ABSTRACT:

After years of dedicated work in the PERFORMERS group a small determined group of individuals launched the first educational programme in the field of sociodrama in Budapest. These individuals are our trainers, and we are their first trainees, having earned the title of “Assistant Sociodrama Group Leader” in Hungary

Thanks to our training and the guidance of our trainers, we have been able to establish numerous new groups, applying the sociodrama method in various aspects of our original professions. We have experimented with the method and endeavored to address the traumas and wounds within our society.

We would like to present the multiple areas where we facilitated group work, and offer to our audience to select the topics that interest them the most. We will then zoom in and delve deeper into these areas through sociodramatic enactment.

We firmly believe that sharing our work can serve as a source of inspiration not only for those who work with sociodrama but also for those who teach and train in this methodology.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS:

ABSTRACT:

The SCOPE Working Group emerged from the PERFORMERS international sociodrama project.

Since 2021, the working group has been collaborating with institutions focusing on youth, utilizing sociodrama and child sociodrama methods.
We work with schools, children care homes, correctional facilities, family shelters, and educational support centers. Our aim is to support these institutions towards more democratic operation, ensuring safety for both the professionals and the children they serve, while cultivating a nurturing, supportive environment. To accomplish this, we work with groups of children considering the institutional settings in which they reside, and seeking partnerships with facility administrators, leaders, and professionals.

Our presentation provides a concise overview of our journey thus far, highlighting the challenges encountered, the solutions devised, and the outcomes attained.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS:

ABSTRACT:

Intersecting spaces: navigating individual and social narratives through critical psychodrama (Presentation)
The critical psychology approach takes social factors and social issues into consideration among the causes of psychological phenomena. During the presentation, we aim to look at the individual themes and group processes appearing in psychodramatic scenes, and also their connection to sociodrama, from a critical psychodrama perspective.

Is it among the tasks of the psychodrama leader to make participants of the psychodrama group think about and reflect on discriminative social systems and power inequalities that affect them? Does the thematization of social embeddedness have relevancy when individual themes and problems arise on the stage of psychodrama, and if so, in which way? What can psychodrama and sociodrama learn from each other? What is the result if both the individual and the social point of view appear in the same psychodramatic space?

In our opinion, these are exciting and timely professional questions. Critical psychodrama examines the processes appearing in the space of psychodrama not only at the level of the individual but embedded in a broader social context, using a systematic approach. Basically, individual problems are not merely manifestations of blockages, role deficits, and self-limiting beliefs in the protagonist’s mind, but instead systems created and maintained by several actors and factors. As a result, it can easily happen that the protagonist’s attempt to put their new kind of emotional knowledge experienced on the psychodramatic stage into practice, quickly collides with social expectations and role pressures, thereby making the long-term integration of the new pattern difficult, or even downright impossible.

What can we do as psychodrama leaders? During the presentation, we are looking for theoretical and methodological answers to the above questions and scenarios. We present the main principles of critical psychodrama and introduce interested parties to the dilemmas that a psychodrama leader working with a critical approach encounters.

Tools of insight: enhancing psychodramatic practice through a critical lens (Workshop)
Following the presentation addressing the foundations and theoretical background of critical psychodrama, the workshop will showcase and explore several practical tools of the approach. The speakers aim to expand the psychodrama toolkit with methods, techniques, and procedures that consider individual experiences and the encompassing social environment in their full complexity, thereby opening up new aspects to the members of a given psychodrama group. Throughout the workshop, we aspire to showcase these methods and techniques to the participants, with particular attention to comparisons with sociodrama.

The focus is on applying techniques within a psychodramatic context, enabling group members to develop new, system-conscious interpretations and coping mechanisms and to gain awareness of the social embeddedness of their social roles and identities. In this short method demonstration, together with the workshop participants, we will explore the possibilities of the brought situations and what the critical approach can offer to deal with them.

The goal of critical psychodrama is, on one hand, to establish realistic expectations among group members regarding the nature and process of change and, on the other hand, to explore how individual recognitions can be durably implemented into practice, for example, through building alliances and exposing the weak points of the hidden social structure shaping our lives.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS:

ABSTRACT:

We are among the first trainees to hold the title of “Assistant Sociodrama Group Leader” in Hungary. One of our pioneering projects involved an experiment that combined the methods of sociodrama and playback theater—both developed by Jacob Levy Moreno.

The roots of playback theater trace back to Jacob L. Moreno’s Stegreiftheater, which operated in Vienna from 1921 to 1923. In this innovative theater, personal stories were vividly brought to life. The fusion of sociodrama and playback theater is particularly intriguing due to the profound role stories play in the fabric of human existence. Stories possess the remarkable ability to unite and connect us, erode the barriers between individuals and their life experiences, and facilitate healing for individuals, families, and even entire societies. Stories represent an ancient and integral aspect of universal culture. By passing them on, we forge traditions and customs, transmit values, educate future generations, and gain a deeper understanding of both ourselves and the world around us. Stories also serve as mirrors to the collective unconscious, the part of our psyche shared by all of humanity and inherently ingrained within us. The goal of our workshop is to explore the sociodrama community and its dynamics through the lens of socio-playback methodology.

We aim to discover our shared narratives and integrate our collective experiences from the sociodrama conference. During the session, participants will engage in a playback performance, where the focus will be on a group, a collective experience, and a shared story. They will come to understand that playback theater can be harnessed to reenact collective stories as well.

Moreover, participants will have the opportunity to discern the distinctions between traditional playback and socio-playback. Together with fellow participants, they will demonstrate the enactment of a collective story on stage, further strengthening their understanding of this powerful approach.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS: