Introduction to the Special Issue on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Psychodrama

Abstract

For a long-time, psychodrama has been viewed as a "fringe" therapy, even though clinicians and counselors of various theoretical orientations have eagerly adopted role playing, a pivotal psychodramatic concept, for individual and traditional group psychotherapy. Psychodrama has been traditionally seen as more allied with theater and drama than with psychotherapy. The theater approach is most evident in the use of such terms as director and protagonist as opposed to the usual psychotherapy terms of therapist and patient or client. The role of the director is to facilitate the protagonist to enact an emotionally troubling episode, recreating the original context with props and auxiliaries, to re-experience any events surrounding the episode. The goal of re-experiencing the troubling episode is to allow the protagonist to vent and discover, with the aid of auxiliaries, new interpretations of the experience or simply to obtain an emotional release. Psychodrama is also, but perhaps less frequently, used for role training, that is, as a means to practice new ways of thinking and behaving.