Fundamentals of Psychodrama

This book offers a comprehensive guide to psychodrama, including the underlying philosophy, methodology, theory, and applications. The book also presents brief examples to illustrate how to choose the best methodological approach for any context, taking readers through the process of staging a psychodrama session, from the contracting phase, exploration, and enactment to closure and integration. It describes the various psychodrama techniques and their practical application, with indications, contraindications, typical pitfalls and FAQs. The book demonstrates that psychodrama is not merely a collection of methods and techniques and that the potential of psychodrama cannot be fully utilized without an in-depth knowledge of its conceptual foundations. With examples from a range of practices, it shows the broad applicability of psychodrama in therapeutic and non-therapeutic contexts, e.g., in educational contexts (school and adult education), social work, organization development, coaching, and many other fields. This easy-to-read book uses jargon-free language and will appeal to psychotherapy researchers, practitioners, and non-therapeutic professionals like human resource consultants and life coaches. This is a translated and revised edition of the best-selling German book Psychodrama: Grundlagen (Springer, 2014, 3rd edition).