What is Psychodrama?

Psychodrama therapists believe in the idea of spontaneously creative human beings. Mental disorders are understood as blockages or deficits in the patients’ inner creativity. Psychodrama originated from Moreno’s experience at the Impromptu Theatre in Vienna in 1921. A gentle, beautiful actress who today can be believed to have suffered from a borderline organization had unexpectedly developed uncontrollable anger outbursts in her new marriage. Moreno then had the actress enact the roles of street girls and witches in the Impromptu Theatre. As a result, the actress gained ego control over her anger outbursts in her marriage in everyday life. Her outbursts became less frequent and shorter, and sometimes she would laugh even before having her anger outburst. On the basis of this experience, Moreno developed a causal psychotherapy of psychoses from 1936 onwards (Moreno 1939). Later, he also developed therapy for people with neurosis (Moreno 1945b). According to Moreno (1979, p. 77), the playful transition through the absurdity of neurotic or psychotic patterns helps patients to experience the “true second time, which liberates from the first”. Moreno was so fascinated that he had it written on his tombstone in Vienna: “Here lies the one who brought laughter to psychiatry.”