Warm up before you act
Spend the first minutes loosening up and finding the scene that is actually ready to be worked on.
Why it works
A classical psychodrama session begins with a warm-up phase before any scene is enacted. In the literature Cruz and colleagues reviewed, warm-up exercises raise the material a session will work on and help decide the theme and who will be the protagonist; they also build trust and a relaxed atmosphere in the group. Blatner gives warming-up its own chapter in his practical text. The point of the phase is that the scene chosen is the one a person is actually ready to work on, which is found by warming up rather than decided in advance.
How to do it
- Before any of the other techniques, take five minutes to move: stand, walk the room, shake out your hands, breathe slowly.
- Say out loud, in one sentence each, two or three situations that are on your mind today.
- Notice which one makes your body react most (a tightening, heat, a lump in the throat). That is the scene that is warmed up.
- If nothing stands out, choose an everyday situation rather than the heaviest one you can think of.
Evidence
The warm-up, action and sharing sequence is the standard structure of a psychodrama session, traced to Moreno and described across the literature consolidated by Cruz et al. (2018). An integrative review of psychodrama research from 2007 to 2017 found that about half of the studies used these three phases. The warm-up has not been tested on its own; its value is a matter of clinical experience. (clinical)
No study isolates the warm-up from the rest of a session. Choosing an everyday scene for self-guided work is a safety adaptation for doing this without a director, not part of the classical method.
Sources
- Cruz, A., Sales, C. M. D., Alves, P., & Moita, G. (2018). The core techniques of Morenian psychodrama: A systematic review of literature. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1263.
- Blatner, A. (1996). Acting-In: Practical Applications of Psychodramatic Methods (3rd ed.). Springer Publishing.
- Orkibi, H., & Feniger-Schaal, R. (2019). Integrative systematic review of psychodrama psychotherapy research: Trends and methodological implications. PLOS ONE, 14(2), e0212575.
Common mistake
Skipping it and going straight to the most painful situation in your life. Without a warm-up and without a director to slow things down, that is the quickest route to feeling overwhelmed.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Psychodrama Techniques: Role Reversal, Doubling, the Mirror and More
- Think out loud in a soliloquy
Step to the side of a scene and say aloud what you are actually thinking and feeling but not saying.
- Reverse roles and answer as the other person
Switch places with the person you are in conflict with and speak from their position until you feel how it looks from there.
- Let a double voice what you are not saying
A trusted person stands beside you and speaks, as "I", the feelings you are not expressing, and you keep only what fits.
- Step out and watch yourself in the mirror
Watch your own behaviour played back from the outside, so you can see what others see.
- Step into a scene from your future
Act out a specific future moment as if it were happening now, then work back to what would get you there.
- Map your social atom
Lay out the people who matter to you, at the distances they feel, and see the shape of your relationships at a glance.
- Close with sharing, not analysis
After someone works on something, respond with what it stirred in your own life, not with interpretations or questions.
Related concepts
- Shadow Work
Meeting the parts of yourself you have been ignoring
- The Empty Chair Technique: Finishing What Was Never Said
Speaking directly to the person you still carry, so the old feelings can finally move
- Two-Chair Dialogue: Working With the Inner Critic and Other Inner Splits
Giving the critic and the criticized self each a chair, so the fight inside you becomes a conversation that can change
- Gestalt Therapy: Awareness, Ownership and Contact in the Here and Now
Noticing what you are doing right now, owning it in your own words, and finishing what keeps pulling at you
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