This study aimed to investigate the group process and effects of a Chinese indigenous psychodramatic model titled, "Seeing from The Scenes; Seeing from The Person". This model was invented to address and resolve relational issues within families arising from the Western-Chinese bi-cultural phenomena/conflicts in contemporary Chinese societies. The bi-cultural phenomena refer to clients ‘struggles between pursuing individual independence and autonomy (modernity) and maintaining relational harmony (traditionality), resulting in their attempts to seek counseling and psychotherapy. Meanwhile, the bi-cultural conflicts emerge in the counseling process from clients' contradictory needs for self-disclosure and self-affirmation (individualismoriented) and simultaneously to save face for selves and others (collectivism-oriented). Inspired by the "cannon of creativity" in psychodramatic theory, researchers developed a ten-step working model based on psychodrama's unique perspectives on time and space. The ten steps include theme choosing and scene setting, identifying the critical object in the scene (OIS), interviewing the protagonist who reversed to the OIS, having the OIS empower the protagonist, repetitive role reversals between the protagonist and the opposite party in the troubled relationship, concretizing the sociocultural messages, mirror, enacting new strategies, consolidating the corrective experiences, imprinting the new experiences in mind through pictures or mental images. The model was implemented in nine psychodramatic groups themed around family issues. Participants were recruited from
faculty members and graduate students at four academic institutes across Taipei, central China, southwest China, and north China. An expert-researcher group was formed and consisted of the director of psychodrama, the observers, and the researcher teams to identify critical interventions and turning points of each psychodrama session in order to construct preliminary group process notes using analytical procedures based on task analysis. Two semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with each protagonist first to collect their experiences during the psychodrama process, and second to understand the perceived effects of the working model on family relationships one month afterward. Two-way thematic analysis was conducted with the group process notes and interview transcripts, which then revealed four themes on therapeutic process and three themes on the therapeutic outcomes in terms of bi-cultural conflict resolutions. The study found four therapeutic mechanisms emerging from the group process: (1) the OIS facilitated self-disclosure and emotional catharsis in a face-saving way; (2) the OIS contains and empowers the protagonists while protecting their faces/public-images; (3) the OIS offered a panoramic view to the systemic contexts protagonists were embedded in; (4) the OIS served as a concrete reminder that carried the corrective experiences from therapy to real lives. As for the therapeutic effects, the study revealed three respects of transformations perceived by the protagonists in relation to their family relationships: (1) the protagonists gained awareness of the impacts of the Chinese sociocultural forces impinged on their familial relationships; (2) the protagonists accepted that the specified family members were shaped and restricted by their socio-historical and cultural contexts and thereby took initiatives to change the interactive patterns; (3) the protagonists understood the distinctive conditions/contexts that gave rise to the current relational difficulties and became able to create new possibilities in their other relationships. Based on the research findings, the current study suggested Chinese psychodramatists incorporate the "development-contextual perspective" into the "cannon of creativity" to developed a more comprehensive, systemic model for case conceptualization, assessments and interventions formation which involves the client's person, relationships, and environment. Meanwhile, the current model served as a therapeutic tool to warm-up the spontaneity and creativity within the protagonists so that they can generate deeper understandings regarding familial relationships and develop adaptive strategies in resolving interpersonal conflicts resulted from the Chinese-Western cultural/value clash/confrontation.