Business as Usual: Psychodrama in Today's Taiwan
By Nien-Hwa Lai TEP, President of Taiwan Association of Psychodrama
Taiwan is an island on the Asian side of the Pacific Ocean. With an area of 36,000 km2 (that is, one 260th of the size of the US) and a population of roughly 23 million; there are nevertheless 26 TEPs, 11 PATs, and seven CPs currently certified by American Board of Examiners in Psychodrama, Sociometry, and Group Psychotherapy (ABE) and an additional CP who received certification in Germany. There are also more to come, joining our community here to promote psychodrama.
First introduced in 1974, psychodrama has been in Taiwan for almost 50 years now. Initially, it was led by a spontaneous group of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists, and nurses. Starting out in the medical system, their work allowed people to afford psychodrama as a prescribed treatment through our National Health Insurance. Psychodrama is also used widely in diverse settings, including schools, business, communities, and prisons. Long-term training programs are available in Taiwan from US trainers including Shu Gong, Dorothy Satten, Kate Hudgins, Rory Remer, Pamela Remer, and Kartrena Hart. Through the years, we also had many outstanding visiting trainers, including Catherine Nugent, Charmaine McVea, Daniel Tomasulo, David Kipper, Dena Baumgartner, Donna Little, Elizabeth Synnot, Glenn Sammis, Jeanne Burger, John Nolte, Kate Bradshaw Tauvon, Marcia Karp, Maryann Cox, Michael Wieser, Milton Hawkins, Monica Zurltt, Ning-Shing Kung, Regina Moreno, Sara Crane and Zerka Moreno.
Map of the Taiwan archipelago; Wikepdia
Their wonderful training cultivated our first Taiwanese CP receiving ABE certification in 2005. Today, the number of certified psychodramatists in Taiwan has reached 43. The much-anticipated official body, Taiwan Association of Psychodrama (TAP), was formally founded on March 27, 2010, with the collective efforts of everyone in our psychodrama community. The official presence allowed further international collaboration with ABE, which has been sending on-site examiners, such as Judy Swallow, Elaine Camerota, John Olesen, and Barbara Guest for certification exams since 2014. TAP now has its own accreditation system, which is formally recognized by the ABE, after a reciprocity agreement was signed at the TAP Annual Conference in 2018 by Catherine Nugent on behalf of ABE. This opened up broader training channels to benefit more people interested in taking the journey to psychodrama accreditation.
In 2020, whereas the world was mostly in lockdown due to COVID-19, everything in Taiwan was virtually business as usual. We were very fortunate to carry on the practice of psychodrama in our daily life. Events held by TAP went on as planned in 2020 and could be summarized as follows.
2020 Annual conference of TAP in Taipei (Keynote speaker: Rebecca Walters)
Annual Conference
The Annual Conference by TAP was held in the beginning of 2020. Entitled Psychodrama: Let’s Play and Act. The conference was honored with the presence of Rebecca Walters, ABE-certified TEP, as our keynote speaker and post-conference workshop leader. During this four-day event, a total of 26 workshops were presented and collectively served 257 group members.
A Taste of Psychodrama
An out-reach program offering personal experiences in psychodrama was arranged by our six regional subdivisions. In this program, schools, and community organizations could submit their applications to experience psychodrama with TAP. TAP would match suitable group leaders to lead a workshop. Additionally, TAP organized psychodrama events “When My Heart Meets Your Heart” that took place in six major geographical areas in Taiwan. The series of events is oriented for the general public. To sum up, while the majority of these 2020 events were held in community settings, the most popular events for the public were in the form of “salon cafes.” Additionally, the majority of organizational applications were from colleges.
An out-reach program at Hualien
Forums and Seminars
Psychodramatists around Taiwan were invited to share at seminars and forums their experiences serving diverse clientele, such as victims and perpetrators of domestic violence and sexual abuse, LGBT groups, AIDS, and cancer patients, as well as in entrepreneurship. A total of 118 people attended the events.
Online Events
With the aid of social media, people ran a range of online study groups, online psychodrama groups, FB clubs, and other online clubs. However, as COVID-19 does not severely disrupt events in-person here in Taiwan, the potentials for online training and psychodrama groups are yet to be investigated.
College Courses and Community Training Programs
We have six TEPs teaching in college and offering elective courses on psychodrama and sociodrama, while one TEP even pioneered the use of psychodrama in his teaching of economics and family economics. This spread seeds for the growth of future opportunities to provide regular psychodramatists. Furthermore, many counseling centers in Taiwan offer workshops for personal and professional growth with psychodramatists.
Publication
TAP publishes newsletters every six months, training for the next generation to announce fresh events coming and share moments from past events. The academic periodical “Taiwan Journal of Psychodrama” is a peer reviewed journal that showcases recent research and findings on psychodrama to maintain the research rigor of psychodrama in Taiwan. In Taiwan, most psychodramatists are in the helping profession, which includes psychologists, social workers, and psychiatrists. Serving diverse clientele, their work allowed the practice of psychodrama to meet many populations. TAP Annual conference scheduled in January 2021 was titled "Grounded on Diversity Psychodrama Walks in Taiwan”.
Taiwan Journal of Psychodrama and Newsletter
Psychodramatists of all generations were invited to meet and dialogue, linking up the history of psychodrama development in Taiwan. However, the conference was delayed to a date yet to be announced due to eight new local COVID-19 cases identified three days prior to the event. Despite this unanticipated incident, we are nevertheless very fortunate to be able to hold various psychodrama activities face-to-face. To join the trend online, TAP started providing monthly online events, such as training groups, personal growth groups, and seminars. The most recent one was held on March 13, 2021 and we discussed conducting research online and received much positive feedback. TAP now looks forward to providing more diversified activities and will have an online event for the Greater China area in May, in hopes of creating richer stories of psychodrama in Taiwan.
