Action Methods
Action methods are derived from psychodrama and sociodrama which were developed by Dr. Jacob L. Moreno, a psychiatrist who used group enactments of life situations aimed at helping clients deepen their understanding of and resolve interpersonal conflicts or mental problems such as addictions, post-traumatic stress disorder, and the effects of traumatic experiences. While psychodrama focuses on intrapersonal challenges such as dealing with grief over the loss of a patient sociodramatic portrayals focus on challenges of a particular group such as how clinicians can more effectively give bad news.
Both of these methods can be used to teach communication skills to medical professionals. They differ from more conventional approaches to communication skills teaching in medicine, such as case discussions in that they utilize the added dimensions of space, movement and imagination. That is, their objective of is to portray social situations rather than merely describe them. Thus psychodramas and sociodramas are group activities in which many members of a group participate. In addition certain techniques used in the dramas permit participants to take on the role of another. These include interviewing for role, role-reversal and doubling which we will see in the following video. These techniques allow participants to develop an empathic understanding of another person's point of view or feelings. Thus, for example, a doctor assuming the role of a nurse might better understand how that nurse might become frustrated and angry when the medical teams caring for a terminally ill patient in the ICU are communicating different goals of care to the patient's family.
One application of psychodrama and sociodrama is "role-training," which focuses on preparing individuals for professional roles and responsibilities. Thus they have been used in business management and education and in the legal setting to enhance leadership and presentation skills of executives, teachers, and trial lawyers. In the following video you will see an example of how dramatic action techniques can be used to train health providers to exercise the interpersonal skills needed in their professional roles, especially in challenging conversations with patients and families where many pitfalls exist around communication. We hope you will find this demonstration using a physician actor and a trained psychodramatist useful in thinking about how you teach communication skills.
View full-size video (20:48 - opens in new window)