Psychodrama, Sociodrama and Sociometry with children

    by Stewart J. Frimer , LCSW

           Psychodrama as developed by the genius of Dr J. L. Moreno is an action oriented form of psychotherapy based on a role theory of personality. Dr Moreno actually developed and conceptualized his ideas while watching the children of Vienna in a variety of play, make believe, and group activities. Roles are learned throughout the life cycle first through imitation of significant others in the child’s life, role taking, and training (family roles, societal roles, student, friends etc) and finally the creation of our own unique roles via role enhancement.

           Some problems inherent in the life cycle include roles that are never learned, under-learned, or over-learned. For example: the boy who is overly taught the typical masculine role of toughness and self reliance without also learning the other expressions of feelings such as the acceptance of crying as normal-shows itself in physiological problems of drug use and other criminal activities. Another problem inherent in the developmental process is of the child who has been under-doubled. The “double “ in psychodrama is the therapist or trained auxiliary who expresses what the child or protagonist cannot express about his feeling or experiences. With children especially there is the often totally unrealistic expectation that they actually have the words to express their feelings.

           In life parents are cast in the role of the constant developmental double for the child, by validating what the child sees, feels and experiences. In many dysfunctional families (the abusive family, the substance abuse family) the child’s reality is denied or discounted by a parent or parents who have their own problems of denial or being under-doubled themselves. This is crazy making at its most basic. The under-doubled child often grows up with problems of trust and intimacy.

“Pathology exists when there is an imbalance between internal perception and external response” – Zerka Moreno 

           Role reversal is yet another major developmental concept. This is the ability to put yourself in the shoes of the other-to understand what the world is like for another person. This is a major diagnostic assessment tool and is one of the most widely used tools of psychodrama. The inability to role reverse is an indication of the ability to experience a sense of empathy-which if not developed presents a person from, learning and maintaining boundaries or from keeping an individual from harming another person. In its extreme case the person who cannot role reverse becomes the sociopath-an inability to role reverse with anyone. Again this is one of the consequences of inadequate or distorted doubling.

           Another major role theory developmental concept is that of mirroring. This is the ability to see yourself from the perspective of someone else. Do you have a clear sense of who you are or again is this distorted? The distortion often occurs from once again inadequate doubling. One of the fun exercises that I have used when I work with children is to remember when a teacher would say something to them and when they would say “I didn’t do anything”. The kids always laughed. Then I would say “let’s pretend that instead of a blackboard, instead of walls, there were all mirrors in the room-what would happen next? Perspective and then behavior changes from a clearer view of who you are.

           Spontaneity theory is another core psychodramatic concept. Via the use of various warm-up techniques the anxious or role inhibited child learns to try on new behaviors. She has the chance to go back to old sources of stress eg those that interfere with learning or from being manipulated by peers. For example in the issues of substance abuse prevention or dating manipulation..the student gets a chance to see and feel the scene of such issues during role play. The student experiences the conflict-hears both sides maybe even three sides of a situation..like drug issues and builds up emotional muscle by getting the words to handle the stressful issue. With drug use-the role of the drug itself is concretized by someone playing the drug.  The definition of  spontaneity is the ability to handle old situations in a new and effective way. Please note the inverse relationship between anxiety and spontaneity-the lower the anxiety the higher the ability to learn. Please note as well that the lack of spontaneity to caused by the previously noted under-doubling and the resulting problem of role expectations and role distortions. The abused  child or the child of the alcoholic has a parent who is emotionally needy and the child is often cast in the role of the adult child or the one who ‘parents the parent”.  

           Since the child cannot fill this role and the expectations  is that he can, both parent and child are frustrated and the emotional needs and a healthy role development for both continue to become both distorted and unmet.

           The foundation of psychodrama and sociodrama is that of sociometry. In his classic book “Who Shall Survive?” Moreno notes that the quality and content of our relationships is what determines what are lives will be like. Sociometry is a method of observing, understanding and measuring and analyzing the positive, negative and neutral relationships of a group, a family an organization, political connections and actually even global connections. In its most basic form it take note of the formal and informal socioemotional networks of a child’s life. For example we know that the abusive parent if often an isolate and has poor sociometric standing in their community and family which results in poor bailout ability.

           Assessing the cast of characters in the child’s life and the role distortions in the child’s life gives great diagnostic tools for working with the child and his family. Psychodrama gives a great body of knowledge and hope for helping the child clarify role distortions, for developing a clearer sense of self and to allow for a greater behavioral repertoire. One of my favorite aspects of being a psychodramatist is that of being more of a “Stretch” instead of a “shrink” and the joy of seeing a child take on new.,more satisfying fun effective roles.

          “ A truly therapeutic procedure cannot have less an objective than the whole of mankind” – J.L. Moreno 1934

Stewart J. Frimer , LCSW is a retired social worker. He worked in NYC school system.

Originally published on LinkedIn