Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Psychodrama
/ˈsaɪkoʊˌdrɑːmə/noun
A form of group therapy in which people act out situations from their lives instead of describing them, and, loosely, any emotionally overwrought scene.
The Greek roots
ψυχή
psychḗ
soul, breath
δρᾶμα
drâma
deed, action, play
Literally: “soul-action”
The story of the word
Jacob Moreno ran an improvisational theatre in Vienna in the 1920s and noticed the actors changing after playing their own lives on stage; the therapy grew out of the theatre rather than the clinic. δρᾶμα comes from δράω, I do, so a drama is literally a thing done, which is exactly Moreno's point about doing rather than reporting. ψυχή began as breath, the thing that leaves the body at death.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1930s
Same family
psychologypsychedrasticdramaturgy
In a sentence
The group used psychodrama to replay the argument, with someone else in her father's chair.
The board meeting turned into psychodrama within ten minutes.