Corrective interpersonal experience in psychodrama group therapy: A comprehensive process analysis of significant therapeutic events

Abstract

This study investigated the process of resolving painful emotional experience during psychodrama group therapy, by examining significant therapeutic events within seven psychodrama enactments. A comprehensive process analysis of four resolved and three not-resolved cases identified five meta-processes which were linked to in-session resolution. One was a readiness to engage in the therapeutic process, which was influenced by client characteristics and the client's experience of the group; and four were therapeutic events: (1) re-experiencing with insight; (2) activating resourcefulness; (3) social atom repair with emotional release; and (4) integration. A corrective interpersonal experience (social atom repair) healed the sense of fragmentation and interpersonal disconnection associated with unresolved emotional pain, and emotional release was therapeutically helpful when located within the enactment of this new role relationship. Protagonists who experienced resolution reported important improvements in interpersonal functioning and sense of self which they attributed to this experience.