facilitator in my work as analyst have convinced me that the method can move us very fully into a subjective world without judgement. Long frustrated desires or fears can be enacted and greater freedom from stuck patterns experienced. Old agendas can be completed, including grieving, trauma, or celebration. Imagination and intuition are enhanced and developed. Possible futures are enjoyed and can be tested when brought to life on the psychodrama stage. Fresh understanding of significant relationships can be gained. Dreams, myths and wishes become concrete for a time, are witnessed, and shared. All these possible effects serve an expansion of consciousness and foster increased autonomy, authenticity, and authority in one's own life.
Psychodrama in analysis encourages spontaneity and freshness. I experience this method as assisting individuals to achieve their goals and realise the wisdom of their dreams. As an analyst facilitating psychodrama, I am humbled and honoured to witness the unfolding process of the self-regulating and self-healing mechanisms in the psyche.
To keep my work in psychodrama fresh, I participate in a regular psychodrama supervision group with other analysts and therapists, facilitated by Liz White.
