RoboCounsellor

General instructions

See these RoboCounsellor general instructions if you are not familiar with them.

Psychodrama instructions

Before starting the session you should have a written session plan. This is a strategic plan for the session that is best worked out in the calm before the session and not in the middle of one in the "heat of battle", so to speak. :). Here are some examples of doable psychodrama session plans.

The end point for a RoboCounsellor psychodrama session is covered in General Session EP.

The general idea of psychodrama is for the client to explore issues that concern her by playing out her part in them, with a stage, a director, and other people playing the relevant characters in her life. Obviously, RoboCounsellor isn't going to furnish live actors for the client. But there is a good substitute, which works well enough, and these characters don't have built-in distractions to get in the way of the action. In general terms, how it works is that you still do the re-enaction or exploration under the guidance of a director, but use everyday objects with labels as needed to represent the characters and other elements in the issues you will be exposing to view. At a pinch you can just make do with a pencil and paper, but this does not work nearly as well as using larger objects.

Useful supplies are: Rolls of kitchen towel; plastic drinks bottles, maybe with a bit of water in the bottom so they stay upright more easily; cereal boxes; tin cans; tissue boxes; tissue packets; rubber bands; sheets of paper; index cards; coloured pens or pencils or crayons; other portable objects from around the house.

As the client explores the scene under RoboCounsellor's direction, usually many times with the focus on different aspects at the client's choice, the thoughts and feelings that have been repressed will tend to come to view, often accompanied by a release of those pent-up feelings. Later, the whole thing can be analysed as appropriate, if the user wishes.

It is possible to do all of this without using the RoboCounsellor screens at all. But there is a tendency to "get lost" and leave out important steps if one is not doing the steps in order as laid out. The discipline helps a lot in keeping one's place, as the subject matter is often intense. And if it isn't likely to get intense, why bother with it in the first place?

Great! Let's do the full pre-session check to make sure I'm ready for the session.

I'm familiar with what is needed and I'm in shape physically for a session. I've set up the session environment. Let's go!

Lemme outta here!