Psychodrama

Psychodrama is an acting method, often used as a psychotherapy, in which clients use spontaneous dramatization, role playing and dramatic self-presentation to investigate and gain insight into their lives. Developed by Jacob L. Moreno and his wife Zerka Toeman Moreno, it includes elements of theater, often conducted on a stage or a space serving as one, where a psychodrama therapy group under a licensed psychodramatist reenacts real-life past situations or inner mental processes in present time, giving participants the chance to evaluate their behavior and understand their situations more deeply. In a session, one client becomes the protagonist and enacts a personal, emotionally problematic situation, which may depict memories, unfinished situations, inner dramas, fantasies, dreams or rehearsals for future risk-taking, while other group members become auxiliaries supporting the protagonist or step in as a "double." A core tenet is Moreno's theory of spontaneity-creativity, the idea that the best creative response to a situation comes through a readiness to improvise in the moment, a principle he developed through his earlier Theatre of Spontaneity, an improvisational troupe he directed in Vienna in the early 1920s.