Psychodrama Group Therapy for Social Issues: A Systematic Review of Controlled Clinical Trials

Abstract

The aim of this study was to carry out a systematic review of controlled clinical trials in order to identify both specific populations and social issues which may benefit from the effective use of psychodrama psychotherapy. A search was conducted in the WoS, SCOPUS, PsychINFO, Medline, Academic Search Ultimate, ProQuest, and PubPsych databases, complemented by a manual search on relevant websites and in the reference lists of the selected studies. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-RCTs of group-based psychodrama psychotherapy were included. The Effective Public Health Practice Project (EPHPP) tool was adopted to assess the methodological quality of the included studies. The search identified 14 RCTs and one quasi-RCT evaluating the effects of group-based psychodrama psychotherapy. The total number of participants in the studies was 642 people. Seven studies were conducted in Turkey, two in the USA, two in Finland, one in Canada, one in Brazil, one in Italy, and one in Iran. The heterogeneity of the issues analyzed indicates that psychodrama improves the symptoms associated with a wide range of problems. Despite psychodrama’s long history, most clinical trials in this field have been published this century, which suggests not only that this psychotherapeutic practice remains relevant today but also that it continues to attract substantial interest among the scientific community. Nevertheless, further research efforts are required to understand its potential benefits for psychosocial well-being.

Surveying 80 Years of Psychodrama Research: A Scientometric Review

“…Unfortunately, while there are indications of an evolution of psychodrama and applications toward broader fields of research, psychodrama intervention techniques seem to have remained fairly unchanged, save for the online adaptation in Biancalani et al ( 76 )'s paper. Finally, this cluster also showed an increasing focus toward rigorous research and an increased variation in research methodologies, as evidenced by Orkibi and Feniger-Schaal ( 25 )'s integrative review, López-González et al ( 28 )'s systematic review, and Wang et al ( 29 )'s meta-analysis in this cluster, among others (e.g., ( 77 , 87 )). An interesting opinion on research methodology comes from Yaniv ( 86 )'s paper on spontaneity in psychodrama and its relationship with current neurocognitive theories.…”

“…While illuminating and providing important insights to modern psychodramatic practices, the paper was not able to survey the history of psychodrama and research trends over its many decades. Recent meta-analyses such as López-González et al ( 28 ) and Wang et al ( 29 ) are also limited in terms of their focus on only controlled clinical trials and the application of psychodrama within the Chinese culture, respectively, without consideration of other methodologies or theoretical papers and a broader cultural context. On the other hand, older systematic reviews have similarly only captured approximately three decades' worth of psychodramatic research ( 14 , 30 , 31 ).…”

Psychometric Properties of the Spontaneity Assessment Inventory-Revised (SAI-R): The 3-Factor Hypothesis

“…Moreover, the use of the measure of spontaneity benefits psychodrama theory itself since its use may be an opportunity to reinvent it by meeting the new demands coming from the contexts where it is used [18]. On the other hand, in the evaluation of the therapeutic process, the use of the measure of spontaneity may help innovate psychodrama-based interventions [17]. Finally, with the measure now presented, it is possible to correlate spontaneity with creative adaptability in Portuguese-speaking contexts and compare it with other cultural contexts, for example, in the case of the pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 [20,36].…”

“…Furthermore, literature in expressive arts in general, and particularly in psychodrama, points out the need for further studies, not only correlational but also randomized clinical trials [16], for which valid psychometric instruments are needed. Finally, several authors [12,17] suggested studies that would bring SAI-R to different cultural contexts. This being said, our work aims to address not only these concerns, making SAI-R a stronger and more valid instrument, but to allow the development of a theoretical model that connects spontaneity and mental health variables [18].…”

Psychometric Properties of the Spontaneity Assessment Inventory-Revised (SAI-R): The 3-Factor Hypothesis

“…Furthermore, literature in expressive arts in general, and particularly in psychodrama, points out the need for further studies, not only correlational but also randomized clinical trials [17], for which valid psychometric instruments are needed. Finally, several authors [13,18] suggested studies that would bring SAI-R to different cultural contexts. This being said, our work aims to address not only these concerns, making SAI-R a stronger and more valid instrument, but to allow the development of the theoretical model that connects spontaneity and mental health variables [19].…”