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The journal article available via my home page suggests
that cybernetic feedback tends to organise roles, i.e. a cyclic role theory.
Here, I provide a very brief description of
the conventional understanding of psychodrama role theory :
This is the theory that I have been taught by
psychodramatists such as Max Clayton and Sue Daniel.
I suspect that the role theory used here in Australia may have its own character.
If you have any comments or suggestions about this document, please let me know.
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Version: 5 December 2007
Author: Andrew Gunner
Psychodrama is a form of psychotherapy based on the theory and methods of Jacob
Levy Moreno (1889 - 1974).
A central part of this is role theory or psychodrama role theory.
Psychodrama role theory is a theory of personality and personal development.
It encourages concise, observation-based analysis.
Roles are the fundamental building-blocks of the self.
" Role playing is prior to the self. Roles do not emerge from the self, but the self emerges from roles " (Moreno, 1964, p ii, 157).
These roles are not masks or stage roles taken on by actors.
" The role is the functioning form the individual assumes in the specific moment he reacts to a specific situation " (Moreno, p iv).
Moreno (p v) proposed three types of role :
Each role (social, physiological or personal) is expressed through:
The physiological role of "writer" can be described further and named by considering the persons associated actions, feelings and ideas. For a student struggling with writing an essay: his action is writing, he feels despair, and he believes, "I can't do it. I hate essays". One possible name for this role is, "the despairing essay writer". Even a moment later, the student may have had a break through and assumed a very different role, e.g. the "excited creative writer".
The personal role of "mouse" could be expressed through the action of tremulously looking, the emotion of nervousness and the idea that "it is risky out there". This role could be called the "tremulous mouse".
The social role of a worker could be expressed through the action of arriving at work on time, the emotion of enthusiasm and the idea that "it is great to enjoy earning a wage". This could be called the "happy punctual worker".
This discipline of identifying each element assists the therapist to focus on what they observe.
Lynette Clayton sees the role as a practical concept: "The method is not a means of intellectual analysis but a means of recording behaviour observed by a clinician during the therapy process." (Clayton, 1982)
To analyse the roles of an individual, Max Clayton (1993, p 14) suggests that the roles can be grouped under four headings:
Moreno described individual development (the therapeutic process) in terms of roles :
"Links must gradually develop between the social, psychological and physiological
role clusters in order that we can identify and experience, after their unification,
that which we call me or the I."
(Moreno, 1964, p. iii).
Therapy is about:
Most of us face the challenge of integrating our role of worker, a social role, and our personal roles. How can each of us bring our own person into our work and how can we utilise our work outside the workplace.
Psychodrama often occurs in a therapeutic group. In a classical psychodrama, a "director" facilitates the enactment of an aspect of the life of one group member. Consider an example. A member of the group, Mark, could enact his interaction with his angry boss, Brenda, who is not a member of the group. The director would have Mark set out, in the enactment space, the office he works in and then enact a key scene with Brenda. The enactment displays Mark's version of his interaction with Brenda. The director can use several interventions to develop this enactment. Some of these follow.
Psychodrama role theory suggests that personal development is closely linked to these psychodramatic interventions.
Individual development occurs through
Development occurs where they happen in a psychodrama group and where they happen naturally in a person's life.
Psychodramatic enactment requires active improvisation. This stimulates creativity
and spontaneity, the emergence of new roles.
For Moreno (p xii) spontaneity was:
Adam Blatner has written many books and articles on psychodrama.
His web site offers lots of articles and links.
A site about Jacob Moreno
The Australian and New Zealand Psychodrama Association: www.anzpa.org
Clayton, Lynette (1982)
The use of the cultural atom to record personality change in individual psychotherapy.
Journal of group processes, psychodrama and sociometry. Fall 1982, p 111.
Clayton, G Max (1993)
Living Pictures of the Self:
Applications of Role Theory in Professional Practice and Daily Living.
ICA Press Melbourne
Moreno J L (1964) Psychodrama. Volume 1.
New York: Beacon House.
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