Rethinking Rehearsals for Growth:
Beyond Theater Games and Warm-Up
Jun Heon Park, M.D.
May, 2025
1. A Common Misunderstanding
Rehearsals for Growth (RfG) is often misunderstood- especially by those familiar with psychodrama- as a therapeutic method that simply borrows theater games for emotional warm-up. This perception reduces RfG to a playful adjunct rather than recognizing it as a complete and distinct therapeutic approach in its own right. The erroneous assumption is that, since both psychodrama and RfG use dramatic action, they serve similar functions and differ only in degree or tone. But this is a serious misreading.
RfG is not a warm-up to something else; it is the intervention. The theater games used in RfG are not preparatory devices leading to a main action—they are the main action. Understanding this requires us to step outside the clinical frame and look at a surprisingly helpful analogy: film editing.
2. Cutting Through the Confusion: Two Editing Rationales
To understand RfG’s true function, we must examine how meaning is constructed in visual storytelling—specifically, in the difference between continuous cutting and montage in film.
- Continuous Cut (or continuity editing): This is the dominant style in classical Hollywood cinema, where shots are stitched together seamlessly to create the illusion of unbroken space and time. The viewer feels immersed in a story unfolding naturally and logically. Emotional rhythm builds through smooth transitions and scene development.
- Montage Cut: Pioneered by Soviet filmmakers like Eisenstein, montage editing juxtaposes disconnected, even clashing, images to create a new layer of meaning. The point isn’t to preserve continuity but to interrupt it. Meaning arises not from any one shot, but from the collision between shots. Eisenstein called this the “montage of attractions”- deliberate aesthetic disruption to spark reflection, emotion, or insight (Nemchenko, 2018).
As Nemchenko (2018) writes, “The montage principle means that elements are first shown as discrete and then are assembled to create a composite whole” (p. 114). Montage creates meaning through composition, contrast, and rhythmic punctuation- not through flow.
3. Psychodrama as Continuous Cut, RfG as Montage
If we apply this framework to therapeutic action methods, we can see a compelling parallel:
- Psychodrama mirrors the logic of continuous cutting—not necessarily in terms of temporal or spatial continuity, but in terms of emotional coherence. While scenes in psychodrama may be fragmented in time and space, the emotional trajectory they construct remains remarkably coherent. It is this affective continuity—rather than chronological flow—that enables both the protagonist and the audience to become immersed in the unfolding drama. In this sense, psychodrama sustains the rhythm of continuous cutting by guiding catharsis, insight, and integration through a seamless emotional flow (Park, 2023).
- RfG, in contrast, follows a montage logic. The games used in RfG are not sequential steps in a narrative but function more like cuts—discrete and purposefully inserted interventions that interrupt, contrast, or reframe the surrounding therapeutic discourse. As Marie-Laure Ryan (2001) explains, games are characterized by “a voluntary acceptance of rules that prohibit more efficient ways of reaching a goal.” This self-imposed constraint sets games apart from ordinary life and establishes a distinct frame of engagement. In therapeutic terms, this means that RfG games intentionally suspend the flow of everyday logic and instead introduce structured discontinuity, similar to how montage disrupts cinematic realism. Each game constitutes a momentary detour from the session’s conversational continuity, allowing clients to step outside habitual roles and interaction patterns. Rather than advancing a therapeutic narrative, these interventions create emotional or relational dissonance that invites new awareness. The power of RfG lies not in extending an arc of insight, but in breaking into it, allowing meaning to emerge through interruption rather than resolution.
4. Montage as a Tool for Meaning Creation
The power of montage lies in its ability to generate meaning not from within a scene, but from the relationship between scenes. As Eisenstein argued, montage is not merely a technical device but an expressive language- a way to speak emotionally and ideologically through contrast.
This has profound implications in therapy. RfG enactments, like montage sequences, do not derive their significance from realism or linear development. Instead, their impact comes from dissonance, re-contextualization, and symbolic juxtaposition. What seems random, playful, or even disjointed in the moment may retroactively reveal a deep emotional or interpersonal pattern- because it breaks expectation (Nemchenko, 2018, pp. 117–118).
RfG thus invites clients and therapists alike into a logic of creative discontinuity. And, like montage, it demands both courage and precision.
5. The Art of Timing: Finding the Cut
In montage editing, timing is everything. A cut made too early or too late ruins the impact. The same is true in RfG. Knowing when to insert a game—and for how long—is what determines its effectiveness.
Wiener (2020) emphasizes that RfG therapy depends on “alternation between Adventure Mind and Survival Mind functioning” (p. 1). That alternation—between spontaneous enactment and reflective processing—is only therapeutic if it is timed correctly. A poorly placed game can fall flat or feel irrelevant. A well-timed one can shift the emotional gravity of an entire session.
So how do we identify the “cut point”?
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Watch for narrative stalling: When clients begin looping, abstracting, or losing vitality in speech, a dramatic intervention can restart energy.
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Sense emotional constriction: If affect becomes rigid, avoidant, or overly verbalized, a game may offer a new entry point.
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Track rhythm, not just content: As in film editing, therapists must feel the pacing of the session—the balance between tension and release—and cut at the “blink of an eye” where a shift feels natural but surprising.
Just as Pearlman (2012) describes in Cutting Rhythms, effective montage relies on “trajectory phrasing”—a careful orchestration of flow and interruption. In therapy, this translates to rhythmic sensitivity: knowing not just what to insert, but when, how abruptly, and for how long.
6. Conclusion
RfG is not “like psychodrama but lighter” or “just a warm-up with games.” It is a therapeutic structure grounded in the logic of montage: episodic, discontinuous, and transformative through contrast. It challenges clients not by deepening a narrative, but by re-cutting it. And like montage in film, its power lies in timing, rhythm, and juxtaposition—not in continuity.
To understand RfG is to grasp that sometimes, insight doesn’t arise from flow, but from fracture. The healing moment is not the climax of a story—it’s the cut that reframes everything.
*Note: This manuscript was translated with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI), an AI language model used to support clarity and consistency in the English version.
