Sanford Meisner, Improvisation, and the Art of Psychoanalysis

This paper challenges the strictures in psychoanalysis that seem to decry creativity. Sanford Meisner, a renowned theater teacher, trained actors to perform the same script night after night with an unpredictable sense of freshness. This complex accomplishment was achieved through improvisation. These improvisations relied on imagination and creativity. Meisner’s approach afforded intense, affective engagement between two or more actors. The script created the context for interaction, while improvisation created the affective engagement that was unpredictably different with each performance. The case of Roberto demonstrates how Meisner improvisations afforded a creative entry into Roberto’s feelings of detached isolation. Through these improvisations, impasses in the treatment were transformed. New dimensions in the analyst/patient connection unfolded, and new understanding of the source of the patient’s protracted, detached, isolated, depressed states emerged. Roberto’s discovering new-found satisfaction not only with his analyst but in all relationships supports the value of improvisation as a creative contribution to psychoanalysis.