The book The Extended Mind on Stage offers an interdisciplinary philosophical and psychological analysis of psychodrama as a practice that can be conceptualized as a form of extended mind and embodied
cognition. The author develops an original thesis according to which the psychodramatic stage functions not merely as a therapeutic tool, but as an external cognitive resource actively involved in processes of
memory, identity, and self-understanding.
The study draws on contemporary debates in the philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and epistemology—most notably the theories of the extended mind, embodied cognition, distributed cognition, and shared agency—and places them in dialogue with psychodrama as a method for working with trauma, autobiographical memory, and personal identity. Particular attention is paid to the role of the body, kinesthetic memory, spatial organization, and embodied action in processes of remembering and experiential reconstruction.
The book argues that the psychodramatic stage can meet the core criteria for inclusion within an extended cognitive system and that, through bodily enactment, spatial arrangement, and social interaction, it contributes to the extension of the mind and of personal identity beyond the boundaries of the individual organism. In this sense, psychodrama is presented as a concrete example of embodied, extended, and distributed cognition within a therapeutic context.
This work is addressed to philosophers, psychologists, psychotherapists, psychodrama practitioners, and scholars in cognitive science and the humanities, as well as to all readers interested in innovative approaches to understanding the mind, the body, and personal identity.