Warm Ups: For Your Back Pocket
© Copyright 1990, 2005 Rob Pramann, Ph.D., TEP
CCCU Training in Psychodrama

The prospect of directing Psychodrama is anxiety provoking for the beginning and the experienced psychodramatist alike because one never knows the course the drama will take. This anxiety may be heightened when one is beginning to work in a new setting or with a new group. To the degree this anxiety provokes the director's advanced preparation and planning it is an asset.

As a director in training I have learned that attending to the warm-up is essential. It is one aspect of the psychodrama that I can anticipate and plan. The more uncomfortable I am the more important it is that I carefully attend to warming up, my own as director, that of any participating trained auxiliaries, and that of my group. This paper will address purposes, principles, and procedures for warming up and describe various warm-up exercises.

The purpose of warming up is to enhance spontaneity and emotional awareness. Blatner (1973, p. 36) identifies four preconditions for spontaneous behavior:

(1) a sense of trust and safety, (2) norms which allow for the inclusion of nonrational and intuitive dimensions; (3) some feeling of tentative distance, which is one of the elements of "playfulness"; and (4) a movement toward risk-taking involving exploration into novelty.

Warming up starts with the director before the group arrives. The director should begin with his/her expectations. Before I direct a group I ask myself several revealing questions. Do I feel obligated to put on a show (whether or not I have a ready protagonist)? What are my stereotypes about the group members (for example "character disordered" alcoholics)? Am I concerned about the group’s stereotypes of me?

Blatner (1973, p. 38) suggests several ways of responding to such concerns. First, discuss one’s plans and apprehensions in advance with a coworker. Second, review one’s own tolerance for not needing a "dramatic happening" to occur as part of one’s introduction to the group, thus clarifying one’s own position at the onset (for one’s self and the group). Third, allow one’s own "negative tele" (subjective sense about the group) to be first on the agenda for the group discussion or psychodrama. Fourth, decline to direct if one feels a great degree of over-involvement and allowing another potential director to direct if one is available.

Finally, in choosing a group warm-up it is important for the director to consider what is known about the intra- or within the group issues, the members' individual issues and concerns, the action that occurred last time, and the warm-ups used previously including their degree of success. I would like to summarize and illustrate these issues in terms of my past psychodrama practice.

I provided a weekly two-hour session at a hospital based 28-day chemical dependency treatment program. Before beginning I discussed my apprehensions with the program director. As I began each group I was aware of my expectations and regularly had told my group I respected their right to say "no" to a warm-up exercise or to any role they were asked to play.

About one half hour before the psychodrama group I mentally reviewed the previous psychodramas and the warm-ups. I kept a record of the warm-up(s) used for each session, the name of the protagonist, and a short one-sentence summary of his main issues. During this time I made a decision about what I anticipated would be an effective warm-up exercise given what I knew.

I arrived 20 minutes early to begin warming-up the staff who planed to participate by allowing them to discuss personal and patient related concerns. Often there were students of the various mental health professions who wanted to sit in. I discussed with them what they knew of psychodrama and what I expected of them.

Next we reviewed the patients with the available staff member who was most knowledgeable of the group issues and individual patients. I evaluated the level of commitment of the patients to the treatment program, the amount of cohesion within the patient community (an important part of the program and facilitative to psychodramatic work), and any other idiosyncratic (unique to this group of patients) issues. I might have changed my warm-up based on this new knowledge. For instance if the group was "not into treatment" I might have done an "into treatment" spectrogram. If the group was new I might have had them arrange themselves in terms of a human map of where they were living before they came to treatment. Or I might have allowed them to form dyads and then introduce each other, or introduce themselves through the eyes of someone in their social atom.

I arrived to the room five minutes beforehand to arrange it to my satisfaction. I started my portion of the group after they have concluded the standard AA type introduction, "I'm Sam. I'm addicted to weed and alcohol." From the time the patients arrived I was alert to issues that may have suggested an idea for an existential or undirected warm-up or that would have suggested a different structured or "canned" warm-up. At times this meant I was coming up with my third warm-up for the group. However, because I had prepared my self and thought through what kind of warm-up might be effective I avoided experiencing excessive anxiety about what I was going to do. I was able to keep my own spontaneity because I had “a warm-up in my back pocket."

At the point I formally began group I liked to stand up and begin walking around as the physical movement helped me in warming-up or keeping warmed up. I varied my proximity with the group members depending on who was the focus and as a way to show my interest, support, or introspection. Almost always this lowered my anxiety and increased my spontaneity.

I would ask who had previously never been in psychodrama and ask them what they had heard about it. I then allowed group members who had been in previous sessions to describe what it had been like for them. I underscored what I saw as defining aspects of the technique as they alluded to them. Then I would state what I saw to be the important ground rules and my reasons for them: starting on time, ending on time, and not allowing anyone to leave in the middle except for unavoidable and unforeseen reasons. I also stated that it was each patient's and participating staff's prerogative not to participate in any exercise or role they found objectionable. I made the staff or other patients available to help patients remain in the room during scenarios that they might not otherwise have been able to tolerate. Likewise I liked to remind participating staff of the importance, though usually infrequent need, for this role.

Sometimes the group needed more than one warm-up. I have learned from experience which structured warm-ups more easily led into action. I have also been open to discussing with the group their reluctance to proceed and have respected what they told me. Often this would lead to a psychodrama and was productive in and of itself. On one occasion it resulted in a sociodrama.