Coaching - Getting to the heart of the matter - with Psychodramatic Techniques

When psychodrama was developed in in the mid-1930s by J.L. Moreno, the method originally was used largely in group settings. Today it has many applications- in education, in administration, in coaching, leadership training.

Psychodrama 'a deux’ or one-to-one psychodrama is described as a psychodramatic session often held in an office with only coach and client present (Haskell, 1967). According to Moreno "Individual, 'a deux' psychodrama is possible; it is an accepted and valuable form of psychotherapy”.

In the example below, I show how psychodrama can be used in one-to-one coaching, along with some psychodramatic interventions.

Kripi arrives for her coaching session. When she starts speaking, her voice is stretched as she speaks about developing an intolerance to ‘loud’ things around her- music, horns blaring, voices, expressions- which she relates with the ‘North Indian culture’. She also acknowledges that she herself comes from the Eastern part of the country, but is married into a ‘North-Indian’ family.

This sharing is part of the introductory greeting and chatter. When we shift to ‘business’, her presenting agenda which she wants to explore in the coaching session is: ‘I often feel a certain stress: Should I speak or not? Am I speaking too much? How am I being received? Sometimes I feel uncomfortable with my own intensity’.

The above conversation has taken place in a coach-client seating.

At this point the coach stands up with Kripi, and indicates moving to a different part of the room- it could be right next to the coach-client seating, but it helps if the stage space where the enactment takes place is a separate space.

Coach: With whom and when did you last feel like this?

Kripi: (after a minute’s thought): Well, at my home just last evening.

Coach: OK, lets set up the scene of the situation. In this space, can you please show me the where is the door, the chairs, and who is in the room.

Scene setting: The coach does not get into a detailed questioning of clarifying the issue. Zerka Moreno said: “Don't tell me. Show me!” and described Psychodrama as "the mind in action."

Scene setting for psychodrama-coaching is as simple as possible. Three or four folding chairs plus a small table is adequate furniture to set up scenes that take place at the dining table, the car while travelling, restaurant, or in various rooms in the house.

Scene setting contributes greatly to the experience of the "here and now." It allows the client to bring the outside world into the office.

The basic ingredients of a scene are where, when and who. The client does the setting up of props herself—she owns it more completely, and it offers her an opportunity to get physically moving which may help reduce initial anxiety.

Kripi describes the living room, and the coach encourages her to arrange the light furniture in that shape. As she lays out a couch for her husband, a chair for her mother-in-law, a TV, a chair for her son, the entrance door, the door which leads into the kitchen, she is already getting warmed up.

The significant others in her scene are watching TV. The coach asks Kripi to describe those present with a word each. She says : ‘Stillness and immovability’ for mother-in-law, ‘Serious’ for her husband, and ‘Cool’ for her son.

The action phase starts now. The coach asks Kripi to come in just as she did the previous day and invites her to speak her thoughts aloud as she stands outside the main door.

Soliloquy: In drama the soliloquy is used by the actors to speak aloud the thoughts and feelings that would otherwise be unexpressed. In psychodrama, the client verbalizes thoughts aloud, as if no one is present but herself. It  heightens  awareness of feelings/ thoughts because it is experienced in the "here and now".

Kripi’s soliloquizes as she stands outside her door, and slowly walks into the living room: ‘My bag is hurting my shoulder, it’s so heavy. I feel the pressure of the bag. This is my home, but is this my home? Am I wanted here? Everyone is so self-contained and immersed in themselves and each other, I don’t have a role. What am I doing here?’

Kripi to mother-in-law: (low energy, no eye contact, in a mechanical fashion) Hello mother, how was your day. I’m back.

 Role Reverse: Once the scene has been set, the coach selects appropriate times for the client to role reverse with the significant others in the scene. Kripi has indicated three ‘significant others’ in her scene: Husband, mother-in-law, and son. We role-reverse with each in turn.

 Kripi is asked to reverse roles and in becoming the mother-in-law, and respond to the statement in that new role. It is important that the client actually changes chairs or space with the significant other when role reversing. This helps confirm the identity of whom the client is portraying at any given moment.

Mother-in-law: Nods absent mindedly and continues to watch TV and replies perfunctorily. She too doesn’t make eye contact with Kripi.

Role Interview: The coach begins the interview as if Kripi is the mother-in-law.

Coach addressing mother-in-law: Hello Mrs. Sharma, I see you are enjoying your TV time in the evening. It’s a fine way of relaxing. What are you watching?

Mother-in-law: It’s my favourite TV serial, yes, it’s my rest time just before dinner.

Coach: Ah! You have got dinner ready? What’s for dinner today? I understand you’re a good cook!

Mother-in-law: Its pulao and raita.

Coach: Your daughter-in-law has just come in. How does she look?

Mother-in-law: She looks tense as always. I don’t know when this bomb will explode. I wish she would relax, and not carry the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Coach: Have you ever talked to Kripi about this?

Mother-in-law: Oh what’s the point. She has her own notions, she’s a very strong woman. I doubt she’ll listen to me.

Initial questions help client bring out basic facts. Emotionally charged subjects are worked into the conversation gradually as the client warms up to the role. This intervention has two main purposes:  (1) The coach receives information about the significant other through the client's role reversed perception; and (2) The client perceives the situation through the eyes of the other.

The coach has the client role change with the husband next, and conducts a role interview with him.

Husband: (in the role interview): I don’t want to overload her with my problems, as she already has so much tension in her life.

Kripi to her husband: Is there something or your mind? You look serious?

Husband: No, nothing is the matter.

Kripi: (Getting agitated): That’s the problem with us. There is no communication. How will we ever understand each other? If you refuse to speak, and isolate yourself, what am I to do?

Husband: (Withdraws himself further and doesn’t respond).

Next, the coach has the client role-change with the son, and there is an exchange about whether he has eaten or not, where she expresses her maternal concern. It is not so charged like the interactions with her mother-in-law and husband.

Mirroring: Now that Kripi has met with all the three members in her scene, the coach "cuts" the action and draws her aside for a brief side-conference, in which the previous brief vignette are re-considered. It is point of reflection, inviting the client to stand back and re-evaluate. This characterizes the essence of psychodrama, the marshaling of "the observing ego," or as called in spiritual practice, "the witness.“

At this time, the contract is clarified as to which direction the protagonist wishes to pursue.

Coach: What do you see going on? How else might you respond in this situation?

Kripi: I am resigned to the fact there is so much indifference. We have no communication in our family. At other places I am received with love, and I make an impact. This insignificance hurts me. I feel rejected. (Cries)

Future Projection: The future projection technique is a conscious fast-forwarding of time allowing the client to experience consequences of her actions, or to try out a different behaviour.  This experience may be particularly valuable for the client who acts impulsively.

Coach: You are entering the house a month later. What is different?

Kripi enters the house, her agitation is less. She goes to her mother-in-law, greets her by touching her gently on the shoulder, and then joins her husband on the sofa as he watched TV. She has a quietness about her.

Coach: You were talking of a resignation, and now I see an acceptance, that there are some places where you make a high impact, and some places in life where its quiet.

Kripi nodding: Yes, I experience  an acceptance of others, as well as an inner acceptance that I will have a different impact and presence with different people. I will not change my family, but

Sharing-Integration phase: The action phase reaches completion as the client's energy and intensity begins to subside. If a client is able to bring novelty, adequacy, and limits into the action, the psychodrama will feel finished. The client feels unburdened and is stimulated to try out new behaviors in life apart from the coaching session. (This does not always happen- the client can have her own resistance, and the outcome can get blocked).

Here the coach and client move back to the original point from which they started to the original coach-client seating, so as to move away from the stage, and again view it from a distance.

The coach has the option of sharing about her personal struggles as they relate to what the client experienced in the psychodrama. There are occasions when sharing is beneficial to the client especially if the client feels very alone with a particular problem.

The coach and client discuss what has happened during the psychodrama and apply the learning to life outside the coaching session. New behaviors and approaches may be discussed.

Coach: Kripi, we started with your initial question of discomfort with your intensity, and whether you were speaking too much, and how you were received. What is your experience about it?

Kripi: I’m discovering that I’m never able to sit ‘passively’. I am hyper-active. I must always be up and about and ‘doing’ things— either in the kitchen, or putting things right. In my dictionary, sitting passively is a waste of time and energy. But there may be something to it. Here I experienced a collision between my ‘action-orientation’ and the rest of the family, and  I’m willing to try synchronizing my own energy to match theirs. I experienced my loneliness and irrelevance in the play, and getting angry won’t solve for it. I caught a glimpse of the quietness inside me that I’m looking for.

In conclusion: The client has discovered an important pattern- her inability to be able to sit and relax. The next sessions can explore this further and build on it, to help change this behavious which is causing discomfort.

Roleplaying is a one of the most useful aspects of psychodrama. In a coaching situation the client is asked to reverse roles and become the husband, mother-in-law son, etc. It is a powerful process where often in the role of the significant other, the client discovers important truths about the relationship. The role change involves physically sitting in a different seat, so that the body is moved as well. ‘Because we're not just working up here in the head. We're working with the whole body; we're actors. We say that the human being is an improvising actor on the stage of life.’ (Zerka Moreno).

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