In the 1920s, group therapy began with the use of psychodrama therapy. This type of group activity helps you explore how being in a group of people like a family or peer circle affects your thoughts and actions. The therapy helps you clear mental blocks of creativity and spontaneity. This clearing of the mental blocks improves your daily function.

How Psychodrama Helps With Addiction

Counselor and client discussing how they will use psychodrama therapy during rehab

Psychodrama therapy uses dramatic actions and exercises led by a trained therapist. Through acting and taking part in these exercises with your group you learn how to manage your stress better, communicate, engage with others and cope in healthy ways. You also explore past trauma in these ways.

Your psychodrama therapy session starts with a warmup exercise. The entire group then works together by acting out a particular scene. One person plays the role of the protagonist for the group, while others play their own roles in the drama. The group improvises most of this action, without a script or any particular expectations.

In the scene, group members work through different ways to solve the main problem. The group ends the session by talking about the events, sharing thoughts about the protagonist, the entire drama, and its solutions. People also individually share their connections to what they saw during the drama.

Psychodramatic therapy helps you purge buried memories and issues you have yet to explore. You sometimes experience a flashback or remember past experiences you forgot, those impacting your thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. All of this takes place in a nonjudgmental group, in safety. It is like play-acting to practice future behavior.

Psychodrama Therapy Activities Help You Recover

In group drama, some common tools work well for addiction treatment modalities. These include a mirror to help you see yourself in a different light, from a new angle. A double, another person speaking for someone in the group is another tool. Role reversal involves switching roles with other people to see things in a new way and for others to see behaviors they exhibit through someone else's actions.

Some psychodramatic scenes involve projection. This takes you through scenes you already lived. But future projection takes you through some scenes of life you have yet to experience, such as an ordinary couples' counseling psychodrama involving the death of a partner, or even yourself. Playback theater involves the whole group acting out one person's actual life story or experience.

Does Psychodramatic Therapy Work for Substance Abuse?

In studies of people being treated for heroin addiction, psychodrama therapy helps individuals gain insight into themselves and their emotions. In other words, this therapy helps break the shell of disconnection that people experience after long-term painkiller abuse. It is like plugging back into your feelings, thoughts, problems, and self-expression. You also improve your social skills, in the process.

This therapy also helps counselors more accurately diagnose people in recovery. It uncovers signs and symptoms not uncovered during other addiction therapies. The therapy addresses problems that lead to relapse, too. Individuals learn how to better deal with their triggers, stress, and temptations.

Of course, psychodrama therapy is only one part of an overall addiction treatment options. You use it along with many other types of therapy in an accredited treatment center, for best results in recovery.

Psychodrama Therapy Treatment at Kemah Palms Recovery®

At Kemah Palms Recovery® in Kemah, Texas, you gain a solid mix of accredited therapies and treatment methods as part of your recovery program. Your therapies include a combination of individual, group and family therapies. Some of these types include:

  • CBT, DBT, MET, and EMDR
  • Acupuncture therapy
  • Meditation therapy
  • Psychotherapy
  • Relapse prevention therapy
  • Dual diagnosis treatment

Kemah Palms Recovery® offers detox, residential rehab, outpatient treatment, and an aftercare program. Your treatment at Kemah Palms completes a full spectrum of care for your best chance of strong, lasting recovery. Call Kemah Palms now at 713-568-1210 for more information about psychodrama therapy and other methods used at this accredited rehab in Kemah, Texas.