One of the most effective techniques is ROLE REVERSAL

Role reversal is used for specific purposes:

1. To develop empathy

2. To shift perspective

3. To develop understanding of the situation

4. To help enactors to have a catharsis

 

 

DOUBLING is a powerful technique for the protagonist and director. The double places his/her body in the position of the protagonist, not to imitate, but to feel what the protagonist is feeling. On a deeper level, the double is there to assist and explore the innermost feelings of the protagonist. These are often feelings the protagonist is too fearful to articulate or feelings the individual has not allowed to surface. The double can be used in a variety of ways:

1. to verbalise non-verbal communications

2. to physicalise one’s words

3. to magnify feelings

4. to observe and question the self

 

In the MIRROR technique one enactor reflects the body language and vocal tones of another while the second observes.

 

SURPLUS REALITY defines those times in a psychodramatic enactment when scenes and events are dramatised that have never happened, will never happen or can never happen. The ability to experience these scenes (with the associated fantasies, fears, emotions and wishes) is one of the magical strengths of the psychodramatic process. The very fact of having experiences in surplus reality is perhaps one of the unique therapeutic potentials of psychodrama.

 

SOCIOMETRY means ‘companion measure’. Sociometric explorations lay bare the hidden structures that give a group its form: the alliances, the hidden beliefs, the forbidden agendas, the ideological agreements, the ‘stars’ of the show, positive and negative. It is a measure, an information-provider that stresses the social nature of everything we are and do.

 

SOCIODRAMA – is an action method dealing with inter-group relations and collective ideologies. The protagonist of the sociodrama is the group. It may be that in a spontaneous sociodrama one member has raised the particular issue or social problem to be explored, but in essence group issues are looked at.

 

TELE – is a two-way relationship, a reciprocal non-verbal communication, quite different from empathy, sympathy, transference or counter-transference. Tele is a dual message sending service. It is the ability to penetrate and understand another person without the necessity of language.