Jacob Levy Moreno (1889  - 1974)

Born in Romania in 1889, J L Moreno gave birth to psychodrama. He was one of those extraordinary people who planted conceptual seeds, explored social structures, produced interaction, pioneered methodologies, thought carefully, created and tested concepts by living his life fully, and wrote of his discoveries. He identified the social atom at the time Rutherford was exploring the scientific atom. As a medical student in Vienna (1909 – 1917) he produced the theatre of spontaneity in response to observing children at play; he worked to build relationships amongst refugees ensuring their capacity to live life after social network devastation. His concern for isolates created uniting and inspiring forces with the development of sociometry. His unshakable belief in the creative genius in every person gave birth to psychodrama. He was a central participant in developing group psychotherapy, and worked steadfastly and passionately to create a society where everyone has a productive place.

Moreno’s great contribution in working with people who had reached an impasse in some area of life, was to shift them from being ‘reporters’ of events to ‘actors’. He greatly valued ‘display’. He knew there were discrepancies between the verbal representation and the actual action and he wanted to reduce this. Display includes action and interaction, the expression of the body, and the dimensions of past, present, future and space. (Zerka Moreno, ‘Psychodrama, Role Theory and the Concept of the Social Atom’ JGPPS Vol 42, No 3.)  Moreno knew people have ‘incomplete perceptions of themselves and others, as well as perceptions which are lacking, weak, distorted or pathological, and especially one-sided and subjective. Where perceptions are clear and mutually confirmed, positive tele is at work’. (Z Moreno, ibid).

An avid researcher and experimenter, Moreno’s seminal work with a New York training school for delinquent girls provides us some insight to the power of his work.  Bought in to stem the frequent tide of runaways, Moreno asks girls to choose “whom do you want to sit with in the dining room”. The seating arrangements were enacted from the choices the girls made. Absconding dramatically reduced.  Moreno’s thesis that this positive mutuality was tele, a significant flow of feeling and is the cement which binds people together in reciprocally satisfying relationships. He set the groundwork for sociometrists with this investigation. Sociometrists are not only an observer/researcher and interviewer; the sociometrist elicits the active co-operation and collaboration of group members. Group members become co-researchers in projects. This early work formed the basis of Moreno’s concepts of the social atom and social networks.