The strategic staging of the unconscious. The Analytic Psychodrama and its disclosure of the scene of the other. - An overview followed by an extensive bibliography

Abstract

First of all this article understands itself as an attempt to show the historical development and the current situation of those psychotherapeutic methods which are classified as belonging to the term “Psychoanalytic Psychodrama”. Spontaneous role play and specific techniques of Moreno’s psychodrama on the foundation of Freud’s teachings on neurosis are combined. Although Moreno wanted his psychodrama to be seen as an antithesis to psychoanalysis beginnings of a synthesis in the sense of an analytic psychodrama can already be found in his work. It was only in the fifties that a group of french psychoanalysts developed a systematic approach to the application of various concepts for the use of psychodramatic methods in single and group settings, thereby safeguarding psychoanalytic methods. In different locations in German speaking areas there were again attempts to practise psychodrama from a psychoanalytic point of view. Till 1980 there was only one theoretically based and methodologically systematized school-like procedure which was used by Ploeger and his colleagues as “Depth Psychological Psychodrama Therapy”. In Austria, a method characterized as “Psychodramatic Group Analysis ” (Viennese model) has been applied for more than 10 years. Following the French beginnings this method roots in improvisation, as this being its psychodramatic origin, and further regards group psychoanalytic concepts which stress the group as a unity.

The summary of a description of a group process is supposed to clarify this position by means of an example.

Keywords:
Psychodrama, group-psychotherapy, groupanalysis, improvised play, acting-in.