Using psychodrama in therapy has the capability to help people unlock neural pathways in ways that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to with typical talk therapy. This episode explores that process as well as goes through several examples of how to use psychodrama with couples.
Walter Logeman is a therapist in Christchurch, New Zealand who specializes in working with couples. He is a supervisor, trainer, and qualified Imago therapist. He conducts workshops for therapists on how to use psychodrama with their couples.
The Couples Therapist Couch is the podcast for Couples Therapists about the practice of couples therapy. The host, Shane Birkel, interviews an expert in the field of couples therapy each week.
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Bud Weiss says
February 5, 2019 at 7:56 pmBrilliantly voiced. One of the problems I have, as effective as your work using psychodrama must be, is that the therapist, director, what have you, is workingtoo hard doong too much and pushing too much in the director’s desired direction. Thus, the client is not maintained as the expert in their lives and can become a sanyusan of the director guru. In group settings where I prefer to see psychodrama practiced, the group can become a kind of cult following of the director. I fear this has partially occurred with the Morenos themselves. I’m sure you are aware of this as I sense all the Australians and New Zealanders are given what littke I know of the work of some of you through the years. I think you work toward a kind of co-constructed pricess in which the client experiences being the leaser and the director is but one ofvthe clients specialized auxiliary egos. How do you avoid that supplanting of the protagonist’s primacy ?
Bud Weiss says
February 5, 2019 at 9:08 pmWhat I am speaking to is the issue of agency of the client , couple or or group , regardless of the approach edpecially when the target or issue is the problem rather than a positively stated desired outcome from the therapy other than getting rid of or fixing the problem which is generally what the vast number of clients arrive seeking. Since their attempts to solve the problem have either completely failed or given unsatisfactory results prior to coming in, they present, even if sent to therapy, with this sense of failure they lay at our doorstep. The moment we pick it up, we are drawn, at least partially, into the priblrm focus and at least monentarily into exploring the client’s deficits. Needless to say, it is posdibke to reframe a client’s priblem as an asset or at the very least a door to their assets; the most stunning example I recall being Milton Erickson’s work with a suicidal patient who was plaqued by her notion of her ugliness due to her significant gap toothed dentality. so, again I ask, how fo therspusts deal with this issue of client agency which at the worst is seen in Jay Haley’s brilliant essay, “The Power Tactics of Jesus Christ.”