by Azarius Yanez
The trial lawyer is said to be sharp, witty, quick, and ferocious. But, among the trial lawyer’s arsenal of attributes, his or her primordial attribute is storytelling ability. A jury is not moved by air-tight logic or methodically calculated conclusions—rather, a jury is moved by emotions. People are moved through emotions. Human beings feel and experience the world. An effective trial lawyer will help the jury experience, know, and realize what his or her client has experienced. In order to do so, some attorneys are turning to a cutting-edge trial tactic that emerges from a form of therapy, psychodrama.
“Psychodrama is a powerful and complex methodology that requires extensive training to master, and psychodramatic psychotherapy should only be conducted by a credentialed mental health professional. Still, psychodrama has many nonclinical applications that easily include role reversals and can include simple reenactment of the client’s experiences.”[1] Furthermore, “[p]sychodrama is an action method during which participants show a group what happened [versus] telling what happened. It is an action method, a method of communication and a role-playing modality. It is the exploration of the truth through dramatic action.”[2] Psychodrama allows for the powerful account of one’s story, which in turn connects us on a more human level; as it evokes empathy and sympathy, by allowing one to experience what the other has experienced.
“The trial of a case is telling the jury the client’s story.”[3] However, a lawyer can only tell the parts of a client’s story that the lawyer knows. Traditional methods focus on telling the facts of the story exactly as they have been related to the lawyer.[4] “Psychodrama is a method that enhances empathy by permitting us to experience vividly and discover how these facts were experienced.”[5] Psychodrama allows the lawyer to find the true story, because the true story cannot be told—it must be experienced.[6]
“In a psychodrama, participants dramatize or act out events from their lives as a spontaneous play, typically in a group setting. The main actor, called the protagonist or star, literally acts out the event that the group is exploring.”[7] As the protagonist, the client will control the scene and walk others through an experience. However, other’s who partake have the opportunity to ad-lib the play in the same manner as that person, the protagonist, perceived the event. “A psychodrama is a three-dimensional spontaneous re-enactment presented in the moment with no script or rehearsal. The purpose is to gain insight or understanding of yourself or others, and about events in your life that you can only achieve in action.”[8] “In essence, psychodrama is a method that enables people (the actor, auxiliaries, and audience) to act and feel, to find out, and see things for themselves; it empowers the person who is the subject of the psychodrama (the protagonist), to both show and tell her own story.”[9]
Psychodrama is revolutionizing the way some trial lawyers try cases. It is empowering the attorney and the client to take the jury with them, take them to the scene, and ultimately believe the client’s story. This provides for winning in the courtroom. Some may argue that this form of storytelling violates the Golden Rule, however, “this is not about violating the Golen Rule but a recognition of the universal truths that are part of our lives. Many of us share similar life experiences,” although they may vary slightly—human beings share in the experience of anger, fear, and joy. Psychodrama evokes that which is common to all—raw human emotions, not simply facts.[10]
[1] Dana K. Cole, Psychodrama and the Training of Trial Lawyers: Finding the Story, 21 N. Ill. U.L. Rev. 1, 37–38 (2016), https://www.triallawyerscollege.org/media/1081/2224.pdf.
[2] Psychodrama and Trial Lawyers, 3 Sisters (Mar. 2, 2011) (emphasis omitted), http://www.the3sisters.org/?p=411.
[3] Cole, supra note 1, at 23.
[4] Id.
[5] Id. (citing Adam Blatner, Foundations of Psychodrama: History, Theory, and Practice 6 (3d ed. 1988)).
[6] Id.
[7] 3 Sisters, supra note 2.
[8] 3 Sisters, supra note 2.
[9] Id.
[10] 3 Sisters, Psychodrama and the Power of Story, (Feb. 3, 2011), https://ljgc.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/psychodrama-and-the-power-of-story/#_ftnref.