The Use Of Psychodramatic Techniques In Psychological Counseling Via Skype

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Whether we like Internet technologies or not, they invade our lives. Social networks, blogs, video channels, Skype are the new means of communication. Through these means, millions of people around the world gain access to information, train and receive expert advice that is not accessible due to distance and opportunities

What is this phenomenon, the pursuit of the golden calf or real work?

The second question is, can we call work on Skype with a client - psychotherapy? It may be more correct to call it support, psychological counseling, confidential communication. For myself, my answer is this: psychotherapy, counseling, social assistance, and crisis interventions. In each case, this is its own kind of help.

If you look at the history of the issue, even psychoanalysts (!) Used client consultations over the phone. In situations where they or the client were on the road. Maria Mashovets (Teaching Specialist and Supervisor of the National Federation of Psychoanalysis of the Russian Federation) spoke about the telephone counseling experience at her seminars, Mikhail Mikhailovich Reshetnikov (President of the National Federation of Psychoanalysis of the Russian Federation) mentions this in the book "Private Visits".

Telephony has been replaced by a more efficient technology - video communication. Along with Skype, there is Google's hangouts product, FB video chat and many other services.

Recruitment, training, technical advice and simple live communication via videoconference allows you not only to hear what the interlocutor is saying, but also to see. We observe the non-verbal reactions of the interlocutor, and we can also see live what he is talking about (it is possible to show objects, pictures and photos).

There is a lot of skepticism among specialists regarding Skype psychotherapy. There is no real contact, energy exchange, body contact, smells. All this makes the contact formal, not alive. There are still risks - he intervened, but the connection was cut off. What happened? Is the client disconnected by itself or interference?

On the other hand, what should a person who has moved to another city or country do? Or broke your leg? And he cannot come for a consultation. Or was he undergoing therapy and had to go on a business trip? Or he wants to contact a specific specialist, but he lives in another city where there is no way to come. Or there are no specialists in your city.

A mutual question is the price. Psychotherapy abroad is expensive, but among compatriots at home it is acceptable and understandable.

What should a mother of a nursing baby or a psychotherapist who is on parental leave do? Disabled person? A person suffering from agorophobia, persecution mania? A woman with a husband suffering from delusions of jealousy?

I will insist that psychological help via Skype is possible and necessary for many people. Moreover, psychotherapy on Skype depends on whether we like it or not. Our task is to make the process of Skype psychotherapy most effective for the client. An essay on how I use psychodramatic techniques in Skype counseling.

Features of psychotherapy via Skype.

Technical training

You need to check that the two parties have the opportunity to videoconference.

Good communication channel.

Headphones (speakers can be used, but confidentiality should be ensured), a closed space (for the therapist, a must have so that relatives do not rush in in the middle of the consultation who want to discuss some details, etc.), a microphone that ensures good audibility.

I recommend making a couple of test recordings of your video. There will be an opportunity to look at yourself through the eyes of a client and hear your sound online.

Setting

An appointment should be made for a consultation time. What happens if the connection is lost? How to deal with delays? How and when is payment made? Is it permissible to work without a picture, only sound? How are passes paid?

I will answer how I solved this problem for myself.

If the connection breaks down, I increase the consultation time by an equivalent time or postpone the meeting.

I accept prepayment by bank card.

I tried once to work without a picture, the client did not have the opportunity, but he turned off his own. It was like a telephone consultation, and despite the change in format, the meeting was a success.

I did not take money for passes.

Violation of the setting, I encountered much more often than during normal work. A couple of times, clients got in touch from an unusual space or tried to solve their problems during the consultation (they talked on the phone, in parallel answered their friends' requests on the network and other "shutdowns" from the psychotherapy space. This was a topic for discussion and a key to the topic "what is happening in our contact ".

There is no need to make a "talking head" out of yourself. This creates a feeling of fragmentation of perception. More confidence is created by the frame in which you are visible to the level of the desktop surface. It's even better when you can see how you are sitting in the chair. This is achieved by a significantly greater distance from you to the camera, which means that the computer monitor must be large enough so that you can see the client's image without stress. This option gives a position that is closest to the real one, which is usual in a psychologist's office. [2].

Psychodrama techniques that can be effectively used in the Skype space

Scene creation

First of all, this is a psychodrama-specific term that denotes the context in which the client's "life" unfolds. It is about acting out scenes (events) from real life or the client's inner world. Future, past or present. The space in which the client is located is often not prepared for work, there is a lack of space, sometimes the length of the headphones, and yet we will proceed from the possibilities that we have. To immerse yourself in the topic, it is enough to propose to move the chair, from the usual place to a new one, stand up, close your eyes, designate significant figures with objects that are at hand.

The psychotherapist asks questions:

“Describe the place where the events take place? How can you symbolically give your territory the features of the place where the event unfolds? Where is who sitting, standing? What are you doing? What object in your space could you designate “Mr. Ch.? What is his message (message) for you? Or into space?"

Self-presentation

The client is invited to introduce himself or someone else. To do this, in the Skype space, you can ask the client to stand up, redirect the camera and present while standing.

Playing a role, as the name implies, means the act of accepting the role of someone else - not necessarily a person, but, as they said, an animal, subpersonality, body part, object, concept, etc. A monologue means that the client expresses his feelings out loud and thoughts, as if consulting with themselves.

It's one thing to say that you are experiencing an offense, it's another thing to become this offense for a couple of minutes. Tell who you are, when you appeared, where you are from, what color, where you live.

Role exchange psychodramatic technique

During a Skype consultation, we should warn our client about the presence of another empty chair (a space into which one can move without losing contact) in the therapy space.

Role swapping is one of the most common psychodrama techniques. Very often it is used in group therapy, training, games. The technique is simple to implement for a short time, two people change places, so that "A" becomes "B" and "B" becomes "A".

“A” is our client, and “B” is a significant other. Another can be understood as anything / anyone - a mythical character, emotion, person, object, “parts of I”, etc.

For clients, the technique is in many ways familiar. Since very often we conduct internal dialogues with an invisible interlocutor. Unlike the usual internal dialogue, the therapist asks the client to:

A) Created a scene where such a dialogue is possible.

B) Sit on a chair and introduced himself to the role. Physically took a posture, manners, mental and psychological state of another person. Aloud I introduced myself.

C) The therapist offers interaction between “A” and “B” and makes sure that the client remains in the roles, and does not fall out in interpretation, rationalization and other forms of resistance.

D) Completion of interaction. The psychotherapist invites you to stop, share your experiences, ideas that arise during the execution of the technique (I often use the word experiment).

Sociometric research (social atom)

The client is invited to fill out a sheet of paper on which to reflect in several circles - small close ties (inner core) - people with whom emotionally close relationships are maintained (both positive and negative), on average - those with whom communication is frequent enough, but he is not included in the circle close people, external - people with whom I would like to have a relationship, but they are not, as well as who would like to have a relationship with me, but they are not.

Typically, this research is done in the form of homework. Then I ask you to send a drawn picture via Skype, so that I have a drawing in front of my eyes, which we will discuss.

People in the figure are indicated by a circle (women), a square (men), arrows indicate good relationships, a dotted line indicates tensions, the absence of an arrow indicates a lack of interaction.

After the client explains what is drawn in the picture.

I ask you to tell about the feelings and ideas that arise during the story.

For myself, I immediately open a huge layer of information:

- the number of customer contacts;

- what contacts he considers significant;

- who is not in the close circle and why (for example, the absence of a mother, father, brothers and sisters), who occupies these roles;

- those relationships that the client considers tense (bad).

Replicas aside. This technique needs to be taught to the client. Tell me what I mean. I use it as an auxiliary one (for the development of creative content in the scene). I ask the client to say the words, turning to the side and turning outward (“to no one”) with other words, meaningfully and intonationally expressing his true feelings, but hidden in this scene.

In the Skype space, you can offer the client to turn around in his chair and say a line not to the screen, but loudly to the side.

Step into the Future involves playing out a situation from an expected or imagined (desired or undesired) future. During a Skype consultation, the “step into the future” technique can be applied in the form of a client's monologue. With the help of questions: “In what space would you like to be in 5 years? What surrounds you? Time of the year? Times of Day? - an atmosphere of complete immersion into the future is created.

Then we move on to monologue and sharing.

The ending. Derivation from roles

I suggest that the client twist / unfold the objects involved in psychodrama. And then take off the role yourself. Jump, walk around a chair, sit down. Anything that may be appropriate and acceptable to the client.

Conclusions:

There are reasons why you shouldn't use Skype:

Technical difficulties. Communication quality, screen size, space, the possibility of one-way end of the conversation for unpredictable reasons.

Tele. It takes a lot of time and effort during the session to create a body, empathic touch to the client, more opportunities for rationalization and distancing.

The eye contact is partial, not complete. It is difficult, if not impossible, to see the changes in the client. For example, he could gain or lose weight, be slept or tired, get in touch with fumes (!) Or in a state of other intoxication. We will not find it, we will not smell it, we will not see it. As well as a nervous leg tic, tapping on the knees and other gestures outside the camera (i.e., the degree of control of the therapeutic contact is lost).

Yet Skype psychotherapy is possible and effective. But this therapy is definitely different from face-to-face psychotherapy. While conducting psychotherapy via Skype, we work with symptoms more often and less often go to the depth that is possible during a meeting with the Other

This is a mix of what is called - telephone psychological counseling, psychological counseling, psychological assistance and psychotherapy.

Psychodramatic techniques allow you to go to the depth of experiences and immersions of the kind that is possible in psychotherapy.

Literature and sources:

1. Monodrama. B. Erlacher-Farkas (1996).

2. Article "Features of the organization of skype consulting." Source -.

3. Leitz G. Psychodrama: theory and practice. Classical psychodrama by Ya. L. Moreno (194).

4. Psychological counseling via Skype. And cats