PSYCHODRAMA WITH THE HYSTERIC
Keywords:
HYSTERICAbstract
The term hysteria is used in this thesis to denote a person with a particular kind of role configuration in human relations. The term is being used in a different way from much of the psychiatric literature.
In the early period of the development of medicine Hippocrates believed that hysteria was a physical disorder which occurred in women because of the wandering of the uterus (hysterikos). This theory was widely held for over 2000 years.
References
1. "Psychodramatic Shock Therapy-A Sociometric Approach to the Problem of Mental Disorders,'' Sociometry, II, 1 (January, 1939), p. 2 and other publications.
2. J. L. Moreno, "Psychodramatic Treatment of Marriage Problems," Sociometry, III, 1 January, 1940), pp. 1--23.
3. Moreno, "Psychodramatic Shock Therapy," p. 1. In this article, now published as a Beacon House Monograph, tele is defined as follows: ''A feeling process projected into space and time in which one, two, or more persons may participate. It is an experience of some real factor in the other person and not a subjective fiction . . 2
4. Moreno, "Psychodramatic Treatment of Marriage Problems," p. 20. As Moreno states in this article, this was a new term coined in 1940 as a correspondent to the term social atom. "The use here of the word 'atom' can be justified if we consider a cultural atom as the smallest functional unit within a cultural pattern. The adjective 'cultural' can be justified when we consider roles and relationships between roles as the most significant development within any specific culture." p. 20.
5. Moreno, "Sociometry and the Cultural Order," Sociometry, VI, 3 (August, 1943), p 335. In a footnote on page 336 of the same article Moreno writes: 'From the point of view of the actual situation, the distinction between social and cultural atom is artificial. It is pertinent for construction purposes but it loses its significance within a living community. We must visualize the atom as a configuration of interpersonal relationships in which attractions and repulsions existing between its constituent members are integrated with the many role relations which operate between them, Every individual in a social atom has a range of roles, and it is these roles which give to each attraction or repulsion its deeper and more differentiated meaning."
6. Moreno, "Psychodramatic Treatment of Psychoses,'' Sociometry, III, 2 (April, 1940), p. 7.
7. For example, see Moreno's writing about Psychodramatic Treatment of Performance Neurosis in Psychodrama, I (Beacon, New York: Beacon House, Inc., 1972), pp. 285-314 and also printed as Psychodrama Monograph, No. 2.
8. Eugene Eliasoph, "A Group Therapy and Psychodrama Approach with Adolescent Addicts," Group Psychotherapy, VIII, 2 (August, 1955 ), pp. 161-167.
9. Eliasoph, "A Group Therapy and Psychodrama Approach," p. 164.
10. Eliasoph, "Concepts and Techniques of Role Playing and Role Training Utilizing Psychodramatic Methods in Group Therapy with Adolescent Drug Addicts," Group Psychotherapy, VIII, 4 (December, 1955), 308-315.
11. Hannah B. Weiner, "Treating the Alcoholic with Psychodrama," Group Psychotherapy, XVIII, 1-2 (March-June, 1965), 27-49.
12. Charles F. Agler, "Psychodrama with the Criminally Insane," Group Psychotherapy, XIX, 3-4 (Sept.-Dec., 1966), 176-182.
13. Raymond J. Corsini, "Psychodrama with a Psychopath," Group Psychotherapy, XI, 1 (March 1958), 33-39.
14. 'There are many useful discussions of the hysteric in the literature. Two very useful accounts are given in Andras Angyal, Neurosis and Treatment (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1965), and D. Shapiro, Neurotic Styles (New York: Basic Books, 1965 ). In order for such material to be fully usable by the psychodramatist it needs to be translated in terms of the social and cultural atoms.
15. Angyal, Neurosis and Treatment, 149.
16. Donell Miller, in a very useful article that is solidly based on psychodrama tic theory, has discussed the use of some techniques with schizoid person and the depressed patient. See "Psychodramatic Ways of Coping with Potentially Dangerous Situations in Psychotic and Non-Psychotic Populations," Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama, XXV, 1-2 (1972), 57-68.
17. Reflective listening is utilized by Douglas Warner of Hagerstown, Maryland and the technique was demonstrated by him at a Psychodrama Directors' Workshop in July 1973 in the theater at Beacon, N.Y.
18. Angyal in Neurosis and Treatment pp. 135-155 characterizes hysteria as the pattern of vicarious living.
19. A similar kind of thing is discussed by Moreno in relation to the treatment of a psychotic patient. This patient eventually came to develop a very close relation with one of the auxiliaries. See "A Case of Paranoia Treated 'Through Psychodrama," Sociometry, VII, 3 (Aug., 1944), 312-327.
20. For a discussion of role training and spontaneity training see Psychodrama, I, 130-139.
21. Moreno, Psychodrama, I, 137.
22. Allen M. Woolson and Mary G. Swanson, "The Second Time Around: Psychotherapy with the 'Hysterical Woman,' " Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, IX, 2 (Summer, 1972), 168-175.
23. P. Chodoff and H. Lyons, "Hysteria-The Hysterical Personality and Hysterical Conversion," American Journal of Psychiatry, CXIV (1958), 734-740.
24. Woolson and Swanson, "The Second Time Around," 168.
25. Ibid., p. 169.
26. Ibid.
27. Moreno, Psychodrama, I, p. 252.
28. Op. Cit., p. 169.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., p. 171.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
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