Didactic psychodrama and sociodrama

The terms psychodrama, sociodrama, and didactic psychodrama are defined. These three action techniques are compared with respect to their differing goals and methodologies. The application of the use of didactic psychodrama and sociodrama with student nurses undergoing Psychiatric Nurse Training is outlined, together with verbal reports elicited from the students following, a) a 20-week study day programme where didactic psychodrama was used on an regular basis, and b) a sociodrama workshop. It is concluded that sociodrama and didactic psychodrama are powerful action learning methods that can be successfully employed with junior student psychiatric nurses. It is also acknowledged that the underlying rationale, and procedural details of these two methods differ from, those associated with more conventional social skills based training approaches, and these differences have implications for trainers.