The Use of the Cultural Atom to Record Personality Change in Individual Psychotherapy

Abstract

This paper raises the issue: ''How can the psychodramatist evaluate the client's progress in psychotherapy and the soundness of the
psychodrama intervention?" The cultural atom can be used to diagram three gestalts, each of which has a central identity around
which other roles cluster. The neurotic gestalt represents the unresolved pathological aspects of the parents' personalities together with the role responses of the child. The coping gestalt represents the best means of coping which the person learned in the family system. The individuated gestalt represents a balanced set of roles unique to the individual. Progress can be assessed by emergence of roles and an identity belonging to the individuated gestalt.