Resistance

The following comments are related to any group, individual, couple, or family session. 

Too much resistance will destroy any counseling session and will prevent positive actions. You have probably heard that: Resistance is due to an improper warm-up. 

In most cases, I agree. But there are times when I think that may not be true. Some situations that cause resistance can be difficult or impossible to overcome, such as: 

The sponsoring organization, paying your fee, requires each person in the group to work on an issue. This causes the protagonists to select issues in which they will not be involved.

Tell the group that they can work on anything from inability to keep a budget to anything else in their life that causes an issue. Generally, giving people the freedom to select a "simple" issue leads to deeper issues. 

The group selects a protagonist who is not warmed-up.

Once it is realized that the protagonist is not and cannot be warmed-up, let that person take a seat and have the group work on selecting a new protagonist. A poor choice for protagonist indicates your group members don't know each other and are not warmed-up enough to properly choose a protagonist. It is best to do a group warm-up rather than immediately finding another protagonist. 

The protagonist gets involved with the issue but is unwilling to confront their antagonist. And nothing you can do will generate the protagonist's spontaneity.

Ask the protagonist if this has happened somewhere else in their life. With a positive reply, go to that scene. If there is a negative response, end the psychodrama and share. 

The protagonist believes that what they do in a psychodrama must be repeated with their antagonist. 

In the many psychodramas I’ve seen and directed, I have never heard the director (myself included) say that what the protagonist explores in a psychodrama does not have to be done outside the group. I intend on changing that. 

The clear message is: “What you explore in your psychodrama is for learning. It is for you to experience old situations and replace old behaviors with new behaviors. It is your choice to try the new behaviors outside of this group." 

Hopefully, those statements will reduce resistance. I believe there will always be some resistance; that it can never be totally eliminated. 

     (It’s hard for our ego to believe that we cannot warm-up everyone.)

When there is too much resistance, do another warm-up where group members interact with each other and share in-depth personal information. Do not do what could promote transference or anything that could be considered a "game".

And, of course, you can say that all of the above examples are the result of an improper warm-up.

More about resistance, next time, somewhere around the holidays.