Every day, as people in Washington, D.C., go about their lives, the FBI, CIA, Capitol Police, Secret Service and U.S. Marshals Service stage covert dramas in and around the capital where they train. Officials say the scenarios help agents and officers integrate the intellectual, physical and emotional aspects of classroom instruction. Most exercises are performed inside restricted compounds. But they also unfold in public parks, suburban golf clubs and downtown transit stations.
Psychodrama assists in the training of these officers and agents, and Barry Spodak, LICSW, TEP, discusses the schizophrenic, bipolar and paranoid characters that he created to help law enforcement agents assess threats on the lives of presidents, Supreme Court justices and other VIPS in The Washington Post article Threat Theater: For The Actors, It's A Living. For The Officers, It's A Test Of Nerve. Also available, a video.
