Rory Fleming Richardson, Ph.D., ABMP, TEP Board Certified Trainer/Educator/Practitioner by the American Board of Examiners in Psychodrama, Sociometry & Group Psychotherapy (1975)

Jacob Levy Moreno, M.D. was born in Bucharest,

Rumania. His birth name was Moreno Nisslam Levy and he was the son of Nissim Levy and Pauline Wolf.

In 1894 at age two, his family moved to Vienna. As a child, Moreno would play as a child with himself playing the role of God and the other children playing the angels and others.

In 1912, he began his studies in Medicine at the University of Vienna. During that time, he had an encounter with Freud. It ended with Moreno telling Freud, “You teach people to analyze their dreams; I teach people to dream again.”

The

Encounter

This poem is both the spiritual foundation of role reversal, and the philosophical basis of Moreno's existentialist view of life. It reflects his deep belief importance of the connective, reciprocal meetings between people who take the roles of one another.

In 1914, Role Reversal was described by Moreno in his poem on Encounter (Carlson-Sabelli, 1989):

A meeting of two:

eye to eye, face to face

And when you are near

I will tear your eyes out and place

them instead of mine

And you will tear my eyes out and

place them instead of yours

Then I will look at you with your

eyes and you will look at me with

mine.

As a medical student, he found himself inquiring as to why a woman had been arrested for her manner of dress. She explained that she was dressed to attract customers (a prostitute). He began providing medical care to these women and this let to group psychotherapy sessions where common issues and problems could be addressed.

During this same time, JL would work with children using storytelling and drama in the Ausgartens.

Between the 1914 and 1918 (World War I), Moreno heard God speak to him, and according to the story, he wrote down what God said on the walls of the house where he was living. These words became the book known as the the Words of the Father.

Beginning in 1921, Moreno experimented with the use of dramatic methods in treating groups of individuals in what is know as "Komendian Haus" experiment. This led to the founding of Das Stegreiftheater or The Spontaneity Theater. In 1924, he published Das Stegreiftheater.

In 1925, Moreno moved to the United States of America settling in New York. He also took his patented invention, electro-magnetic recording disk ,which led to the idea of psycho-recording. He then established his office in New York practicing psychiatry. Moreno also began to provide therapy for children using psychodrama at the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn.

In 1929, Moreno organized an Impromptu Theater at Carnegie Hall which met three times weekly and employed psychodrama and group psychotherapy.

In 1931, he carried out a series of studies at Sing Sing prison in New York on sociometry and used the term "group psychotherapy" for the first time publicly at the 1932 American Psychiatric Association meeting in Philadelphia.

Also in 1925, Moreno demonstrated psychodrama at Mount Sinai Hospital, Department of Pediatrics.

Between 1933 and 1938, Moreno, along with Helen H. Jennings who was co-investigator) carried out a long-term sociometric study at the New York State Training School for Girls at Hudson, NY. As a result, approximately 100 "sociograms" illustrating the social structure of the School's population were created and displayed at the NY State Medical Society meeting.

During the early 1930s, Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) met with Moreno in Hyde Park and discussed Moreno’s ideas relating to sociometry and social problems. After FDR was elected president in 1932, one of the concerns was the issues of social control/management of people. The Resettlement Administration was one of his New Deal programs. The Centerville Project was selected to examine. Moreno’s methods were used and after 6 months, reassignment of houses occurred because in Moreno’s population management plan, “sociometric principles dictated (certain) sacrifices for the benefit of the whole structure” (SOCIOMETRY, July-October 1937).

In 1934, '' Who Shall Survive? A new Approach to the Problem of Human Interrelations," by J.L. Moreno was published. This book examined the dimensions of community organization, including home and industrial relations. Moreno developed the concepts of social microscopy (microsociology), dynamic sociometry, sociodynamics and role playing.

Between 1935 and 1936, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Department of Interior sponsored sociometric research examining subsistence homesteads.

During the meeting of the American Psychiatric Association at Washington DC, the therapeutic film “Spontaneity Training” was shown.

In 1936, the Sociometric Review was published, containing among other articles, Dr. Winifred Richmond's sociometric research at St. Elizabeths Hospital, Washington, D.C.

In 1936, Moreno opened his own sanatorium and started the First Theatre of Psychodrama in Beacon, New York. Eventually, this became the Moreno Institute training psychodramatists worldwide.

Recognized Post-Graduate Program in Psychotherapy in Beacon, New York

• 1600 hours of training over a two years period at the Institute

• Practicum work between training sessions

• Accepted thesis project relating to psychodrama, sociometry & group psychotherapy

In addition to being a world center for training, the experience also provide every psychodramatist with the experience of living within a therapeutic community housed at the Institute.

The

Psychodramatic

Family

Moreno had been married three times with the last in 1947 to Zerka Toeman, who became his helper and one of the greatest trainers in psychodrama. They had a son, Jonathan, who was to become a noted Bioethicist, Writer and Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Empty Chair Technique

I remember a joke that we had at the Institute.

Old

psychodramatist

never die. They

just turn into

empty chairs.

Unfortunately, some people did not understand this technique when Clint Eastwood used it on stage at 2012 Republican National Convention.

The Moreno Problem: As psychotherapy evolved, many of the techniques originally used by Moreno were integrated with the origins back to Moreno being omitted.

• Role-playing • Empty Chair • Soliloquy • Play Therapy • Living Theater • Drama Therapy

Sometimes things are lost in translation.

When I was in training at the Moreno Institute in Beacon in the 1970’s, I remember psychodrama being described as being like surgery. The psychodramatist’s responsibility is that you do not let the patient walk out without being stitched up and with their guts still hanging out. The traditionally trained psychodramatists know this. Proper closure is important.

American Board of Examiners in Psychodrama, Sociometry & Group Psychotherapy

P.O. Box 15572 - Washington, DC 20003 202-483-0514

abe@psychodramacertification.org

Dedicated to J.L. Moreno, Zerka Moreno & the many excellent psychodramatists I have trained with and known.

Rory Fleming Richardson, Ph.D., ABMP, TEP

Thank you!.