8 techniques derived from psychodrama

Psychodrama is a technique or set of therapeutic techniques whose center is the staging/dramatization of a reality from a certain point of view. It seeks to encourage the expression of unexpressed, repressed or poorly understood feelings to promote catharsis and behavioral change. For this, different techniques derived from psychodrama are used.

The elements to work on can be related to memories, present and future events. Therefore, it is very useful for all types of disorders, from depression, those included in the anxiety spectrum – GAD, OCD… -, eating disorders or problems in emotional management.

What is the objective of the dramatization?

Psychodrama has several objectives, among which we can find:

Get a real and deeper understanding of a specific situation. This can be applied both in situations experienced a long time ago, which may have left wounds that have not completely healed, as well as with distressing situations that generate anxiety in the future. Techniques derived from psychodrama can help us get in touch with those emotions experienced and the feelings that generated or continue to generate. It means coming into contact with feelings, ideas and thoughts that perhaps do not usually have a place in our routine.Understand points of view different from your own: Numerous techniques derived from psychodrama allow us to see the position of the other regarding a conflict, existing or to be had. Observing the way of thinking of others and above all being a participant in their own discourse can help us work. empathy, understanding the motivation for certain actions.Skills training: Some of these techniques allow us to adopt different roles that we may not know how to handle. They can serve as training to experience other postures, behaviors or even aspects of personality.

Psychodramatic rules

In the techniques derived from psychodrama, the aim is that the subject—or protagonist, as it is usually called in this field— do not describe your conflicts verbally. This differs from the way people share, manage and think about their problems: it is usually verbal. The aim is to achieve a more authentic and deeper participation.

Although psychodrama is initially carried out with more people, with the existence of an audience – this functions as an affective sounding board in the representation – it can be carried out with fewer people or even with oneself.

Performed with more people, the representation of a partner can help us understand the way other people act. The protagonist acts according to his emotions and criteria, in accordance with his subjective reality.

Psychodrama is also recommended for many styles of person, where they are also found the most shy or withdrawn individuals. The protagonist can be reserved and unnatural. Nothing happens, as long as nothing is forced.

The change in psychodrama

The really interesting thing about the techniques derived from psychodrama is that you reach the insightto awareness or understanding through one’s own dramatization.

The presence of a therapist is not essential, nor are the verbalizations he makes. You access that insight no thanks to something the therapist says, but rather it arises spontaneously from that performance.

Psychodramatic techniques

Now, some of the techniques of psychodrama are:

Explicit internal dialogue

The soliloquy technique seeks that the protagonist express what you are thinking and feeling before confronting a certain situation. This situation may distress you in the present, because of the future, or may have distressed you in the past. It can be useful when receiving a call from the boss, or when feeling afraid of abandonment when an argument starts.

In the same way, the apart technique It serves to get in touch with what one thinks and feels when faced with a certain event that one does not usually express. In the section you look for state out loud what, during a dialogue, a confrontation or an argument is being silenced out of fear, shame. This aside is like a parenthesis. This allows the person to be in real contact with their reality.

On the other hand, we also have the empty chair technique, whose purpose is to resolve internal conflicts (with oneself) and external conflicts (with others) that prevent one from moving forward. To do this, the protagonist must imagine that he is sitting in front of any character with whom he has some conflict (it could be a fictional person, someone close, a part of himself, etc.). Therefore, two chairs are usually placed, one facing the other or with their backs to each other; in such a way that the protagonist changes chairs while the two parties in conflict work, or facilitates the summoning of the other.

Exchange of roles

The technique of exchanging roles It consists of proposing a specific situation in which we find ourselves immersed. This can be a conversation with a friend or a work meeting.

We want the protagonist to play the role of the other, of that person with whom he has argued, who has done something that he did not like or that has distressed him. With this, it is sought that the protagonist understands the situation from the other perspectiveand thus be able to generate other types of emotions and understand those that led the other person to act in that way.

The protagonist and the auxiliary ego

Some of these techniques require the presence of an auxiliary ego. This ego wants to make room for those forgotten aspects within interactions, which usually contain very valuable information.

In the double techniquethe auxiliary ego is placed behind the protagonist, and while the protagonist speaks, it verbalizes issues not expressed by the protagonist, as an extension of the speech.

Those issues that are not explained usually have threatening nature, painful, or semi-conscious. The ego, expressing issues that it believes are relevant, returns alienated parts of itself to the protagonist and takes him to more covert levels.

In the mirror technique an auxiliary ego is also used. In this case he does not speak, but he places himself in front of the protagonist and while he dramatizes a situation, he proceeds to imitate their non-verbal behavior. This includes gestures, positions, tics, facial expressions.

The elements that we usually consider relevant are the verbal ones, what the person or oneself expresses. However, non-verbal behavior also has meaning, and can be much more informative than the message itself.

Changing reality

Techniques derived from psychodrama such as the extra reality They allow the protagonist to have another experience of something that has already happened. The extra reality seeks undo the events as they happened so that the protagonist has the opportunity to live them in another way.

Experiencing situations that have already occurred in the way we would like to have experienced them can lead us to understand the pain of certain situations and to have another symbolic reality that can delve into that pain, to the peace that allows its healing.

In the substitute role technique, similar to the exchange of roles, a situation arises that the person is afraid to experience being themselves. This could be a childhood memory, a session with your project managers, the loss of a partner…

In this exercise, the aim is not for the person to put themselves in the other’s place, but rather to put themselves in another place. We want the protagonist to see that situation without the emotional burden that derives from his off-screen role.

Living a childhood memory not being yourself, but being a brother, a cousin, a neighbor; dramatizing a loss of a partner as a spectator, a friend who sees everything… It can lead to detach emotionally from the situation and to begin to observe it with more calm, more stillness to think, understand and integrate.

Dramatization is therefore a good resource to achieve catharsis and behavioral change through understanding one’s own feelings. It can not only be useful to advance in the improvement of psychological disorders, but also extremely beneficial for those people who want to discover themselves, to emotionally unload and connect with the feelings, sensations and thoughts previously in the shadows.

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