What is Psychodrama?
This article was written by Shannon McKenna, one of Inner Movement’s founding members.
Psychodrama is a group-based Creative Arts Therapy modality that uses guided dramatic scenes to explore the questions of life.
The modality sits at the crossroads of theatre and therapy, as it uses theatrical elements to work through current issues, past memories, and inner conflicts under the care of a trained facilitator. Because psychodrama has a highly structured approach and a high standard for training facilitators, no previous theatre experience is necessary for someone to participate.
A typical psychodrama session has three phases:
- Warm-Up: The session begins with activities, some like those of an improv class, that create a sense of safety and playfulness in the group.
- The Drama: Through a specific structured process, one group member volunteers and is chosen to explore meaningful material in their life as the protagonist. The facilitator functions as the director and leads the protagonist and other group members, who take roles such as family or parts of self, through a scene.
- Reflection: The sessions end with the group members reflecting on the drama and making connections to their own lives.
Psychodrama sessions can only be practiced by a trained and certified facilitator.
However, many of the techniques used in psychodrama have been adopted by other therapies. For example, gestalt therapy creator Fritz Perls adopted the “empty chair” technique while developing his practice. The study and mapping of group dynamics has also informed adjacent fields such as couples and family therapy and social work.
Psychodrama History – The Origin of Group Psychotherapy
Psychodrama emerged in the early 20th century through the work of Romanian psychiatrist Jacob Levy Moreno, widely regarded as a founder of modern group psychotherapy. Through developing methods to map social connections, contemporarily referred to as sociograms and sociometry, he created a theory and practice of addressing mental health treatment through a group process.
Moreno began his practice in Vienna, using theatrical elements during organized support groups for communities that experienced systemic oppression such as sex workers and refugees during World War I.
After emigrating to the United States in 1925, Moreno combined this work, which he called psychodrama, with his systematic exploration of group dynamics. From these roots, psychodrama evolved into an international modality practiced across clinical, educational, organizational, and community settings.
To read more and view video of J.L. Moreno at work – https://www.medicinanarrativa.eu/biograpgy-psychodrama-moreno
Who does it help and how?
Psychodrama groups take place with a wide range of people and settings: adults and adolescents in outpatient therapy, people with substance use and trauma histories, psychotic disorders, refugees, women survivors of violence, and non-clinical groups such as students and nurses.
- Improved interpersonal skills: Working with Moreno’s theory, people explore, rehearse, and embody new roles, increasing psychological and relational flexibility.
- Corrective emotional experiences: The group becomes a living social matrix where individuals can express past trauma and encounter new responses (empathy, protection, limit-setting).
- Insight and self-knowledge: The process facilitates awareness of our perspectives on our past and allows choice for greater acceptance or opportunities to change our present outlook and future choices.
For more information of mechanisms of change, here is a systematic review of Psychodrama by Maya et. al., (2025)-https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12224369/#:~:text=Psychodrama%20is%20%E2%80%9Ca%20method%20of%20psychotherapy%20in,through%20dramatization%2C%20role%2Dplaying%20and%20dramatic%20self%2Dpresentation%E2%80%9D%20%5B1%5D
Who is Heidi Landis?
Heidi Landis is one of the premiere psychodrama Trainer Educators and Practitioners of Psychodrama (TEP) in North America.
A true artist/therapist, she has extensive training in theatre skills and drama processes from Boston University and Carnegie Melon University. After a career in theatre, Heidi trained as a Drama Therapist at New York University and is a Licensed Creative Arts therapist (LCAT), Registered Drama Therapist and Board- Certified Trainer (RDT/BCT). She quickly earned her post-graduate credentials to practice and teach psychodrama.
Specializing in trauma- informed work and the use of creative arts therapy techniques, she has a private practice and consulting business in New York City where she sees clients and facilitates psychodrama training nationally and internationally.
Heidi has partnered with many arts-based organizations in New York City to help organizations and teaching artists look at their work through a trauma informed lens. She is currently working with the education departments at The Park Avenue Armory, Only Make Believe and The PhilHarmonic and is serving as the wellness specialist at TheaterWorks USA
Previously, she worked at Creative Alternatives of New York, as the Associate Executive Director of clinical and training programs. There, she ran Trauma-Informed Drama Therapy groups with many different populations. She also trained staff and site partners to use creative techniques in psychotherapy and the classroom. She held the position of Community Coordinator of Mental Health at a high-school in the South Bronx for immigrant and refugee youth.
Heidi is also an adjunct professor for all three Drama Therapy programs in Eastern North America: New York University, Lesley University in Massachusetts, Concordia University in Montreal. She has published about her work in the books Current Approaches to Drama Therapy, The Handbook of Child and Adolescent Group Therapy: A Practitioners Reference, and in Creative Arts-Based Group Therapy with Adolescents: Theory and Practice as well as in multiple academic journals.
Her research, publications, and presentations have included the topics of trauma-informed work and systems, working with refugees and immigrants and the triple trauma paradigm, adolescent “resistance,” trauma in the classroom, group work, and psychodrama. Heidi has completed post-graduate training in Attachment Focused EMDR
How Do These Training Serve Clinicians?
These trainings are for creative arts therapists, mental health practitioners, psycho-educators, social workers, and psychotherapists to deepen their understanding of the psychodrama process and themselves through both experiential and theoretical training.
They are led by a board-certified Psychodrama trainer and educator and meets the requirements towards certification to become a psychodrama practitioner. There will be opportunities to connect with others who are interested in this path, as well as the possibility of an ongoing supervision group in the future.
To learn more about the Psychodrama certification process: https://psychodramacertification.org/become-certified-practitioner/
Interested in getting some training in psychodrama?
Register for our Introduction to Psychodrama or Psychodrama Intensive: Deepening Skill and Enhancing Capacity happening August 2026!