Danger and Robocounseling

[William H. Wysong]

Hi Regina and Grouptalk:

Regina you wrote, "I am worried that it [psychodrama] is dangerous." I
believe any modality is dangerous when the therapist is unskilled, uncaring,
discounting, or inattentive.  I have experienced dangerous situations in
Freudian psychotherapy, person centered therapy, behavior therapy, Play
Therapy, Gestalt, TA, NLP, EMDR, and other modalities.

Psychodrama especially gets bad press because some onlookers think that they
can do psychodrama in their practice with no training; try it out on a
client; the client gets into deep feelings; and the therapists don't know
how to handle it. (They weren't taught that in college.) Then they tell
others how bad psychodrama is for clients.

Also many therapists believe they are put together well but have not worked
on their issues, no matter whether they have an undergraduate, graduate,
doctorate, or some other professional degree. When seeing a psychodrama they
tap into those unresolved emotions that should have been resolved in
college; they too speak ill of psychodrama. In most college programs there
is no mechanism for students to work on their issues. Our deep, meaningful
work did not happened in college but in our personal psychodramas.

Of course we have to fight against people’s fear of just the name and the
image it conjures. Some people say psychodrama is dangerous and have never
seen one or, if they have seen a psychodrama, don’t really know the
protagonist’s experience and resulting life outcome.

Psychodrama is the most powerful therapy I've ever known. It can be stunning
or terrifying for an observer who has unresolved issues. Perhaps you, like
me, experienced that. While watching my first psychodrama, the universality
factor allowed me to experience my own emotions.  And that was followed by
the wonder of sharing when we, the group members, told how we identified
with the psychodrama and discovered we were not alone.

What might have looked dangerous in the psychodrama wasn't and the
protagonist purged a lot of debilitating emotions and beliefs. I was
invested in the group and the protagonist because of a good warm-up,
inclusive sociometry, a good director, meaningful action, and the
completeness of sharing. (We've heard all of that many times.)

Sharing can alleviate stunning or terrifying or any other emotional aspects
of a psychodrama. Unfortunately, many don’t share because they don’t
understand the purpose and importance of sharing, how to do it, and/or are
not given permission or the time to share.  As a director I try to give
complete information and encourage people to share anything they
experienced, even if it seems to have no relationship to the psychodrama.

To spread the word, teach others, and alleviate fear about psychodrama,
contact growth-oriented collectives and the professors at local colleges
with counseling, psychology, and social work classes and volunteer to do an
action demonstration in the classroom (or meeting). Psychodrama fits
exceptionally well with group counseling classes. If you are interested in
how I handle this, please send me a note at iqwysong at gmail.com.

Onward…..Bill Wysong

P. S.  About Robocounseling—It’s just another thing that hurts psychodrama.
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