SOME ASPECTS OF THE INTERACTION OF PSYCHODRAMA AND GROUP PSYCHOTHERAPY

Abstract

When we decided to separate group psychotherapy from psychodrama, a division somewhat different from Moreno's well-established procedure, we had various aims in mind. Our main interest was in observing the interaction between psychodrama and other forms of psychotherapeutic treatment. From previous experience and theoretical presumptions, we felt that the level of psychodramatic action differs a great deal from that of other psychotherapeutic methods. A patient taking part in a psychodramatic session is so busy with his performance and so moved by the actual experience, that he looses his intellectual defenses and, as Moreno points out, submerges into subconscious mechanisms. Of course, other forms of therapy also have the same effect, but since the patient relies on verbalization, a forced and sometimes premature intellectualization cannot be avoided. This lessens the effect of the emotional catharsis and the emotional discharge. Even the usual psychodramatic session, followed by an immediate discussion and/or interpretation, seems to have a lesser effect both on the episode preceding it and also on the following psychodramatic scene.