COMMENTS ON SOME COMMONLY-HELD RESERVATIONS ABOUT PSYCHODRAMA

Abstract

Professionals in the fields of psychiatry and related fields have been utilizing many new approaches to psychotherapy but they have had some reservations concerning the use of psychodramatic and action methods. In this paper, ten of the frequently expressed objections will be presented and commented on.

The first reservation about Psychodrama arises from the meaning of the use of action in therapy: is enactment equivalent to acting out?? "Acting out" is generally conceptualized as an antitherapeutic discharge of neurotic tensions through behavior which repeats an unconscious psychic situation; one acts out instead of remembering fully with the appropriate attending emotions.