Psychodrama Bulimia Nervosa

It was believed that when psychodrama encountered art therapy for the treatment of patients with eating disorders including anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, the therapeutic effectiveness would be enhanced. In Levens (1994)’s study, psychodrama and art therapy demonstrated important roles in concretizing the selves of the patients with eating disorders who showed underlying borderline personality organization. Similar findings showed that the integration of the traditional verbal therapy, psychodrama and art therapy was shown to have benefits on treating both anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa patients significantly (Diamond-Raab & Orrell-Valente, 2002). Art production acted as the mirror which reflected patients’ inner ideas and realistic

Joseph Moreno, who was the nephew of J. L. Moreno, created Musical Psychodrama. It was defined as “the integration of music improvisation, imagery, and other music therapy techniques with traditional actional psychodrama” (Moreno, 2006). Joseph Moreno found that in the doubling, the auxiliary ego often used exaggerated or additional sound reinforcement to emphasize their act and words, which inspired him to form an idea of using live sound or music during the psychodrama. In such musical psychodrama, protagonists’ act and interpersonal communication were mirrored by the auxiliary egos musically. Auxiliary egos were supposed to use some music instruments and get closer to the protagonists without verbal communication (Moreno, 2006). Auxiliary egos tried to produce music. It could be soft or loud, fast or slow, depending on the protagonists’ behaviors and feelings at the situations. In addition, it was reported that music acted as supporting and mirroring roles on verbal expressions and communications in the psychodramatic scenes. Research showed that music could increase the protagonists’ participation in the psychodrama (Strossova, 1969). On the other hand, music as mirroring and as a psychotherapeutic agent was reported to have a more positive and healthy self concept for those clients with mentally retard (White, & Allen, 1966). In short, music was a mild means that did not involve verbal and direct expressions of protagonist’s emotions and feelings. Threatening and harm to protagonists were reduced. Less resistance from the protagonists facilitated the encounter of interpersonal interaction more easily.