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Psychodrama with Trauma Survivors: Acting Out Your Pain

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"Psychodrama with Trauma Survivors: Acting Out Your Pain" is a good overview of the current ways that the method of psychodrama is being used to treat survivors of trauma.

Some clinicians shy away from using experiential methods with survivors, particularly because the power of the method and its potential to produce regression. Yet many clinicians know that talk therapy, while providing symptomatic relief, often does not get to the deep healing that many survivors are seeking. When used responsibly and safely, experiential methods like psychodrama are better able to address experiences which are stored in the unconscious cubbyholes of our being that can hardly be accessed with verbal methods.

The book documents the impact of a variety of kinds of trauma -- war, physical and sexual abuse, significant loss, torture, addiction and traffic accidents among others -- and shows the various approaches of psychodramatists from around the world.

Of special interest are the chapters by French psychologist Anne Ancelin Schutzenberger, who has researched hidden transmission of trauma from generation to generation, and by co-editor Kate Hudgins, an American psychologist, who has developed the Therapeutic Spiral Model that identifies a number of inner roles that solidify within survivors as a result of the trauma.

Innovative work with juvenile and adult sexual offenders is also documented, as well as treatment with secondary victims of trauma, like family members of combat veterans and psychotherapists themselves.

Psychodrama is not a simple method so this information is less of a manual for clinicians who are not versed in this field. However, it offers a great window of possibilities for clinicians and others seeking new options for treatment.

Some valuable information. As expected, uneven quality among articles. Some authors are stars; others are willingly lost in intergalactic dust clouds of jargon. Editors take a sink-or-swim approach to authors. For the non-specialist, the incomplete index (short on listings for particular items) and absence of a badly needed glossary impair the book's usefulness. All the same, I read it and took notes.