ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the free-play environment of drama therapy with its greater complexity of patient–therapist interaction. Play allows unconscious, suppressed, or nondominant aspects of the self to emerge without censure from the super-ego, internal critic, or social mores. The impulse to play not only the sadistic punisher but the masochistic victim strengthens. As clients begin to play out these previously projected parts of themselves, they are given the opportunity to experience these shamed, hurt roles as internal objects. Some clients have committed horrible crimes against society, their families, or innocent victims: incarcerated prisoners, combat veterans, or psychotic patients who have become violent. It is common in psychotherapy for the client to be a victim: of society’s stigma, of family rejection, of economic or social injustice, of childhood or sexual abuse, or of psychiatric illness. Sarah Haley, in a remarkable article entitled “When the patient reports atrocities,” describes the tremendous strain on the therapist who treats perpetrators.