Sociodrama: Who's in Your Shoes?

Abstract

My own introduction to psychodrama and group psychotherapy was not in a mental health setting but through roleplaying done in the classes of Elwood Murray at the University of Denver in the early 1960s. Murray, who was a friend and colleague of J. L. Moreno, thought that roleplaying or sociodrama was a potent way to have people learn about interpersonal communication on the affective and skills levels, and in Murray's words, "to get it inside their skins." He was concerned that most university education was data based cognitive training of the intellect and that it was quickly forgotten. It was quickly forgotten because students often could not see how what they were supposed to learn had any application in their own lives, and it was forgotten because the learners were not actively involved in the learning. Murray's thoughts on this are in one of citations in the bibliography of the Sternberg and Garcia book.
Even though Murray's lectures were considered obscure, his classes were memorable because all of the many communication variables were experienced through roleplaying. His was a successful use of sociodrama as an educational method, which was what Moreno intended it should be.