THE CONCEPT OF THE HERE AND NOW, RIC ET NUNC SMALL GROUPS AND THEIR RELATION TO ACTION RESEARCH

Abstract

Because of the great importance which the concept of the Here and Now has assumed in psychiatry as well as in the social sciences in the last fifty years, a few quotations and some of my early definitions are given here in chronological order.

From "Mental Catharsis and the Psychodrama," Sociometry, Vol. III, 1940, p. 209-210. "The most important concept in all human thought, the concept of the moment-the moment of being, living and creating-has been the stepchild of all universally known philosophical and therapeutic systems. The reasons for this are that the moment is difficult to define; that it has appeared to most philosophers as but a fleeting transition between past and future, without real substance; that it is intangible and unstable and therefore an unsatisfactory basis for a system of theoretical and practical philosophy.