On the other hand, I believe it is a more adequate approach because they are more imaginative and engage more readily in the roles they have to enact. And also children and adolescents are more suggestible and ready for role-play or fantasy enactment. However, even adults find it easier to adopt certain roles in order to express their intrapsychic conflicts.
Psychodrama is the perfect representative of a therapeutic situation, in which conditions can be manipulated and conflicts allegorically expressed and interpreted. The advantage is that it offers the opportunity to bring into discussion (and enactment) not only past conflicts, but also present or even future ones. Moreover, it provides the advantage of group work and group interpretation.
An important fact to be stated is that psychotherapeutic approach depends very much on the school in which the analyst is formed. All in all, the theory supporting psychodynamic therapy originated in and is informed by psychoanalytic theory. There are four major schools of psychoanalytic theory, each of which has influenced psychodynamic therapy. The four schools are: Freudian, Ego Psychology, Object Relations, and Self-Psychology. Contemporary object relations theory distinguishes between psychoanalytic theories that emphasize biological drives such as sexuality and aggression, on the one hand, and theories that emphasize human relationships, on the other. The former were referred to as drive theories, and the latter were termed relational theories. I tend to agree with the latter approach, represented by Mitchell S. Mitchell and Greenberg argued that drive theories and relational theories are conceptually incompatible, and psychoanalysis must therefore choose between them. In conclusion, Mitchell's...
I tend to give a greater appreciation to Mitchell because he defines his position among other therapists from the psychoanalytic school as a revolutionary, not as a traditionalist who embraces and uses the same techniques and who encourage slow transition of the paradigm to meet contemporary needs. Mitchell and his relation theory is very useful as it goes back in time to the identification of parental relations, attachment form and then, the change of dysfunctional patterns is accomplished through interaction. Relations theory emphasizes human interaction and the role of environment in human lives. However, the assumptions and outcomes of this theory are very useful for other psychological approaches and have been applied in social work practice.
References
Fonagy, P.(1999) Relation of Theory and Practice in Psychodynamic Therapy,
Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, Vol. 28, No. 4, Pages 513-520
Fonagy P., Target M. (2000) the place of psychodynamic theory in developmental psychopathology,
Development and Psychopathology, 12: 407-425, Cambridge University Press
Mitchell S.A. (1997), Influence and Autonomy in Psychoanalysis, pp. 203-230 the Analytic Press.
Mitchell, S.A and Black M.J. (1995) Freud and beyond - a history of Modern Psychoanalytic Thought, Basic Books, New York
Holmes, P., Karp, M., (edts) (1991): Psychodrama: Inspiration and Technique, Tavistock/Routledge, London, New York
