JL Moreno, Founder of Psychodrama

Jacob Levy Moreno (born Iacob Levy, Bucharest, Romania, May 18, 1889; died New York, USA, May 14, 1974) was a Jewish Romanian-born Austrian-American leading psychiatrist and psychosociologist, thinker and educator, the founder of psychodrama, and the foremost pioneer of group psychotherapy. During his lifetime, he was recognized as one of the leading social scientists.

 

JL Moreno, Founder of Psychodrama

Psychotherapy in various forms and under various names has existed for many years. The term “mental therapeutics” was used in 1876 in a paper published in the American Journal of Insanity (now the American Journal of Psychiatry). An original form of psychotherapy, psychodrama was introduced in the 1920s and was accepted by the psychiatric community.

Jacob Levy Moreno, MD, the originator of psychodrama, was born in Romania in 1892 and grew up in Vienna. In 1917 he received his medical degree from the University of Vienna, where his education included experience in the psychiatry clinic. He then became a health officer and set up a general practice in a suburb of Vienna. He came to the United States in 1925 and settled in New York.

For some years in Vienna, Moreno had experience with storytelling in children's groups, followed by having the children act out the stories. He later used this method with adults, founding a theater named Das Stregreif in 1921 in which actors and audiences acted out real and imagined stories.

Moreno entered psychodrama through the practice of sociometry, an observational charting of how people interact in groups. This practice furnished objective evidence of interpersonal and intergroup relations. He lectured and exhibited at psychiatric meetings and founded and edited a journal, titled Sociometry (which was later taken over by a sociological association).

In time, he elaborated his psychodrama approach to group psychotherapy. In 1931 he published The First Book on Group Psychotherapy, noting in it that “ it was the first time that the terms group-therapy and group-psychotherapy were put into circulation and studied within the framework of empirical science.”

Moreno expanded his theory of psychodrama into a psychotherapy that was accepted by psychiatric leaders such as William H. White, MD, Adolph Meyer, MD, Smith Ely Jeliffe, MD, and others.

Important in Moreno's theories were the concepts of role taking, spontaneity, creativity, tele (empathy), and catharsis. In the process of acting out conflicts and problems in interpersonal relations, the actors gained insight and were helped by the group process to remedy problem behavior patterns and improve coping skills.

Moreno was critical of psychoanalysis as a therapeutic technique, though he related free association to spontaneous acting out. He had met Freud at a lecture in Vienna and always expressed his admiration for him as a scientist but deprecated the analytic method as a therapy as being passive and one sided and having a limited ability to help people.

At APA's annual meeting in 1931, Moreno was asked at the last moment to discuss a paper by AA Brill, MD, a leading psychoanalyst of the day. Brill's paper was titled “Abraham Lincoln as a Humorist,” wherein he concluded that Lincoln had a “schizoid-manic” personality. Moreno tore apart Brill's paper as being based on unproven and unsubstantiated conclusions. (Brill never forgave Moreno.)

Moreno was a prodigious author of books and papers, and his prose and poetry are easy to read. He was a flamboyant and colorful figure. After his death in 1974, psychodrama as a therapeutic technique appeared to have receded, but group therapy flourishes in many forms.

Psychodrama is effective because it emphasizes engagement through active role play and dramatic dialogue as the major factors which lead to transformational change. Throughout this paper four main psychotherapeutic techniques are reviewed which define psychodrama. They include the following: promoting dynamic group interaction, compelling experiential participation in subjective phenomena, providing opportunities for catharsis, and facilitating basic psychotherapeutic techniques. Each approach is considered, in turn.

If the future of mankind can be 'planned,' then conscious evolution through training of spontaneity opens a new vista for the development of the human race (JL Moreno).

Toward the end of his first published book, Who Shall Survive?, Jacob L. Moreno described his hope for humanity -- the transformation of human consciousness through the integration of creative play, spontaneity, and psychological theory. Psychodrama is the tool that Moreno developed as a method to facilitate this transformation. It is an action-oriented method of psychotherapy which incorporates the mind, body, and spirit in active role play. Psychodrama is also experiential, as deeply held perceptions, patterns, and beliefs are expressed, bringing the unconscious into consciousness. It is a mode of psychotherapy in which active role play facilitates therapeutic change.

A pioneer in group therapy, Moreno suggested that when an individual acts out particular roles or incidents within a group, he or she will explore unconscious patterns, uncomfortable emotions, deep conflicts, and meaningful life themes in the safety of the therapeutic group. Internal patterns and conflicts are made external. People actually experience struggles as opposed to simply talking about them in a detached manner. As a result, one will be able to gain new awareness and insight. This awareness allows for increased clarity in seeing the alternatives for changing life patterns.

Psychodrama is essentially an existential encounter between a group of people. By employing a social network to facilitate deep change, Moreno invited people to live out the Golden Rule -- reversing roles and imagining what it may be like to be the other person, promoting empathy, compassion, and self-reflection.

Furthermore, psychodrama is unique in its attempts to go beyond the linear methods of talk therapy to promote deep self-awareness and integration. Moreno's methodology is a growth model emphasizing individual responsibility and the creating of one's destiny. Unique to psychodrama is the use of primarily role play in therapy to promote joy, enthusiasm, excitement, playfulness, vitality, deep feelings, sharing, and the integration of these emotions with the greater spiritual self.

This paper considers the theoretical underpinnings of Moreno's psychodrama as a school of thought and as a method of psychotherapy. Psychodrama is best understood as a modality integrating aspects of existential therapy, Gestalt therapy, transactional analysis and Jungian analytical psychology as a holistic form of multimodal psychotherapy. Indeed, psychodrama is a synthesis of many innovative forms of therapy from the last 50 years.

Defining psychodrama

As mentioned, psychodrama is a technique for expressing difficult emotions and facing deep conflicts by having group participants enact significant life events. It is a method to externally express the internal psyche and work with a person's representation of the past, present, and future in the current moment. For this reason Moreno defined psychodrama as "the science which explores 'the truth' by dramatic methods". Moreno emphasized that the main goal of psychodrama was to help clients discover their inner truth, express repressed emotions, and create authentic relationships with others.

The basic mechanics of psychodrama involve group participants assuming specific roles. The protagonist in the group is the person who represents the themes of the group drama. His or her experience is the primary one represented. Auxiliary egos are represented by group members who assume the roles of significant others in the protagonist's drama. Moreno labeled the audience those group members who witness the drama and represent the world at large. The stage is considered the physical space in which the drama is conducted, while the director is the trained psychodramatist who guides participants through each phase of the session.

After all phases of the enactment are complete group members share their individual experiences. Generally this involves participants revealing the subjective experience of playing their role -- relating feelings, experiences, awareness in the moment, and thoughts regarding their own life.