Sociodrama: Holding Differing Views with Kindness

Sociodrama is a group action method in which participants enact agreed upon situations spontaneously. Though similar to role-play, sociodrama employs a large variety of interventions to widen and deepen the scope of the action and ensure greater buy-in and positive shift subsequent to the action. Do you ever find yourself thinking or saying: 'I can't believe you think that' or 'You're so wrong!'? This sociodrama session will focus on how we can become more comfortable with holding others' views with kindness and open-heartedness while still maintaining our own views without defensiveness or aggression.

Reference Sociodrama: Who’s in Your Shoes?, 2nd Edition, by Patricia Sternberg and Antonina Garcia, Praeger Press, 2000.

Drama Therapy as Performance is an ongoing series of the NYU Steinhardt Program in Drama Therapy in which we document and research current approaches and therapeutic innovations in drama therapy. To support this series and continued research in drama therapy, please make a donation to the NYU Steinhardt Theatre & Health Lab: https://bit.ly/thl-donate

Program Director and Series Creator: Nisha Sajnani
Director: Nina Garcia
Ensemble: Whitney Bell, Linda Condon, Jun Deng, Karen Moore, German Sanchez, Lauren Shpall-Brown
Discussants: Maria Hodermarska, Anamarija Vuic
Production Stage Manager and Technical Director: Ellen Smittle
Assistant Stage Manager: Helen Samoskevich