psychodrama

(sīˌkə-dräˈmə, -drămˈə)

1. A psychotherapeutic technique in which people are assigned roles to be played spontaneously within a dramatic context devised by a therapist in order to understand the behavior of people with whom they have difficult interactions.
2. A dramatization in which this technique is employed.
3. An event, social interaction, or narrative that manifests psychological forces or problems: “In [Pierre, Melville] abruptly reinvents himself as a domestic novelist, proposing to write a psychodrama of family intimacy” (Richard H. Brodhead).

Related Forms:

• psyˌcho·dra·matˈic (-drə-mătˈĭk) adjective

• psyˌcho·dramˈa·tist (-drămˈə-tĭst, -dräˈmə-) noun