A PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION OF THE PSYCHODRAMATIC EXPERIENCE OF SPONTANEITY

Abstract

The study of the spontaneous moment is both challenging and a difficult one. The investigator, by his very intent, runs the risk of making that moment a conserve. Therefore, the method of phenomenology (Husserl, 1912); (Giorgi, 1970) with its emphasis on the here-and-now, and the subjectiveness of experience was felt to be most appropriate, and therefore was used to gather the result of this study. At the heart of this phenomenological approach is its emphasis on experience and meaning. This method holds that it is only within the context of one's experience as-it-is lived that behavior can be fully intelligible to us. As phenomenologists, one seeks to systematically understand lived experience. One is interested in articulating one's feelings, meanings, ideas and intentions as they are
lived, the "stuff of experience" (Keen, 1975). These phenomena cannot be quantified without considerable distortion. As Giorgi (Duquesne studies, p.101) states, "most scientific research looks for a method of measuring a phenomenon and then tries to assess the meaning of the measurement." In our approach, the meaning is the measurement. The lived experience of our participants (their feelings, intentions, etc.) and how this experience is structured is, in an important sense, the meaning of the events we wish to investigate. Phenomenology's task is to make clear those ideas and assumptions upon which we behave and experience life. Lived experience is our guide in understanding people.