Hosted by The Deep Play Institute
Drop-ins welcome. Sliding Scale $25-$45
Register Here
Psychodrama is an action method (developed in the 1920s by Jacob Moreno in Vienna) in which participants use spontaneous dramatization, role playing, and dramatic self-presentation to engage a situation or encounter. The center of psychodramatic practice is enacted with a group, whereby a director guides a participant (or “protagonist”) through a dramatic exploration of their psyche. Scenes of the past, present or future, conflicts and resolutions, and/or dynamics between inner parts, are all expressed through gesture, sound, movement and words and then mapped in physical space as participants (or “auxiliaries”) stand-in for parts or internalized others. The core method of psychodrama involves role reversals, whereby the protagonist oscillates dynamically between the roles in whatever scene they are exploring, thereby empathizing with their wild totality through dialogue. Directors typically guide a scene to not only repeat and reveal dynamics, but also modify them, allowing trauma to be re-negotiated through the power of our collective imaginations. A typical psychodrama lasts anywhere from 30-120 minutes.
Each session will involve a brief demo of a psychodrama-related technique, a warmup, the selection of one protagonist, the drama, and then shares at the end. Sessions are drop-in, however, registration closes the morning of each session. Participants must register online. And participation will always be capped at 15 participants. Doors will close 10-minutes after beginning in effort to create a safe container.
About the facilitator: Aaron Finbloom is a philosopher, artist, pedagogue and counselor. He is also the founder and director of the Deep Play Institute. Finbloom's lifework (and PhD in relational practice) involves expanding transformative inquiry through games, performance, and structured play. After an initial 40-hour psychodrama training in 2018, Finbloom co-led a psychodrama group in Montreal, and has directed dozens of psychodrama sessions in the forthcoming years. His facilitation style is informed by training in Circling, Authentic Relating, Vipassana Meditation and inspired by key theoretical aspects of Internal Family Systems. Finbloom has seen clients for over 5 years using transformative deep play techniques derived from these aforementioned practices. He holds a PhD in relational practice from Concordia University's Interdisciplinary Humanities & Fine Arts program, and teaches philosophy at the City College of New York.
Disclaimer: While psychodrama can be incredibly therapeutic, this should not be considered a substitute for individual, one-on-one therapy. The explorations we will engage in will have the potential to go rather deep, and may be quite intense. The Deep Play Institute upholds the belief that deep play lives on an edge between safe and dangerous. As such, we invite participants to play in this liminal space, and as facilitators we work to help participants stay on this edge. We see it as our responsibility to design a space that is trauma-informed, holds space for emotional processing, includes self-care, and normalizes opting out at any time. We ask participants to gauge when their experience has crossed into territory that they deem “too edgy” and take the steps necessary for their own emotional safety. We understand that therapy can be very expensive and trusted therapists are hard to find, and there might be some temptation to come to this group for that kind of care, but it is not designed for that kind of individual attention, and the ask is that you have some settledness and calm available (and external resources available to help you process) to you so we can play deeply together.