Anna Schaum, MA, LPC, CP
|
 |
||||||||
The Drama of Everyday Life
by Anna Schaum, MA, LPC, CP
06/10/2009
Almost everyday I hear someone say some version of, “I can’t deal with all the drama.” A woman planning her wedding says, “all the drama with my mother is stressing me out and ruining the fun.” A man whose employer is being bought by a conglomerate says, “the drama at work is overwhelming.” In the grocery store, on neighborhood walks, in my therapy practice, people are referring to the challenges in their lives as “drama.”
Recently I overheard a man talking to a friend. “I promised myself when I had kids I wouldn’t subject them to the kind of drama I went through with my father, but now look at me,” he confided. The tone of his voice and his slouched shoulders revealed deep sadness and shame. Despite his best intentions, this man hasn’t found a way out of the maze of dysfunctional patterns that were laid down and modeled in his own upbringing, and now he is repeating these as an adult. This is his drama. Without help this will likely become his kids’ drama too.
I believe when we refer to “drama” in this way, we are talking about those painful, energy sapping scenarios in life which evade our understanding and sense of personal power, and which seem to take on a life of their own outside of our control. Often drama involves some form of relationship: with family, friends, romantic partners, work associates, or a complex intersection of these relationships. Other times the drama is an unexpected turn of events for which we’re not prepared: the loss of a loved one, an injury or diagnosis of illness, a sudden change in the economy. Even events we thought we were ready for can feel like drama when we find ourselves flooded by or in denial of the tumultuous feelings which accompany life’s natural changes.
Psychodrama helps tame the drama by bringing insight, understanding, and opportunities for you to imagine and practice new options within the drama of your life. Through mindfully enacting issues of concern in the therapy space, you learn to minimize mindless acting out in your life. By exploring the scenes where you have felt out of control in your life, the situations gone wrong, you can reveal the choices you made in those heightened moments. You can regain your personal power, and your ability to recognize and make healthy choices in the present. You can redirect the dramatic energy in your life in positive ways.
I think most of us recognize the drama in our lives, we just don’t know how to change it. Through Psychodrama you can learn how.
- Professional organizations to which I belong:
- American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama
© 1998-2010 American Mental Health Alliance.
