Exploring the Healing Power of Action Methods in One-on-One Clinical Practice
Rebecca Walters MS, TEP 

Psychodrama, developed by Jacob L. Moreno in the early twentieth century, is a therapeutic approach that uses guided dramatic action to help clients gain insight, express emotions, and resolve personal and interpersonal challenges. Traditionally practiced in group settings, psychodrama has also been successfully adapted for individual therapy. In one-on-one clinical work, these action methods offer a powerful and intimate way to access emotional truth, combining the creative spontaneity of drama with the focused depth of the therapeutic relationship.

At its core, psychodrama is an experiential form of therapy in which the client, guided by a trained therapist known as the director, enacts scenes from their life. These scenes may include significant relationships, internal conflicts, dreams, traumatic memories, or unrealized aspirations. Rather than relying solely on verbal reflection, clients become active participants in their healing process. In group psychodrama, auxiliary egos and an audience support the protagonist’s work. In individual therapy, the therapist adapts this structure, often assuming multiple roles or using objects and imagery to represent important people, parts, or themes in the client’s life.

Moreno’s work is rooted in existential and humanistic traditions, emphasizing spontaneity, creativity, and the healing potential of action. Psychodrama is based on the understanding that talking alone does not always reach the deeper layers of experience. Sometimes healing requires movement, sound, and imaginative play. Through enactment, clients step out of rigid narratives and experiment with new ways of being. In contemporary practice, psychodrama aligns closely with embodied approaches to psychotherapy, recognizing the integration of mind, body, and emotion. Action methods often allow access to implicit memories and bodily sensations that may remain unreachable through talk therapy alone.

When adapted for individual therapy, psychodrama retains its essential elements while offering flexibility and containment. Chairs, cushions, or simple objects can represent people, emotions, roles, or aspects of the self. Techniques such as role reversal allow clients to step into the perspective of another person—or another part of themselves—often leading to surprising insight and increased empathy. The empty chair technique encourages direct expression of feelings that may have been withheld or unfinished. Soliloquy gives voice to inner thoughts, while doubling allows the therapist to gently articulate what the client may be sensing but not yet able to express. Future projection enables clients to rehearse desired outcomes or confront feared possibilities, expanding their sense of choice and agency.

These methods are particularly effective in addressing trauma, grief, anxiety, depression, relationship struggles, and life transitions. Enactment allows clients to explore past experiences in a controlled and supportive environment, practice new coping strategies, clarify values, and integrate fragmented aspects of identity. For trauma survivors, psychodrama can offer a respectful and gradual way to externalize overwhelming experiences, helping clients regain a sense of mastery and emotional regulation.

Even in individual therapy, psychodrama sessions generally follow three phases. The warm-up phase helps the client become present and emotionally attuned through grounding, visualization, movement, or creative expression. This is followed by the action phase, in which scenes are enacted and explored with the therapist’s guidance. Finally, the sharing and integration phase allows reflection on what emerged, supporting insight and the incorporation of new awareness into daily life.

The benefits of psychodrama in one-on-one therapy are numerous. Clients are actively engaged rather than passively recounting experiences. The embodied nature of the work supports emotional release and mind–body integration. Role reversal and enactment offer new perspectives on entrenched patterns, while behavioral rehearsal provides a safe space to practice change before applying it in the real world.

That said, psychodrama is not appropriate for every client or every situation. Individuals experiencing severe dissociation, acute psychosis, or unprocessed trauma may require careful pacing or alternative approaches. The therapist’s training, clinical judgment, and ability to maintain emotional safety are essential. Ongoing education and supervision in psychodrama methods are strongly recommended.

Over the years, therapists have continued to develop creative adaptations for individual work, incorporating drawing, writing, music, movement, and symbolic objects to deepen expression and accessibility. Case examples illustrate the range of applications: a socially anxious young adult rehearsing conversations through role play; a client resolving family conflict through empty chair dialogue; a trauma survivor reclaiming agency through slow, contained reenactment; a grieving client finding closure through role reversal with a deceased loved one; a child using puppets to address bullying; and an adult clarifying a major life decision through future projection.

Psychodrama in individual therapy offers a vibrant and holistic approach to healing. By engaging imagination, action, and embodiment, clients move beyond words, loosen long-held patterns, and discover new possibilities for growth. For therapists, psychodrama brings the drama of life directly into the therapeutic space, where transformation becomes possible—one scene at a time

Rebecca Walters, MS, LMHC, LCAT, TEP is the Director of the Hudson Valley Psychodrama Institute in Highland, NY, which she co-founded in 1989. For over 40 years Rebecca has utilized action methods with individuals and groups of children, adolescents and adults and is an internationally respected trainer of Psychodrama, Sociometry and Group Psychotherapy.