Acting out the awfulness!

I want to tell you about an amazing workshop I've been to recently. Its theme was the use of psychodramatic techniques in sociodrama. Have I lost you yet? Doesn't sound a bundle of laughs, does it? But it was - and an extremely effective way of setting out the stall of some social problem, together with possible solutions.

For example, one participant - she could easily have been a GP, a counsellor, a lawyer, a public sector employee, a voluntary sector manager, in fact anyone dealing with front-line social issues - came to the workshop suffering from work overload. To help her, the situation was mapped out within the performance space. All the workshop participants were given roles - acting either as building blocks of the problem or people offering support. The director and the protagonist (whose problem it was) pushed and pulled the issue - and the actors - around until a solution became clear. The protagonist was left with the anchored image of a pile of empty chairs - representing her now-emasculated problems - and an action plan - well, first step - of finding the phone number of someone who could help in future. For further information, see www.mpv-sam.com or co-director Di Adderley[diane@adderley.demon.co.uk])

I can't wait to include these techniques in my creativity workshops, which I run to promote well-being among people facing social issues. I'll keep you posted.