RoboCounsellor Uses Tabletop Psychodrama to Help Clients

(I-Newswire) November 18, 2009 - Paul N. Adams announces that RoboCounsellor now offers the option of tabletop psychodrama at www.robocounsellor.com, where conventional counselling is available free of charge 24/7. Adams started computer-delivered counselling and self-development in 2006. He started working full-time with counselling and self-development in 1972.

Background: Jacob L. Moreno developed psychodrama in the 1930s and 40s. There is a stage, often simply a table and chairs. There is a director/therapist and a hero and villain, with a supporting cast and an audience. The client would usually play the part of the hero, the drama being some issue in her past, present or future life she wishes to work on. Other people play the other roles. In this way, hidden thoughts and feelings are brought to the surface and often expressed, and catharsis — a release of feeling — can occur. Later analysis can help bring about a change in thinking and feeling about the issue explored.

Tabletop Psychodrama is based on this, but modified for RoboCounsellor use. The client sits at a table, or suitable flat surface, with the computer and various small objects like tissue boxes and tin cans. At RoboCounsellor's direction, the client writes out an outline of this particular scene, then draws a represention of herself in that scene on paper, which she then wraps around a can, say. She would then position her character front and centre on the stage, facing in to the action, not out to an audience. She would create the other characters and place them in their correct relative positions on the stage.

When directed, she would then run through the scene. She would start by inhabiting her own character on the stage, usually with her head positioned directly above it, voicing each part herself, moving the characters around on the stage as appropriate, breathing life into the whole scene. She can whisper lovingly, yell and swear, nurture, ignore, or even destroy a character as she chooses. RoboCounsellor will then direct her to write a summary of anything new, any change of viewpoint or feeling she has about the issue. She will then play through the action, one scene or many, again and again until the topic is no longer an issue. She can choose from seventeen variations, including focusing on the emotions, another's viewpoint, spiritual/cosmic aspects, what-if scenarios, and many more.

Advantages of the RoboCounsellor approach include cost, convenience, privacy, and the fact that the other players don't interject their own pre-conceptions inappropriately into the client's memories or imagination.

RoboCounsellor now has three session modules, delivering Rogerian Therapy, Transactional Analysis and Tabletop Psychodrama. Adams plans to have the next one online by the end of November.

About RoboCounsellor:
RoboCounsellor is a website that interactively delivers the essence of conventional counselling like Rogerian Therapy, Transactional Analysis or Psychodrama. It does this in real time free of charge 24/7 to registered users. Registration is free.

Company Contact Information
RoboCounsellor
Paul N. Adams
2 Harbottle Avenue
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE33HR, UK
Phone : 0191 645 0825