Psychodrama is an applied, expressive and experiential group method focussed on J.L. Moreno’s spontaneity theory, role theory and group work. A variety of workshops will be offered in Adelaide in 2025.
Psychodrama training is relevant for people wanting to enliven themselves, their personal relationships and their professional functioning. Psychodrama method can be applied in various contexts including mental health, educational, organisational and community settings.
Upcoming Events
In this workshop we will explore the breadth of the psychodrama method. We will delve into specific interventions that each have their own task and value in expanding a system and expression. Our work in psychodrama is to counteract the forces that press upon us getting us to narrow down and defy our need for expansion and play.
Trainer: Chris Hosking
This workshop will be led by Chris Hosking, a Psychodramatist and Trainer, Educator and Practitioner on the teaching staff of Psychodrama Australia. Chris has conducted training workshops and seminars in psychodrama, sociometry, role training and group work for 28+ years and has been actively involved in supervision of trainees in Australia and New Zealand, Japan, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Europe.
This training workshop is for trainees and those interested in experiencing and learning more about psychodrama. It is highly recommended for those wishing to enter the ongoing psychodrama training group in Adelaide in 2026. This workshop will be limited to 12 participants.
When
Saturday 25 October 9.30am - 6pm
Sunday 26 October 9.30am - 4pm
Where:
Parkview Room
Fullarton Park Community Centre
411 Fullarton Road, Fullarton
Adelaide SA 5063
Fee
$460.00
February – November 2025
Psychodrama training group (60 hours)
with Patricia O’Rourke
This series of six one and a half day training workshops will be for a closed group. Trainees will deepen their understanding of psychodrama, expand their role repertoire and capacity for spontaneity, and experience the potential of the psychodrama method.
The training will assist people interested in working with others in innovative and creative ways, with increased liveliness and from multiple perspectives.
The aim is to increase trainees’ capacity to create and maintain co-operative, authentic relationships and an enhanced sense of purpose, through learning about and participation in psychodramatic enactment and group work.
For more information, click on the green View Event button.
Current and Past Events
This training workshop will invite the trainee to consider the work of Virginia Satir, family therapist to explore the meaning of and the application and integration of systems theory in sociometry, organizations, role theory, family therapy and group work. “The systems focus assists enormously the warm-up of the person you are with. It means that when there’s a system focus that individual starts to develop a fluid warm-up…they can relate to the different elements of the system and they are affected immediately by the different elements of the system.” The Living Spirit of the Psychodramatic Method (2004 Clayton and Carter p.147)
Trainee’s ability to make assessments will be enhanced during this workshop. There will be opportunities to investigate how the psychodramatic method can assist people who are anxious and depressed to warmup creatively and spontaneously to life. Trainees will familiarise themselves with what leads to anxiety and depression? Waking up to spontaneity and creativity can help to unblock repressed emotions and create healing.
The “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,” DSM-V, will be introduced as one resource among many during the weekend and a YouTube “The Five Main Anxiety Disorders” will be used as a warm up to introducing the topic.
Psychodrama is a relational method. Dr JL Moreno the founder of psychodrama provides us with concepts and methods that enable us to recognise and articulate and apply elements and processes which constitute a relationship and enable us to participate to our mutual benefit. In this workshop participants will be able to investigate in detail what is involved in a healthy constructive relationship. Capacity to apply and practise these insights will be an integral part of the workshop.
In this first workshop we will explore and explain the Morenian stages of individual development: matrix of identity, the double, the mirror and role reversal. The associated specific psychodramatic techniques, doubling, mirroring and role reversal, will be applied.
In “The Living Spirit of the Psychodramatic Method” (2004) Max Clayton, who up until his death in March 2013, was a psychodramatist and trainer in Australia, and many other countries, reflects on how he develops a strong warm up to the stages of development from a psychodramatic point of view. Re the Matrix of Identity, Max notes that at a very young age a person starts to become aware of themselves in a variety of situations. “We can think of a person who has developed a strong trust in life, they start to generate an awareness of things happening around them and they become aware of their own actions and sometimes become more aware of their own experience.” (Clayton & Carter 2004 p.46)
Review and define the 5 basic elements of psychodrama (director, auxiliaries, audience, stage; protagonist). This training session involves supervised practice, working in the here-and-now of the group and developing the capacity to enter into the worlds of others experientially.
Attitudes, Values and Concerns - Sociodrama - Navigating Multiple Relationships.
Boundaries, professional ethics, sex, money, conflicts of interest, dual relationships. In traditional societies these complicated matters are closely codified and norms taught and enforced. We live in a society where the traditional protocols between individuals no longer apply and are not passed on, even where there is token acceptance. This often bewildering and painful maze demands sophisticated abilities to negotiate.
Participating in this workshop will alert participants to potential conflicts of interest in their own world and in that of those around them. Action investigation and role-reversal, and perhaps some healing, will feature as we seek to develop more adequacy in navigating these cross currents.
This workshop will primarily be a group experience for participants and trainees to continue to develop confidence in leading a group and taking leadership in a variety of ways. The fire image above inspires us to create and ignite sparks of creativity in leading a group and taking leadership.
This training weekend will focus on spontaneity training and role theory as energetic and vigorous ways to learn about personality and to make personality assessments.
The training workshop will focus on encounter as a way to meet the challenges of conflict, difference and changes in tele between one another from moment to moment.
Our social atom changes over time. This weekend will explore questions of meaning such as whom do I choose in my personal network of trusted companions to ‘remain on the front foot’? Diana Jones Leadership Material; How Personal Expereince shapes Executive Presence (2017)
What do I want to change, expand, let go to develop a strong sense of belonging in the world, sense of identity and spiritual wellbeing?
Integrating imagination and intuition
- Increasing our own capacity to move between fantasy and reality in our work and life.
The imagination is a rich source of insight and inspiration passing through the awareness of each human at all times.
Psychodrama (the play of the soul) enables us to have fun and create meaning as we play with the images that arise spontaneously or through guided fantasy (book or movie or relaxation activity).
It also assists us to integrate these constructively in our daily life and work.
This workshop will focus on building a culture in which relationships flourish, where we are able to live and build, where healing and purpose can be fulfilled. Passion and kindness go hand in hand along with a vision of creative living. Learning to reflect on ones behaviour and others will assist in making interventions. Learning to embrace conflict and problem solving, rather than avoiding concerns that arise, will strengthen relationships and assist in the development of a positive group culture. Leadership abilities and the application of the psychodramatic method will be a focus.
In this first training weekend we will use group work, dramas, vignettes self-presentation and reflection to explore how our lives are influenced by anxiety and fear and what steps we can take to integrate our roles to create a freedom to act.
The Healing is in the Relationship
Recently it has been widely recognised that success in counselling and therapy are hugely dependent on the quality of the relationship between the practitioner and the client. Hope and skill are also important in this and any professional work. This weekend will draw out the characteristics of a relationship which assists others to develop. Participants can expect to develop these abilities further themselves. The Psychodramatic method assists participants to increase their spontaneity and creativity through active participation. This participation includes group work, enactment and theoretical mini lectures. The program will assist in developing leadership and will lead to increasing abilities in relating to others. The training assists is developing confidence in group presentations and in the development of interpersonal and group skills.
7pm Friday 10th - 5pm Sunday 12th November 2017
In 2016 our training group together with others focussed on building a culture in which relationships flourish, where we are able to live and work. Passion and kindness go hand in hand along with a vision of creative living.Continuing this theme in 2017 we will learn to reflect on ways to create a new vital culture in the world. The apllication of the psychodramatic method will be our main focus.
Imagine how warmed up you will be by the end of this training workshop as you explore your own development within the group to aspire to new attitudes, behaviour and resolution of conflict. This will enable applications in your life and work. Integrating a new functioning of your behaviour and attitudes in daily life is a task worth undertaking and your 'creative genius' bursting into new life within you will guide you. You will learn how to warm the group up to a wide range of situations as you direct and lead during this weekend. In the Theatre of Spontaneity Jacob Moreno taught people to unfreeze their familar ways of working and freed them to act and interact on the spur of the moment.