Home > Encyclopedia of Psychology > Role Playing/Psychodrama

A group therapy approach in which clients act out their problems to gain new insights and achieve emotional catharsis.

Role playing was developed by Jacob Moreno, a Viennese psychologist who contended that people could gain more from acting out their problems than from talking about them. This method requires a protagonist (the client whose problems are being acted out); auxiliary egos (group members who assume the roles of other people in the protagonist's life); an audience (other group members who observe and react to the drama); and a director (the therapist). The protagonist selects an event from his or her life and provides the information necessary for it to be reenacted. Although every detail of the event cannot be reproduced, the reenactment can be effective if it captures the essence of the original experience. The group members who serve as auxiliary egos impersonate significant people from...