Sociodrama in the Rehabilitation of Chronic Mentally Ill Patients
Frederick W. Hickling D.M.,M.R.C.Psych.1
1 Psychotherapy Associates, 23 Connolley Avenue, Kingston 4, Jamaica, The Department of Psychiatry, The University of The West Indies in Kingston
Sociodrama, a synthesis of group psychotherapy and theatrical presentation, was used from 1978 to 1981 to promote rehabilitation of chronic mentally ill patients at Bellevue Mental Hospital in Jamaica. Staff and patients collectively analyzed their recollections of the hospital's history, then wrote and staged dramatic productions based on the insights derived from those analyses. Changes in the major themes that emerged from the process reflected improvement in therapeutic attitudes and practices and in patient-staff communication over the four-year period. Patients who participated in the sociodramas had greater decreases in medication dosage and psychosocial disability scores and higher rates of improvement and discharge than a matched group of patients who did not participate.
