A presentation of individual psychoanalytic psychodrama
Individual psychodrama remains quite little known by professionals, whereas this psychoanalytic method allows to consider psychotherapy for children, adolescents or adults that would otherwise not be able to engage in a more classical form of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, often because of strong defences that are hindering the process. Psychodrama can be very useful as a different form of expression that can overcome inhibition or weak associative capacities. This method has great potential.
PRESENTATION
Individual psychoanalytic psychodrama is a therapeutic technique that was introduced by S. Lebovici in the late 50s. Psychodrama was initially developed in the 30s by J. L. Moreno but has evolved quite a lot since then. This form of psychotherapy is executed from within a group.
By offering them a space of play, a transitional area, psychodrama gives patients a support to express and elaborate their problems and internal conflicts. The spontaneity and dramatization in the role playing might help patients to gain insight into their lives. Playing facilitate the expression and transformation of the experience. The group has a containing function for the patient’s psychic experience. The patient can be emotionally held by the group, because the weight of emotions can be shared. The plurality of psychotherapists also allows the difraction of transference movements.
The scenes are suggested by the patient and he/she is the one who assigns the roles. A variety of scenes can be enacted. They concern real-life situations or inner mental processes which will be acted out in the present moment. Roles are given by the patient. Actors can play a mother, a teacher, a dog or a cat, even an inanimate object. And they can do anything, there is no limit because it is pretend play. It is often useful to exchange these roles in the middle of a scene to experience another protagonist’s point of view. Playing allows to display emotions and feelings more easily.
Because the scenes reflect a part of the individual’s mental life, psychodrama can help in the development of the psychic life. Psychodrama is a therapeutic experience because it helps the process of subjectivation.
INDICATIONS
Psychodrama is efficient for children, adolescents or adults. This technique is useful when people are in need of a psychological help but are having difficulties in the process of psychotherapy, mainly because of weak associative capacities, poor fantasmatic activity, strong defences or excess of projections and transference. When the classical psychoanalytic psychotherapy isn’t possible, psychodrama offers a different form of expression and elaboration. Playing allows to work on the relationships to others and psychic limits.
ORGANIZATION
In psychodrama, there are multiple protagonists. First of all, there is of course a patient, then a psychodrama director and co-therapists (ideally between 3 and 8). The play leader, or director, does not participate in the play. He helps the patient choose a scene, and then he can change the roles during the scene, he can ask for the scene to be replayed differently. The co-therapists are chosen by the patient to play roles. They can either stick to their roles as described by the patient, or introduce slight discrepancies in order to create a reaction in the patient (to produce something inside). For them, the importance is not to interpret, they have to truly engage in playing and to make do with what comes out of the play. Of course, they have to understand the latent meaning of the theme brought by the patient and to translate this into a play that will allow a representation of unconscious processes that can be received by the patient. They have to be representative of the unconscious. The co-therapists work with their unconscious.
The spatial organization is particular, there is a space to talk and a space to play. This setting is quite simple but it is important that these two spaces remain distinct. This is a way to separate primary processes (space of play, a transitional area) from secondary processes (through the symbolizing function of talking). Sessions usually take place once a week and last aproximately 30 minutes. There are 3 phases : the warm-up, the enactement of the scene and then a time of sharing about what was felt during the scene.
CONCLUSION
Psychodrama, in its individual psychoanalytic form, enables the subject to develop representations of his psychic experience and the appropriation of those into symbolization. It allows to work on the self’s relationships to itself, to others and to the world. The psychic developments that emerge in play show great potential, mainly through the group elaboration of the transferential and counter-transferantial dynamics. Improvised play provides strong clinical material of the internal conflictuality of the mind and interesting therapeutic potential.
USEFUL REFERENCES
Corcos, M., Morel, A., Jeammet, P., Chabert, C., & De lara – Cohen, A. (2012). Current developments in the practice of individual psychoanalytic psychodrama in France. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 93(3), 561–584. doi:10.1111/j.1745-8315.2011.00528.x
Delaroche, P. (2011). Jouer pour de vrai: Du psychodrame individuel à la psychanalyse. Toulouse Strasbourg: Érès.
By Pauline Bonnet, Manon Fevrier Renaut & Anatole Ténard