The Role of Group Sharing: An Action Research Study of Psychodrama Group Therapy in a Psychiatric Inpatient Ward

Abstract

Numerous studies point to the acute distress associated with the experience of coping with severe mental illness and psychiatric hospitalization. Another strand of research notes the therapeutic benefits of psychodrama and its efficacy in increasing empathy and self-awareness, improving interpersonal relationships, reducing stress and anxiety, and in treating particularly vulnerable populations for whom traditional psychotherapy’s usefulness is limited. The goal of this paper is to provide a framework for understanding the potential of group sharing in dealing with the experience of loneliness and distress, and to serve as a space for relatedness and self-expression in psychodrama group therapy. A qualitative action research study following an open inpatients’ psychodrama group in a psychiatric hospital in Israel demonstrates the role of group sharing in creating an accommodating space of self-expression, relatedness, and mutual support, which offers relief for the distress of psychiatric inpatients. Within the inpatients’ group, the participants used sharing to distribute the burden among the group members along with the resources to cope with it. The paper seeks to illuminate the unique contribution of a therapeutic tool rarely dealt with by the existing literature–the group sharing—in dealing with situations of acute mental distress.