From Bedlam to Bioethics: Where Did My Psychodramatic Childhood Lead Me?

CMAJ Humanities

Profile From bedlam to bioethics: Where did my psychodramatic childhood lead me?

A meeting of two: eye to eye, face to face. And when you are near I will tear your eyes out and place them instead of mine, and you will tear my eyes out and will place them instead of yours, then I will look at you with your eyes and you will look at me with mine. — J.L. Moreno, Invitation to an Encounter, 1914

y father was the psychiatrist J.L. Moreno (1889–1974), M the pioneer of psychodrama, group psychotherapy and sociometry, the forerunner of modern social network analysis. I tell the story of his work and influence in my new book, Impromptu Man: J.L. Moreno and the Origins of Psychodrama, Encounter Culture, and the Social Network.1 An early critic of his medical school lecturer Sigmund Freud, who he believed reduced people’s legitimate creative aspirations to neuroses, J.L. began his career in Vienna where he established a reputation as the founder and director of the “Theatre of Sponta- neity,” the site for his discovery of Peter Lorre and Elisabeth Bergner, and as the editor of a literary journal called Der Daimon, which published Heinrich Mann, Martin Buber, Franz Werfel, Peter Altenberg and various other nota- bles. Somehow, he also managed to write a series of influential expression- ist manifestos, serve as a medic in war- time refugee camps, found a home for displaced persons, organize a self-help

group for sex workers, complete medi- Supplied by author cal school, design a new stage for his The author with his father. productions, coinvent an early version of audiotape and practise medicine in a systematic use of role playing to studies at Sing Sing prison, at a state spa town outside of Vienna. He emi- explore and resolve interpersonal con- reform school for girls and at public grated to the United States in 1925. flicts — and from which he engaged in schools in Brooklyn. President Franklin Once in New York, J.L. took about the energetic and relentless promotion Roosevelt recruited him to help with ten years to obtain the support to pur- of his ideas for the next 40 years. In the his Depression-era resettlement pro- chase his Beacon Hill Sanitarium in intervening years, he introduced the gram, and his ideas about role playing 1935, where he put in place his pro- term “group therapy” into the literature and spontaneity were applied to the gram of psychodrama therapy — the and engaged in classic social network training of intelligence operatives dur-

©2015 8872147 Canada Inc. or its licensors CMAJ, October 20, 2015, 187(15) 1163 Humanities ing World War II. In the 1930s, he his public psychodrama sessions in he had enjoyed for so long. Social net- became a social science celebrity, well Manhattan attracted members of the work analysis was characterized by known for predicting the outcomes of Actors Studio and young comedians elaborate computations in professional heavyweight title fights for the Associ- like Alan Alda and Woody Allen. As journals rather than applied to institu- ated Press based on his social psycho- interesting and exciting as my career as tional reform. Sometimes he grew logical assessment of the boxers and a professor of bioethics has been, the angry and paranoid, even lashing out at their training camps. Never wrong in sheer uniqueness of my childhood set a those he believed took his ideas piece- his predictions, J.L. was perhaps the high bar for the next two score and ten meal without crediting him. It was a first media “mental expert.” years. J.L. was fascinated and preoccu- personality problem of which he was But for all his charisma, J.L.’s vir- pied with the role of God; in that sense, acutely aware. “There is no controversy tues were his vices. Over the years, his siring a prophet would have been a about my ideas,” he wrote in 1953, self-promotion, eccentric manner, the- very satisfactory result. “they are universally accepted. I am the controversy.”3 Believing that human problems could What I do cherish from my unusual childhood not be solved on an individual basis nor solely in the consulting room or clinic, was the way J.L. embraced even the most J.L. advocated a new discipline. “Socia- disturbed patients in all their humanity. try” would treat human beings in their concrete context, in homes and work- places and in the streets, as previous reli- atrical displays (like his psychodra- Nonetheless, 41 years after my gion and science had initially tried but matic trial of Jack Ruby at the Ameri- father’s death, I can report that I didn’t finally failed to do. It took me some time can Psychiatric Association in 19642) become a prophet and that any emo- after I started working as a hospital ethi- and insistence on his own priority in tional problems I have suffered are well cist to realize how much that notion had the history of psychotherapy and social within one standard deviation of the influenced me, that so much of our mod- science alienated as many as they human norm. My family and close ern concern with ethics is not only a tes- attracted. Yet leading psychiatrists like friends often comment on how “nor- tament to conflicting moral values, but William Alanson White and Karl Men- mal” I seem, everything considered. an expression of existential disorienta- ninger encouraged him, and many men- Does that mean that psychodramatic tion. As Nietzsche had it, “since Coper- tal hospitals introduced psychodrama child rearing is the way to go or that I nicus, man has been rolling from the therapy. His favorite patients were the got lucky and nature prevailed over an center toward X.”4 ones with paranoid delusions. Perhaps unusual nurture? I have no idea. But I wish I could be as confident as J.L. his most famous case was that of a the question has often preoccupied me. was that humankind will finally find a Manhattan butcher during World What I do cherish from my unusual sense of direction. But at least I can say War II who insisted he was the real childhood was the way J.L. embraced that he left me with the idea that we Adolf Hitler. For months, J.L. con- even the most disturbed patients in all could. ducted him in role plays of the Führer’s their humanity. In those days, before inner circle, finally bringing his behav- there were many antipsychotic medica- Jonathan D. Moreno PhD ior under a measure of control. tions and when long-term hospital Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy, University of Pennsylvania, That was nearly 10 years before I admissions were not uncommon, he Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was born in 1952, when my father was identified with the underlying needs that 63 years old. Looking back, I can say all of us have for love and acceptance. References that growing up on the grounds of Several times, senior psychiatrists who 1. Moreno JD. Impromptu man: J.L. Moreno and the J.L.’s small mental hospital, observing saw his psychodrama demonstrations origins of psychodrama, encounter culture, and the social network. New York: Bellevue Literary his innovative approach to psychiatry early in their careers have told me they Press; 2014. and what he called interpersonal rela- have never seen anyone who loved his 2. The Kennedy round. Time Magazine 1964;May 15. 3. Moreno JL. Who shall survive? New York: Beacon tions and coming to know so many patients more than J.L. did. House; 1953:108. visionaries, scientists, scholars and For much of his last decade, J.L. saw 4. Nietzsche F. The will to power [Translated by Kauffman W and Hollingwood RJ]. Walter oddballs who were attracted to him and his ideas cannibalized by popular cul- Kaufmann, editor. New York: Vintage;1968:8. his ideas, made the first 20 years of my ture. Encounter groups and new popular life truly extraordinary. For 25 years, therapies captured the media attention CMAJ 2015. DOI:10.1503/cmaj.141235