Home » Treatment Programs » Psychodrama Treatment

Psychodrama Treatment at The Orchid

Psychodrama treatment is a form of group therapy in which patients explore emotionally charged subjects and events by acting them out in a spontaneous dramatic play, directed by a professionally trained therapist. After acting them out, the director helps the patient gain greater insight into the problems and issues raised by the play. At Orchid our therapists guide women through brief and intensive group work though role-playing, family sculpting, Gestalt techniques and exercises which release energy and emotions by wielding harmless "bataka bats."

This healing tool is particularly powerful because it is active and exploratory, and puts events from "then and there" into "here and now." Role-playing allows women to re-experience pivotal events in their life, to imagine alternative behaviors, and experiment with alternative decisions in a kind of "living laboratory." Relational dynamics become more obvious, as do recurring patterns of behavior and the emotions that instigate that behavior.

Psychodrama is especially effective in dealing with traumatic events and issues in a woman's life. The theoretical basis for this effectiveness is simple. Painful, stressful and emotionally-charged events can overwhelm someone and put him or her into a state of emotional and cognitive turmoil. The initial reaction to this overwhelming emotion is shock, a kind of mental "short-circuiting" which numbs and blocks undesirable insights or emotions. Over time, these painful new insights or truths should be comprehended and integrated into the personality of the individual. For some people, however, the new insights do not become integrated, and these people remain in a permanent state of disorganization and despair.

Those who cannot integrate the new insights into their psyche lose a great deal of psychological spontaneity and resilience. They are neither able to function psychologically as they did before the traumatic event, or to successfully "move on" and live with the new insights. Examples of behavior typical of those who have unprocessed trauma include learned helplessness, depression, hypervigilance, emotional constriction and loss of trust in others. Additionally, many are driven to relive the circumstances of their trauma over and over again and to self-medicate using drugs and alcohol.

In the safe, supportive, clinical environment of psychodrama role-play, women frequently experience the thoughts and emotions that they have been blocking or freezing for years because of the numbing effect of trauma. What's more, these women receive the therapeutic guidance recognize the cause of these thoughts and emotions and to finally process them from a place of safety and healing.

See how The Orchid changed their lives.