ROLEPLAYING OF EMBARRASSING SITUATIONS

Abstract

Every person, in facing life's tasks, has some emotional-attitudinal projection of the situation, running from extreme desire through deepest aversion. Leaving out situations which are illegal, unnecessary or avoidable, without being considered inadequate or peculiar, there still remain many tasks which one finds difficult, embarrassing, annoying and otherwise unpleasant, going from such familiar life tasks as answering the telephone, purchasing something, returning a purchase, turning down a salesman, asking someone strange the time of day or for directions, refusing to purchase something from a peddler, etc. These fairly common aversions usually do not come out, either in individual or group psychotherapy for many reasons: they seem too insignificant; one should be concerned with deep' problems about life; one should not waste the therapist's time with trivia; and yet, to the average person these frequently-to-be-repeated-situations are often more upsetting than the so-called big problems. In group therapy, for example, people with such "minor" problems often do not mention them, simply because they seem to be an imposition on others. And yet simple as they are, they represent symptoms of deeper-lying pathologies in some cases, and if they could be handled quickly and simply, could contribute considerably to the well-being of the individual.