ABSTRACT
Analysts have often asked that French psychoanalysts were the first to adapt Moreno's psychodrama to groups of children. The parallel and intersecting history of the techniques of psychodrama and psychoanalysis provide a sense of this process: non-psychoanalytic methods that use Moreno's psychodrama with certain modifications; psychoanalytic methods of psychodrama that retained from Morenian psychodrama only the notions of the group and of dramatic improvisation. In contrast to Morenian psychodrama, Adlerian children's psycho drama expresses itself in the natural language of children through play. Play guarantees highly varied means of expression, and "acting as if" reassures children who dare to express themselves in a more authentic way than they can in their daily lives. Similarly, the role of the psychodramatists is different from that in classical psychodrama, where the therapist plays the role of a "director" who organizes the scene and directs the action as a spectator, without taking part.
