ABSTRACT
The therapist must be honest with his patient or patients. If roleplaying is a new experience for him he should say so. Roleplaying can be used in individual or in group psychotherapy. This chapter provides examples of how one can present roleplaying for the first time in individual and group situations. Perhaps in no other form of psychotherapy does the therapist face so great a technical challenge as in directing role-playing. Effective roleplaying calls then for creativity on the part of the therapist. Roleplaying directors, at least as the writer sees them, tend as a group to be more unconventional, more ready to try new approaches, more available to new ideas than the general run of therapists. If the roleplaying occurs in individual therapy and if the therapist assumes the assistant role, he is able to feel the impact of the patient in a more meaningful manner.
