Psychodrama Group Therapy for Social Issues: A Systematic Review of Controlled Clinical Trials

The aim of this study was to carry out a systematic review of controlled clinical trials in order to identify both specific populations and social issues which may benefit from the effective use of psychodrama psychotherapy. A search was conducted in the WoS, SCOPUS, PsychINFO, Medline, Academic Search Ultimate, ProQuest, and PubPsych databases, complemented by a manual search on relevant websites and in the reference lists of the selected studies. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-RCTs of group-based psychodrama psychotherapy were included. The Effective Public Health Practice Project (EPHPP) tool was adopted to assess the methodological quality of the included studies. The search identified 14 RCTs and one quasi-RCT evaluating the effects of group-based psychodrama psychotherapy. The total number of participants in the studies was 642 people. Seven studies were conducted in Turkey, two in the USA, two in Finland, one in Canada, one in Brazil, one in Italy, and one in Iran. The heterogeneity of the issues analyzed indicates that psychodrama improves the symptoms associated with a wide range of problems. Despite psychodrama’s long history, most clinical trials in this field have been published this century, which suggests not only that this psychotherapeutic practice remains relevant today but also that it continues to attract substantial interest among the scientific community. Nevertheless, further research efforts are required to understand its potential benefits for psychosocial well-being.

The Book of Evan: The work and life of Evan McAra Sherrard

In many ways Evan McAra Sherrard was a Renaissance man: a master of not one but several trades - agriculture, education, ministry, and psychotherapy - and he liked the fact that he had several strings to his bow. He described his "basic sense of identity" as "a healing minister of religion" and that "my personal competence is as a psychotherapist". To many - family, friends, colleagues, trainees, supervises, and clients - he was compassionate, open hearted, thoughtful, and generous. Evan was intstrumental in setting up the Cameron Centre in Dunedin in the 1960s, the Human Development Team within Presbyterian Support Services in Auckland in the late 1970s, and the Psychotherapy Programme at Auckland Institute (now University) of Technology in the late 1980s. More broadly, he was hugely influentual in the practice, professions and organisation of transactional analysis, psychodrama, psychotherapy, and counselling in New Zealand. This book brings together Evan's mostly unpublished writings in these various fields of interest, together with contributions from some 40 people, including his family, who represent the breadth and depth of influence that Evan's work and life had - and continues to have today.