Hall of Mirrors on Stage: An Introduction to Psychotherapeutic Playback Theater

Abstract

O nce a week, the members of a Playback Theater group meet for their group therapy session. Each week, one of the members shares a personal story – an old memory, a dream, even a wish or a feeling. The group members perform this story, and each of their personal emotional resonances and perspectives blend together in the emerging play. Each week, a different member gets to see pieces of their life played out on stage by their fellow group members, as feelings and meanings they had never contemplated expand and deepen their inner world and its impact on their life. Week by week, the matrix of the inner world of the members and their relationships – with their similarities and their differences – gradually unfolds. The co-created Playback Theater group is the therapy. Each of the members, in turn, gets to be in each of the roles during the session. In the role of patient, they get to contribute the plot and reflect on their experience of the resulting performance. In the role of actor, they play out and direct the plots of other members. The group’s conductor gathers these different contributions together and the shared experience that moves through the conductor and their self-reflection enriches the therapeutic value of the encounter. The discourse between the different roles allows each member to alternate between giving and receiving. The book, An Introduction to Psychotherapeutic Playback Theater: Hall of Mirrors on Stage, aptly brings together the distinct contributions of Playback Theater, group analysis, and relational approaches to therapy. By integrating the world of psychodrama and the world of group psychotherapy, it offers a novel International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 72: 301–303, 2022 © 2022 The American Group Psychotherapy Association, Inc. ISSN: 0020-7284 print/1943-2836 online DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00207284.2022.2047550