Chapter 11: Two Partners in Travel

Abstract

ON LABOR DAY WEEKEND of 1941, Zerka and I made the first of many trips together. I was invited to Washington, D.C., to take part in the annual meeting of the American Association for Occupational Therapy. I was to make a speech and give several demonstrations upon the joint invitation of the association and of Dr. Winfred Overholser, Superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital. Dr. William Alanson White had been superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital before Dr. Overholser. Just before White's death, he asked that a theater of psychodrama be built at St. Elizabeths. Margaret Hagan, Director of Social Services with the Red Cross, supervised the building of the theater. Frances Herriott was the first director of psychodrama there. She and Miss Hagan began to use the theater at the beginning of the Second World War to train Red Cross workers, using psychodramatic methods, so that their service in military hospitals would
be more sensitive and helpful to the patients.