Psychodrama, Surplus Reality and the Art of Healing

Zerka T. Moreno, Leif Dag Blomkvist, Thomas Rutzel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415223201
• eBook ISBN: 9781134694051
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The practice of psychodrama allows participants to create a world for themselves, free of usual rules and constraints. This freedom from all ordinary conventions is what Moreno called 'Surplus Reality', and is one of the most vital, curative and mysterious elements of psychodrama. In this book, Leif Dag Blomkvist and Zerka Moreno explore the depths of this long-neglected concept. In addition, each chapter is prefaced by Leif Dag Blomkvist's explanations and illuminations of the forces and energies - from early religious rituals and festivals to the art of Surrealism - which have influenced psychodrama. Psychodramatists and mental health professionals who wish to take therapy beyond the 'verbal' will find the book valuable reading.

Chapter 1

Time and death

Time only exists in relation to an event that is happening here and now, that has happened in the past or will take place in the future. A moment must pass to become a moment, because the Now is timeless. When I say, ‘Here I am’, this statement is already past and therefore means, ‘There I was’.

In many religions time was experienced as a godhead or its manifestation through a stream of life welling out of it. This stream of life can also be seen as the creative energy of the world. One can find this idea of a godhead being time or not-time itself in most of the ancient religions.

The ancient Greeks, for example, regarded their god of time, Aion. as a vital fluid in living beings, a fluid that continued its existence even after death in the form of a snake. That reminds one of the Ouroborus, the snake that bites its tail. Time was seen as the basic substance of the universe from which fire, air and water arose. Marie-Luise von Franz writes:

Aion, the god of time, is here clearly an image of the dynamic aspect of existence, of what we might call today a principle of psychophysical energy. All opposites – change and duration, even good and evil, life and death – are included in this cosmic principle.

(von Franz 1992: 65)

However, in the Judaeo-Christian tradition God is understood as being outside of time. God created time when s/he created the world. With the creation of the sun and the moon and, consequently, the establishment of day and night, time came into existence. St Augustine, who thought much about time, said, ‘If nobody asks me what time is, I know what it is, but when I have to explain it to someone I do not know.’ The gap between the divine being, God, and the relative insignificance of the creature manifests itself according to St Augustine, particularly in the relation between God’s eternity and the mere temporality of everything created (Augustinus 1955).

How is it that time plays such an important role in our lives? How did it start? In ancient times priests wanted to determine certain days in the course of the year for certain rituals to he held. People achieved this, for example, by stone circles with which they could exactly measure the position of the sun as it constantly changes during the year’s course. Later, smaller sundials were developed for measuring the time of day. The Greeks measured time with a so-called klepshydra (‘water-stealer’). This was a container with a hole near the bottom and marks on its inside. On these marks the level of the water showed the elapsed time. A similar design was that of the sandglass or hourglass. Time was also measured by marks on candles burning down or by the decreasing level of oil in oil lamps. The real change came in the 14th century with the invention of the clock with a mechanical escapement, which was first built in church towers. With these aids time in the form of hours which were now equal in length and objectively measurable permeated into man’s psyche. Thus man’s perception and consciousness of time became of lasting influence.

DAG: Zerka, could you tell me something about the concept of time in psychodrama and its relationship to death?

ZERKA: When we are young, we have a very long future and only a short past. As we go through life, that balance changes. In mid-life, we have a longer past and a shorter future; and, as we age, we have an even longer past and an even shorter future. During this process the experience of time takes on different dimensions. Time seems endless when you are young. But as you age you experience it as going faster and faster.

An example could be a story from my family. My mother’s grandmother, after whom I am named, was the only one in our family who lived to be 90 years old. When they celebrated her 80th birthday my mother was 18. So here you see youth and advancing age. My mother asked: ‘Grandmother – 80 years, is that a very long time?’ because for her it seemed an eternity. And her grandmother answered her: ‘My child, do you see this room? It’s like coming in through the door, going through the room, and going out the other end.’

Chronology plays a very important role for human beings in the experience of time. Time is actually a man-made construct and man invented the clock to measure it. Man is the measure and the measurer of all things. Even the ancients measured time in terms of the sun’s daily movement and the moon’s waning and waxing within the month (a word that derives from the word ‘moon’). But they did not invent the mechanical clock, which is independent from sun or moon cycles, and a great invention.

Animals do not know about time. Their rhythm of life is linked to the sun’s rhythm as it changes throughout the seasons. That is another dimension in the experience of time which may also have been the experience of our prehistoric ancestors.

DAG: In the story about your great-grandmother you mentioned that the course of life is like passing through a room. Where do you go to out the other end?

ZERKA: You reach a third dimension in the experience of time, that of eternity or the timeless. Eternity is related to the Cosmos¹ from whence we came and to which we return, and that is a mystery.

DAG: How important has this concept of man being of cosmic origin been in your directing?

ZERKA: The cosmic experience is a spiritual experience, an experience of ‘there is no time; there is no time limit’.

My way of directing in this sense is: I have to forget about human time and open up or even take away the frontiers. In psychodrama you can weave from past to present to future and back again.

That, of course, leads to surplus reality, a significant concept in psychodrama. It is beyond man’s measure of time. The future is an example of surplus reality and it is also beyond time. Or imagine you look at a picture showing a mountain. What would you say the space in distance is between you and the mountain? This point of view is very fascinating because for me it refers to the philosophical problem of space and time. The distance is immeasurable and, therefore, cosmic.

There is also the problem: To which distance does the question refer? Is it the distance between me and the picture I hold in my hands, or is it the distance I would have to cover to get to this mountain ? And regarding the dimension of time I could ask myself: Is this a picture of a mountain which may even not exist any longer? There is still the picture, but the mountain may have ceased to exist a long time ago.

DAG: Is there a relation between the concept of man-made time and the concept of the cultural conserve?

ZERKA: Time is a conserve. It is a frozen thing. However, in a way it is an end product, just as books are an end product. No man has made time in that sense. God, or whatever you want to name that creative power, made the world and thus time. We divided it up into blocks of time.

To mark an event we have to give an exact time, date, and place. Seen this way time is a frozen moment. In contrast to this the Greek philosopher Heraclitus is reported to have said: ‘Everything flows, nothing subsists.’ And thus time flows. The stages of our life could be compared to a river which is, at the same time, in all places: the well, the rapids, the waterfall, and the mouth of the river. There is only presence, not a shadow of future. We could look upon our life accordingly. We are connected to our childhood, to our mature age, and to our old age. There are no frontiers. It is only we who cut time into little pieces such as minutes, seconds, milliseconds, and so forth.

DAG: What is the Morenian definition of the cultural conserve ?

ZERKA: The cultural conserve as Moreno saw it is the end product of spontaneity and creativity. It is really taking a moment and freezing it in time. And to unfreeze that moment, you go back to the source, which is spontaneity and creativity. So it is both, the end product and the beginning of something new, swinging back and forth like a pendulum.

DAG: ‘Cultural conserve’ is often used by psychodramatists with a negative connotation because it is seen only as something frozen. But you also include the beginning.

ZERKA: Moreno thought it was negative if it prevented new spontaneity and creativity. If it encouraged new spontaneity and creativity, then it became like a well that does not dry up. However, if it prevents spontaneity and creativity, then it is negative and you become blocked. The spontaneity factor makes it possible to experience cultural conserves differently. Moreno gave the following example: you leave your house every morning at the same time to go to your job and, as every morning, you meet the postman. Can you muster enough spontaneity to experience this as a new moment every day? It’s very difficult. In Germany you say: Der mensch ist ein gewohnheitstier (‘Man is a creature of habit’). Gewohnheit or ‘habit’ means ‘a frozen moment’. Can you encounter the postman with words like: ‘Oh, good morning’ and ‘How are you this morning? Are you all right? How do you feel today?’ as if this had never taken place before? Moreno felt that most of us do not have an enormous, special kind of creativity, like Beethoven or Rembrandt. What is important for us is to have this daily infusion of spontaneity and creativity in order to make life fresh and liveable. Spontaneity and creativity: experiencing newness, novelty, freshness, something in addition to, rather than something the same as what was before.

It was Meister Eckhart, the medieval mystic, who said that the most important moment in your life is the present, the most important person in your life is the one you talk to just now, the most important deed in your life is love. The eternal Now (Eckhart 1963).

Chapter 2

The moment of surprise

Moments of surprise are more common in our daily lives than we may think. There are surprises that are totally unexpected external events that impact us. There is another form of surprise which is more intrapsychic. For instance, one is surprised about the distance between one’s expectation and actuality. In this moment of surprise the perception of reality is blown to pieces. The person suddenly finds him-/herself in a zone of transition where reality gets mixed up with hopes, fears and dreams. Both Moreno and the surrealist philosopher Breton gave this moment of transition much attention.

The Greeks honoured the god Dionysus as the god of surprise and transition. Walter Otto expresses this as follows:

The world man knows, the world in which he has settled himself so securely and snugly, that world is no more. The turbulence which accompanied the arrival of Dionysus has swept it away. Everything has been transformed. But it has not been transformed into a charming fairy tale or into an ingenuous child’s paradise. The primeval world has stepped into the foreground, the depths of reality have been opened, the elemental forms of everything that is creative, everything that is destructive, have arisen, bringing with them infinite rapture and infinite terror. The innocent picture of a well-ordered routine world has been shattered by their coming, and they bring with them no illusions or fantasies but truth – a truth that brings on madness.

(Otto 1981: 95)

In surrealistic philosophy this moment of transition where people lose their ground and relate to images, fears and dreams also confronts them with an encounter with the unknown. Surrealists honoured this moment and regarded it as something very creative. Andre Breton writes:

C’est dans la surprise crée par une nouvelle image ou par une nouvelle association d’images, qu’il faut voir le plus important élément du progrès des sciences physiques, puisque c’est I’étonnement qui excite la logique, toujours assezfroide, et qui I’oblige a etablirde nouvelles coordinations.¹

(Breton 1949)

Moreno thought that human beings are rather ill-prepared and ill-equipped to face the moments of surprise, which may be so because spontaneity is far less respected than memory and intelligence.

It seems that all three, the Mythologist, the surrealist and the Morenian consider the moment of surprise as a moment of transition in which one needs the role of the Creator.

DAG: Moreno implied that we do not take surprises very well. When we are children, surprises are something encouraging, challenging and delightful. But when we get older that attitude changes or vanishes and a rather fearful attitude towards surprises takes place. One may say that the ego then is more likely to cling to the well-known. What do surprises mean for people?

ZERKA: There are two opposing ways of encountering surprises: one is anxiety, and the other joy. There are surprises that challenge people in such a way that they are not sure how to handle them and they become insecure. That is where spontaneity must come in. Flowing with their spontaneity and creativity can fill that moment and reduce the anxiety. Remember that spontaneity and anxiety are functions of one another: when spontaneity increases, anxiety goes down, and vice versa. That is the first aspect. The other is joy.

The word ‘spontaneity’ comes from the Latin sua sponte which means from within the self, of one’s own accord. It should not be understood as impulsive behaviour; rather the opposite. Spontaneity involves tele² and reflection and it also gives the person a feeling that s/he is free to act according to the situation. S/he is not encountering the situation with anxiety but with the feeling of being capable of mastering it. The moment of surprise can lead to a transition from one state to another. However, very often the first response is shock. And if you do not master spontaneity to overcome the shock, you are stuck. So the first response usually is: ‘My God, how did this happen; what do I do now?’ Then spontaneity can arise, transition can take place. One door closes, another one opens. But, you will find that many people get stuck behind the closed door. We treat, for example, people with divorce problems. Those involved are often fixated in a long frozen moment. In psychodrama we bring them back to develop their own spontaneity. Thus they are enabled to master the situation. But there is also a chance for transition if spontaneity is equal to the challenge.

DAG: When patients are faced with such surprises as sudden death in the family, loss of their job, divorce, etc., many psychodrama directors tend to look for an explanation as a healing...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Psychodrama, Surplus Reality and the Art of Healing
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• An early history of psychodrama
• Introduction
• 1 Time and death
• 2 The moment of surprise
• 3 Ecstasy and role reversal
• 4 Surplus reality
• 5 Clinical applications: the use of humour and magic objects
• 6 The surreal experience
• 7 Psychodrama and the deliberately distorted mirror technique
• 8 Psychodrama as healing theatre
• 9 Psychodrama as tragedy
• 10 Diagnosis in psychodrama
• 11 Sharing in psychodrama
• 12 The creation of the double
• 13 Projection and the participation mystique in psychodrama
• 14 Group psychotherapy and the individual
• 15 The protagonist
• 16 Sociometry
• 17 The Tragic Self
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index