The Love and Marriage of Psychodrama and Drama Therapy

Abstract

Psychodrama sprung directly from the head of Viennese psychiatrist and visionary, J. L. Moreno, in the early 1920s. But it wasn't entirely a virgin birth. It was the lovechild of Moreno's dalliances with theatre and medicine, religion, psychology, and sociology. In the early 1940s, psychodrama developed further as Moreno partnered with Zerka Toeman, who arrived in the United States from Holland to admit her sister to Moreno's Beacon, New York, psychiatric facility. They married in 1949 and nurtured their beloved child on the principles of creativity and spontaneity, settling in the gentle town of Beacon. Over time, the growing child, psychodrama, migrated back to Europe and beyond, taking root in many diverse cultures. Eventually, in 1950, psychodrama arrived in Turkey when Moreno lectured to Istanbul University's Medical Faculty at the Department of Psychiatry. One young psychiatrist, Dr. Abdülkadir Özbek, was in attendance, fell in love with the beautiful being, no...