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This is the first of three volumes which Moreno, the founder of psychodrama, has presented to demonstrate the technique and value of this procedure. The volumes will contain papers previously printed in English and in German, certain unpublished papers, protocols, and documents demonstrating the development of psychodrama from 1910 to 1945. This volume begins with a most interesting history of psychodrama and then follows with a discussion of the therapeutic theater. The next section deals with creativity and this is followed by a discussion on spontaneity. Role theory and role practice are next discussed and finally a very comprehensive discussion of psychodrama itself appears. Psychomusic and sociodrama are next discussed and finally a bibliography is presented.
There is no doubt but that this volume represents the only available authentic study of this technique and as such will prove of profound interest to all individuals working in the field of psychology and psychiatry. It is unfortunate that the author, who has been primarily concerned with this technique, should have been so completely carried away as to feel that this represents the primary method of therapy of value in mental disorder. There is no doubt that psychodrama, properly employed, is a most useful tool, diagnostically and therapeutically. On the other hand, it is hard to see how it can eventually replace other equally useful tools in their particular spheres of employment.
Perhaps it requires such an attitude for an individual to develop a new technique. Undoubtedly a person must devote his major thought component entirely to a new technique if he is to successfully develop it in the face of opposition. Such development, however, usually leads to narrowing of the total field of vision and the developer usually fails to recognize methods which are of equal value to his own. One might say that in order to develop a new method one must devote his entire life process to it and as such become its prophe