Humanistic psychodrama

1. Introduction

Version followed: Hans-Werner Gessmann's Humanistic Psychodrama (HPD; German Humanistisches Psychodrama), Psychotherapeutic Institute Bergerhausen (PIB), Duisburg, as Gessmann summarises it in his 2012 e-book abstract (Psychology and Law, open access) and as encyclopedic summaries cite his Humanistisches Psychodrama vols I–IV (Verlag des PIB, 1994–96) and his 1999 paper on overcoming the catharsis concept. Gessmann's own manuals are not drawn on here; the step-by-step session mechanics below are taken from mainstream German-language psychodrama (Moreno tradition), whose techniques HPD keeps, and reshaped by Gessmann's stated principles. Treat those parts as [synthesis] unless they carry an HPD source tag.

What it is. HPD is a group psychotherapy method. Gessmann adapted J. L. Moreno's psychodrama, starting in the 1970s with delinquent and deviant adolescents in a state institution he headed. From about 1979–80 he rebuilt it on the axioms of humanistic psychology. He drew on Rogers, Perls, Ruth Cohn and Charlotte Bühler, and on the existential thinkers Buber, Kierkegaard and Sartre. HPD calls itself "development-oriented psychotherapy". Gessmann reports it is used with adults, with children and adolescents (prevention, child protection, social-assistance treatment), with the elderly, in addiction work, and as a standard group method in many German prisons. [source: Gessmann 2012; Wikipedia "Psychodrama"; PIB Baku page; EverybodyWiki "Hans-Werner Gessmann" (secondary)]

How change happens. A protagonist enacts a personal situation "here and now" on a stage with the group. The situation can come from the past, present or future, which HPD treats as one continuum. The protagonist can reshape the scene as they wish. When the protagonist's feelings and the group's feelings come into balance, spontaneity emerges. That spontaneity is the means by which a person changes their social world. Change rests on the person's own growth tendency, self-awareness and self-actualisation, and on taking responsibility for oneself and one's environment. It does not rest on emotional discharge: HPD has explicitly moved away from the psychoanalytic theory of catharsis. Gessmann's phrase is that the method aims "not so much at analysis as at integration" (2012, translated). [source: Gessmann 2012; PIB Baku page; Wikipedia "Psychodrama"]

2. Framework

Format. HPD runs as closed or ongoing therapy groups. It can also be adapted to inpatient units, shelters, therapeutic communities, outpatient groups and prisons. [source: PIB Baku page] Gessmann's sources do not give a session length, total session count or group size [uncertain]. In general psychodrama a session lasts 90 minutes to 2 hours [source: Wikipedia "Psychodrama"]. Workable defaults [synthesis]: 6–12 members, sessions of 2–3 hours (enough for one full protagonist play plus integration), weekly or in weekend blocks, run for 20 sessions or more for therapy groups.

Within-session phases. Gessmann's open texts do not set out the phases. The three-phase structure common to German psychodrama is used here, and HPD's own named elements are mapped onto it. [source: socialnet "Psychodrama"; Stadler & Kern 2010 via Posratschnig review; HPD element names from the PIB methods film list via EverybodyWiki]

Phase	Goal	Move on when
1. Warm-up (Erwärmung; HPD: "creative warming-up")	Bring members to a shared emotional level, build cohesion and a "we-feeling", surface themes, and find a protagonist with enough readiness (Spontaneitätslage).	One theme carries the group, and a protagonist has volunteered or been chosen sociometrically and wants to work.
2. Action / play (Spielphase)	First-scene interview and contract, scene set-up, then enactment with doubles, auxiliary egos, role reversal and mirror. Last comes de-roling.	The protagonist has reached a new experience or perspective, tried a new response, or reached the limit of what is safe for today. Close with a completing scene, not mid-crisis [synthesis].
3. Integration (Integrationsphase)	Role feedback, identification feedback and sharing. Group members re-enter as themselves, and the session links to everyday life. HPD weights this phase heavily, in line with its "integration rather than analysis" principle.	Everyone has spoken from their own experience, auxiliaries are out of role, and the protagonist is grounded.

Across a course of therapy [synthesis; HPD texts]: early sessions use more group-centred warm-ups and short impromptu scenes, plus sociometric and social-atom work, to build trust. The middle phase carries full protagonist plays with biographical scenes. Each member's biography is worked closely with the group's sociometry [source: Wikipedia "Psychodrama" quoting HPD]. Late sessions focus on future projection and testing behaviour, then on the group's ending.

Roles. These are protagonist, director/therapist, auxiliary egos (Hilfs-Ich), doubles, the group and the stage. HPD's specific framing: the protagonist is the group's representative, and the therapist is non-hierarchical. [source: Gessmann 2012; socialnet "Psychodrama"]

3. Guiding principles

[source for all unless marked: Gessmann 2012; Wikipedia "Psychodrama" HPD section]

Humanistic image of the person. Growth, self-disclosure and self-actualisation are possible. Practice: treat each member as able to grow, and look for resources as well as problems.
Individual responsibility. People are responsible for themselves and their environment. Practice: the protagonist chooses the theme, the scene, the cast and the ending, and you never take that responsibility away.
Self-determined disclosure. Members decide what they work on and how far they go, limited only by the group's social reality. Practice: offer, never press. Every technique is an invitation the member may decline.
A person can only be encouraged to explore themselves (Gessmann 2012, paraphrased). Practice: use questions and scenes to invite discovery. Do not interpret to the client.
Integration rather than analysis; no catharsis doctrine. Practice: do not push for emotional explosion as the goal. Aim for an experience the protagonist can connect to their life, and close each play with integration. Emotional release is allowed but not sought for its own sake [synthesis on application].
Here and now. Past, present and future are worked as present enactment. Practice: have the protagonist speak in the present tense, as if it is happening now.
Holism at three levels. Individual: body, feeling, mind and spirit. Thematic: the whole life outlook, not single symptoms. Social: the group is a "built-in criterion of reality". Practice: attend to posture and movement as well as words, and let the group's responses test the protagonist's perceptions.
Biography is tied to group sociometry. Practice: choose protagonists and themes through the group's own connections, and notice whose story resonates with whom.
Personal–social balance. The group helps each member balance the personal and social parts of the self. Practice: after individual work, always return to the group.
Relationships and meaning. Practice: favour scenes involving significant others, and explore and improve those relationships.
Therapist congruence and non-hierarchy. The therapist is aware of their own feelings and discloses selectively when it helps the protagonist. They are a carrier of humanistic values (freedom, equality, dignity), which become group norms. The aim is a real encounter of "person with person", in which both sides learn. Practice: direct the process without dominating it, and share personally in the sharing round where it helps.
Spontaneity as the change agent. Practice: track and protect the moment when the protagonist acts freshly instead of repeating, and give it room. [source: PIB Baku page]
Not limited to talk. HPD is open to many methods. Practice: combine action with media such as bibliodrama texts, poems, play materials for children, and (in Gessmann's own work) hypnosis. [source: Gessmann 2012; EverybodyWiki film list (secondary)]

4. Intervention inventory

Provenance. The PIB training film Methods of Humanistic Psychodrama (1989 revision, released 2008) lists seven HPD methods: first-scene interview, double, auxiliary ego, role reversal, social atom, impromptu scenes and creative warming-up. Gessmann also researched doubling from 1996 onwards. [source: EverybodyWiki "Hans-Werner Gessmann" (secondary; film not viewed)] Those seven are marked HPD-named. The other techniques are standard psychodrama techniques: they are not confirmed in Gessmann's open texts, but they belong to the Moreno method that HPD modifies [uncertain whether HPD uses each one in exactly this form]. The procedural steps come from general psychodrama sources and are written in my own words. [source: socialnet "Psychodrama", "Doppeln"; Stadler & Kern 2010 via review; Wikipedia "Psychodrama"] The HPD reframe on each item is [synthesis] based on section 3.

A. Warm-up phase

4.1 Check-in round (Befindlichkeitsrunde)

Purpose / when: Opens every session. Each member says how they are arriving. This brings everyone into the room and can surface a wish to play. [source: Stadler & Kern via review]
Steps: (1) Sit in a circle. (2) Ask each member for one or two sentences on how they are now and what is on their mind. (3) Do not work anything through yet; just note the themes and their energy. (4) Name the themes you heard that link members, without interpreting them.
Example language (illustrative): "Let's go round once. How are you arriving today, and is anything pulling at you?" / "I notice several of you mentioned feeling unheard this week."
Watch for: members who check in flatly or hold back. Leave them space and do not push (self-determined disclosure). A good check-in leaves the energy rising and themes converging.

4.2 Creative warming-up — HPD-named

Purpose / when: Build trust, a we-feeling and a shared emotional level before the action phase. Repeat it at the start of each work unit, not just once per workshop. [source: socialnet "Psychodrama"]
Steps: Pick one form that suits the group's state. (a) Action exercises: walking the room at different paces or moods, meeting others, short drama games. (b) Media: each member picks a picture, object or old photograph and says why. (c) Guided fantasy with a short return to the group. (d) Sculpture: a member shapes others into a living image of a theme. (e) Speaking from another's role: each introduces themselves as a significant other would describe them. Close by asking who has a scene they want to look at. [source: socialnet "Psychodrama"; the specific exercises in Gessmann's creative warm-up repertoire are not known; uncertain]
Example language (illustrative): "Choose a picture from the table that says something about your week. Stand by it and tell us one sentence."
Watch for: increasing spontaneity, laughter and real emotion. A warm-up that stays intellectual, or one that raises arousal too fast for a new group, is not working. Pace for the least-warmed member.

4.3 Sociometric exercises and protagonist selection

Purpose / when: Make the group's informal connections visible. Choose a protagonist the group can carry, in line with HPD's link between individual biography and group sociometry. Use it at the end of the warm-up, and early in a group's life to build cohesion. [source: socialnet "Psychodrama"; Wikipedia "Psychodrama" HPD section]
Steps: (1) Spectrograms/locograms: members place themselves along a line or in areas of the room by a criterion ("how far from home you grew up"; "how ready you are to work today"). (2) Ask a few people to say a sentence from where they stand. (3) Choosing a protagonist: volunteers stand. Each other member puts a hand on the shoulder of the volunteer whose theme they most connect with, or stands behind them. (4) The person with the most choices works, and the others are told their theme is carried forward.
Example language (illustrative): "Those who'd like to work, step forward and say your theme in one sentence. Everyone else, go and stand behind the person whose theme touches you most."
Watch for: members who are never chosen (isolates). Track this across sessions and attend to it gently, for example by choosing a different criterion next time. Avoid exposing rejection in a fragile group. [synthesis]

4.4 Social atom — HPD-named

Purpose / when: Map the protagonist's network of significant relationships, past or present, as a basis for choosing scenes and auxiliaries. Use it early in therapy, at assessment, and whenever relationships are the theme.
Steps: (1) The protagonist draws themselves at the centre of a sheet, then places significant people as symbols at distances showing closeness. Deceased people, pets and institutions may be included. (2) Alternatively, enact it: the protagonist places group members in the room as those people, at distance and facing direction. (3) Interview briefly: who is close, who is missing, which relationship is most charged. (4) Choose the scene from the most charged link. [source: social atom named in the HPD film list; procedure from general psychodrama (Moreno), not checked against Gessmann; uncertain]
Example language (illustrative): "Put yourself in the middle. Now place the people who matter in your life: close ones near, distant ones far. Who belongs here that you'd rather not place?"
Watch for: strong reactions when the atom is enacted; it can stir grief. Signs that it is working: the protagonist spontaneously names a relationship they want to work on.

B. Action phase

4.5 First-scene interview — HPD-named

Purpose / when: At the start of the action phase, clarify the theme and agree the contract (what the protagonist wants from today). Then find the first concrete scene. The protagonist decides. [source: HPD film list; contract procedure from socialnet "Psychodrama"]
Steps: (1) Walk with the protagonist around the stage while talking. Movement aids warm-up. (2) Ask what they want to look at and what they want for themselves today. (3) Narrow to one specific moment: what happened, where, when, who was present. (4) Agree the first scene. (5) Check consent explicitly: "Do you want to put that on the stage?"
Example language (illustrative): "What would you like to discover today?" / "Take me to one moment when that happened. Where are we, and when?"
Watch for: abstract talk. Bring it to a concrete, sensory scene. If the protagonist hesitates, offer a gentler scene (a present-day or future one). It is working when the protagonist starts speaking in the present tense.

4.6 Scene setting (Szenenaufbau) and the stage

Purpose / when: Make the scene real enough to enter: "here and now" and surplus reality. Use it in every enacted scene. [source: socialnet "Psychodrama"; Stadler & Kern via review]
Steps: (1) Mark the stage area. (2) The protagonist builds the room with chairs and cloths (doors, windows, key furniture). (3) Ask for the time of day, light, smells and sounds. (4) The protagonist stands in the scene and describes it in the present tense. (5) Add people only when the setting feels real.
Example language (illustrative): "Show us the kitchen. Where's the door? What time is it? What do you hear?"
Watch for: too much detail used to avoid the encounter. Move on once the protagonist's voice or posture changes.

4.7 Auxiliary ego (Hilfs-Ich) and role-taking (Einrollen) — HPD-named

Purpose / when: Group members play significant others, parts of the self, feelings, objects or wishes so that the protagonist can meet them. Use it whenever the scene needs a counterpart. [source: HPD film list; Stadler & Kern via review; socialnet "Psychodrama"]
Steps: (1) The protagonist chooses the auxiliary from the group; they may decline. (2) The protagonist role-reverses into the other person and shows how that person stands, moves and speaks (see 4.9). (3) The auxiliary takes over with those words and posture. (4) The director coaches the auxiliary to stay close to the protagonist's portrayal and not to invent. (5) Support auxiliaries in roles with strong feelings (fear, aggression, hate).
Example language (illustrative): "Who could play your father? Ask them." / "Become your father for a moment. Show us how he sits and what he says."
Watch for: auxiliaries carried away by their own material. Interrupt and re-instruct. A good auxiliary lets the protagonist respond more freely.

4.8 Double / doubling (Doppeln) — HPD-named

Purpose / when: Voice the protagonist's unspoken feelings or thoughts, to support contact with themselves and loosen blocks. Use it when the protagonist loses contact with themselves, is stuck or freezes, or needs support. Gessmann researched doubling specifically [source: EverybodyWiki (secondary); findings uncertain]. Generic variants: empathic/supportive (puts the feeling into words), exploring (sentence stems such as "I react this way because…") and intensifying (amplifies an expressed feeling). [source: socialnet "Doppeln"]
Steps: (1) The double (the director or a member) stands slightly behind and to the side, matching the protagonist's posture. (2) They tune in briefly, then say one short first-person sentence. (3) The protagonist repeats it in their own words if it fits, or corrects or rejects it; the double cannot be "wrong". (4) Wait for the reaction or ask whether it fits. (5) Limit group doubles to two or three offers, and check that members are tuned in. [source: socialnet "Doppeln"; Wikipedia "Psychodrama"]
Example language (illustrative): (double) "I'm smiling, but inside I'm furious." / (director) "Does that fit? Say it your way."
Watch for: doubling can trigger very intense feeling, which needs containing. There is a risk of putting the double's interpretation into the protagonist; this runs against the HPD principle that a person can only be encouraged to explore themselves. It is working when the protagonist adopts and extends the statement.

4.9 Role reversal (Rollentausch) — HPD-named

Purpose / when: The protagonist takes the other person's role and experiences their inner world; they also show the auxiliary how to play the part. Use it for perspective-taking, to give information about the other, and to let the protagonist answer their own question from the other side. [source: HPD film list; socialnet "Psychodrama"; Wikipedia "Psychodrama"]
Steps: (1) Say "change". The protagonist and auxiliary swap places physically. (2) The auxiliary repeats the protagonist's last sentence. (3) The protagonist, now as the other person, answers. (4) Swap back, and the auxiliary repeats that answer. (5) Continue at moments of question, accusation or impasse.
Example language (illustrative): "Change places. You are your sister now. She has just heard: 'You never call me.' What does she say?"
Watch for: avoid role reversal with a perpetrator of abuse early on, or when the protagonist is overwhelmed [synthesis]. Signs that it is working: a new understanding of the other, and a change of tone after returning to their own role.

4.10 Mirror (Spiegeln)

Purpose / when: The protagonist watches a stand-in replay their behaviour from outside, to gain distance and a new view. Use it when the protagonist is flooded, stuck or lacks perspective on themselves. [source: socialnet "Psychodrama"; Wikipedia "Psychodrama"; HPD use not confirmed, uncertain]
Steps: (1) Choose a stand-in for the protagonist. (2) The protagonist steps out beside the director. (3) The stand-in replays the moment as accurately as possible, without caricature. (4) Ask the protagonist what they see and what they would like to say to the person on stage. (5) The protagonist re-enters the scene with any new choice.
Example language (illustrative): "Step out here with me and watch. … What do you notice about that person?"
Watch for: a stand-in who mocks, which risks shame. Signs that it is working: spontaneous recognition, then a wish to try something different.

4.11 Soliloquy (thinking aloud)

Purpose / when: The protagonist speaks their inner thoughts aloud, aside from the scene, to build self-knowledge. Use it at transitions, after a key line, or when the protagonist goes silent. [source: Wikipedia "Psychodrama"; HPD use not confirmed, uncertain]
Steps: (1) Pause the scene. (2) Ask the protagonist to walk a few steps and say what is going on inside, in the first person and present tense. (3) Return to the scene with what emerged.
Example language (illustrative): "Walk with me a moment and think out loud. What's going on in you right now?"
Watch for: the protagonist narrating to the director instead of speaking from the inside. Prompt them back to "I" statements.

4.12 Impromptu scenes (Stegreifspiel) — HPD-named

Purpose / when: Short, unscripted scenes, fictional or everyday, to train spontaneity, warm up a group, practise new behaviour, or let a theme appear in a low-risk form. They are especially useful with children, adolescents and offender groups, where talk-based work is hard [synthesis on indication]. [source: HPD film list; Moreno's impromptu theatre is the origin]
Steps: (1) Give or invite a situation ("a job interview", "meeting an old friend", a fairy-tale or story scene). (2) Cast it from volunteers, with no rehearsal. (3) Play 2–5 minutes. (4) Stop, de-role, and ask players and audience what they experienced. (5) Replay with a variation (a different response, or role reversal) if useful.
Example language (illustrative): "Three volunteers: you're at a bus stop and the bus is very late. Go."
Watch for: members using comedy to avoid feeling. That is acceptable early in a group, then invite a serious replay. Signs that it is working: fresh, non-stereotyped responses (spontaneity).

4.13 Behaviour testing and future projection

Purpose / when: Enact an anticipated or wished-for situation (a confrontation, a job interview, release from prison, a reunion), try new responses and experience the consequences. This fits HPD's past–present–future continuum and its development orientation. [source: socialnet "Psychodrama" lists testing new behaviour and exploring consequences as scene forms; Gessmann 2012 for the time continuum; "future projection" as a named HPD technique not confirmed, uncertain]
Steps: (1) Set the future scene with a concrete date and place. (2) The protagonist plays it as now. (3) Use doubles and role reversal to explore the other side. (4) Replay with an alternative response until the protagonist finds one that feels like their own. (5) Integrate: what will they do differently this week?
Example language (illustrative): "It's six months from now, the day you leave here. Where are you standing? Who's waiting?"
Watch for: idealised scripts. Ask the auxiliary to respond realistically. Signs that it is working: the protagonist owns the new behaviour, not the director.

4.14 De-roling (Entrollen)

Purpose / when: At the end of every enactment, release auxiliaries from their roles and return them to the group as themselves. [source: socialnet "Psychodrama"; Stadler & Kern via review]
Steps: (1) The protagonist goes to each auxiliary, names the role they are releasing them from, and calls them by their own name. (2) Auxiliaries step out of the stage area, and may shake off the role physically. (3) Clear the stage furniture.
Example language (illustrative): "You are no longer my father; you are Tom. Thank you."
Watch for: an auxiliary who still carries anger or sadness from the role. Give them first word in role feedback.

C. Integration phase

4.15 Role feedback

Purpose / when: Straight after de-roling, auxiliaries say what they felt while in role, which gives the protagonist information about how others experience them. [source: Stadler & Kern via review; socialnet "Psychodrama"]
Steps: (1) Each auxiliary says: "As [role], I felt…". (2) No advice and no analysis. (3) The protagonist just listens.
Example language (illustrative): "Tom, tell us what it was like to be the father in that scene."

4.16 Identification feedback

Purpose / when: Group members who did not play a part say which role they identified with and what they felt from inside it. [source: socialnet "Psychodrama"]
Steps: Ask, "Who was inside one of the roles while watching?" Speakers stay with feelings. If the protagonist is still too absorbed, this round can be postponed to the next check-in.

4.17 Sharing

Purpose / when: The core of integration. Each member shares their own related experience, with no judgment, interpretation, rationalisation or advice. This relieves the protagonist, builds cohesion and makes the play the group's. In HPD the therapist, too, may share selectively and congruently. [source: socialnet "Psychodrama"; Stadler & Kern via review; Gessmann 2012 on therapist self-disclosure]
Steps: (1) Sit in a circle with the protagonist. (2) Ask what the play touched in each person's own life. (3) Stop advice or questions kindly. (4) Close with the protagonist: what are they taking with them? (5) If time allows, link to everyday life: a next step.
Example language (illustrative): "Not what you think about her story, but what it touched in your own life." / "What will you take home from today?"
Watch for: advice-giving, and interpreting the protagonist. Redirect. Signs that it is working: the protagonist looks relieved and less alone, and several members name their own next theme.

D. HPD applications and adaptations (Gessmann's documented fields)

4.18 Bibliodrama

Purpose / when: Enact biblical or literary texts (Gessmann's training films cover a bibliodrama introduction, Psalm 23, Rilke's The Panther, and Peter Härtling on mourning and consolation). Members take roles from the text and so meet their own themes indirectly. Useful for grief and meaning, and for groups that are not ready for direct biographical work. [source: EverybodyWiki film list (secondary; films not viewed); steps are synthesis]
Steps [synthesis]: (1) Read the text aloud, twice. (2) Members place themselves as figures, objects or words of the text. (3) Each speaks a sentence from their position. (4) Develop short scenes with doubles and role reversal. (5) De-role and share what the text touched personally.
Example language (illustrative): "Find your place in this psalm. Who or what are you, and what do you say from there?"
Watch for: religious pressure. Make participation optional and respect members' beliefs.

4.19 Child psychodrama

Purpose / when: HPD with preschool and school-age children for skill development, behaviour change, prevention and child protection. Gessmann's preschool film (Der Querk im Lummerland) suggests story-based group play. [source: Gessmann 2012; EverybodyWiki film list (secondary)]
Steps [synthesis; HPD child protocol]: (1) Hold a short ritual opening. (2) Warm up with movement and an invented or story world. (3) Children choose roles in a shared story (animals, heroes, helpers). (4) The therapist plays within the story, gently steering towards the group's or a child's conflict theme and new solutions. (5) Close with de-roling and a short round on feelings.
Watch for: over-excitement. Keep clear stop signals and the de-roling ritual. Coordinate with parents and carers. Follow child-protection procedures if disclosures arise.

4.20 Groups in prisons and with offenders

Purpose / when: Gessmann reports HPD as a standard group method in many German prisons, and he began the method with delinquent youth. [source: Gessmann 2012] The specific offender procedures were not found [uncertain].
Steps [synthesis]: Use more structure: explicit rules, sociometric and impromptu warm-ups, and behaviour testing (4.13) for everyday conflicts, release and reconciliation scenes. Role reversal with victims and others is for building empathy, only after trust exists and with careful containment.

4.21 Psychodrama with older adults

Purpose / when: Gerontotherapy, documented by a 2009 PIB film. [source: PIB Baku page; EverybodyWiki (secondary)]
Steps [synthesis]: Use seated warm-ups, reminiscence scenes from the social atom, life-review scenes and farewell or reconciliation scenes. Adapt movement to mobility.

Mentioned but not described in open sources: Gessmann combined psychodrama with hypnosis for sexual dysfunctions. No procedure was found, so none is given [uncertain].

5. Handling problems

The Gessmann sources used give principles, not a troubleshooting protocol. Everything below is [synthesis] unless tagged. It derives from HPD principles (responsibility, self-determined disclosure, integration rather than catharsis, a non-hierarchical therapist) and from standard psychodrama cautions.

No protagonist emerges / the group stays cold. The warm-up did not reach the group's level. Do not pick someone by force. Run a group-centred play instead: a sociometric exercise, an impromptu scene or a bibliodrama text. Or name the reluctance and let the group explore it as a theme. Choosing no protagonist is a legitimate session outcome.
Protagonist stuck or talking instead of acting. Return to concrete scene-setting (4.6). Use a supportive double (4.8) or a soliloquy (4.11). Shrink the scene to one moment. If it is still blocked, use the mirror (4.10) for distance. Ask what they want rather than interpreting the block.
Resistance / "I don't want to do that." Under HPD's disclosure principle a refusal is respected, not worked around. Offer a smaller step (watching a mirror, placing an empty chair or cloth instead of a person, or doubling only). Or change to a less personal form (impromptu or bibliodrama). Record the refusal as information, not defiance.
Overwhelm / emotional flooding. HPD does not seek catharsis, so de-escalate. (1) Slow down and lower the voice. (2) Move the protagonist out to a mirror position (4.10) or to stand beside you. (3) Use a supportive double who voices strength and safety. (4) Ground them: feet, breath, naming the present room and people. (5) Offer a completing or reparative scene if possible; otherwise end the enactment, de-role, and keep the integration phase gentle. Check in privately afterwards and at the next session. Screen for acute psychosis, active suicidality and severe dissociation before admitting someone to protagonist work. If suicidality appears, follow your standard risk-assessment and safety-planning procedures outside the group.
Trauma scenes. Do not re-enact abuse or violence in vivid detail. Use the mirror, symbolic auxiliaries and reparative "new scenes" (what should have happened, or a protecting figure) only with the protagonist's agreement. Never role-reverse the protagonist into a perpetrator early in therapy. Get explicit consent at each step, which matches HPD's responsibility principle. [synthesis; HPD trauma guidance not found]
Auxiliaries over-acting or acting out their own issues. Freeze the scene, re-instruct ("play it the way she showed you"), or recast. Afterwards give the auxiliary role feedback and, if needed, a later chance to work on their own theme.
Group gives advice or interprets in sharing. Interrupt kindly and redirect to personal experience (4.17). Repeat the sharing rule at the start of each integration phase with new groups. [rule source: socialnet "Psychodrama"]
Non-attendance / dropping in and out. Psychodrama depends on group continuity. Agree attendance norms at the start. Use the check-in to re-include returners. Address absence as a sociometric issue (who is connected to whom) rather than a disciplinary one.
Ruptures with the therapist. Use HPD's congruence and non-hierarchy: name your part, say selectively what you felt, and invite the member to show the rupture on stage if they choose (for example, role-reversing with the director). Do not defend your authority.
Scapegoating or isolates. Use sociometry to make patterns visible in a protected way. Avoid public "who would you not choose" criteria in fragile groups. Rebalance by giving isolates valued roles such as double or narrator.
Children: over-excitement, aggression in play. Use clear stop signals, physical safety rules (no real hitting, use soft props), shorter scenes and fixed de-roling rituals. Involve carers. Follow child-protection duties if abuse is disclosed. [source for field: Gessmann 2012; responses synthesis]
Prison and mandated groups. Members may perform for staff or avoid self-disclosure. Respect the limits of voluntariness. Be transparent about confidentiality limits (reporting obligations). Start from everyday conflicts and impromptu scenes rather than offence scenes. Build trust before biographical work.
Members talking outside the group. Agree a confidentiality rule at the outset and repeat it when membership changes.
Director over-directing (modality-specific). The risk is the director scripting the protagonist's solution. Check yourself: who chose this scene and this ending? If it was you, hand it back. This follows HPD's principles that a person can only be encouraged to explore themselves and that the therapist is non-hierarchical.
Training and competence. Protagonist work is powerful. Gessmann's institute (PIB, Duisburg, founded 1973) trains therapists in HPD [source: PIB Baku page]. Current curriculum details were not found [uncertain]. Practise full protagonist plays only after psychodrama training and under supervision. Short warm-ups and sociometric exercises can be started sooner.

Sources

Sources

Further reading (not drawn on) [uncertain where relied on]

Gessmann, H.-W. (1994). Humanistisches Psychodrama, Bd. I–IV. Duisburg: Verlag des PIB.
Gessmann, H.-W. (1996). Humanistische Psychologie und Humanistisches Psychodrama. In Humanistisches Psychodrama, Bd. IV, pp. 27–76. Duisburg: PIB.
Gessmann, H.-W. (1999). Erste Überlegungen zur Überwindung des Katharsisbegriffs im Humanistischen Psychodrama. Internationale Zeitschrift für Humanistisches Psychodrama, 5(2), 5–26.
Gessmann, H.-W. (1984, 1987, 1990). Bausteine zur Gruppenpsychotherapie, Bd. 1–3. Neckarsulm: Jungjohann.
Gessmann, H.-W. (2008). Methoden des Humanistischen Psychodramas (training film). Duisburg: Verlag des PIB.
Gessmann, H.-W. (2011). Empirical research about effectiveness of psychodramatic therapy group work with patients with neurosis. Zeitschrift für Psychodrama und Soziometrie, Sonderheft.
Stadler, C., & Kern, S. (2010). Psychodrama: Eine Einführung. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag.

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