Archives of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, 2011; 4 : 29–43 Dramatology vs. narratology: a new synthesis for psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and interpersonal drama therapy (IDT) Henry Zvi Lothane Summary The author proposes a new word and concept, dramatology, to emphasize that lived life is primarily a dra- ma, a communication to self and others, in action, intention, emotion, and spoken word. In lived encoun- ters and events persons as agents primarily dramatize their emotions and experiences and secondarily narrativize these into first person or third person stories or narratives. In real life interactions, and those in the special interpersonal situation of psychotherapy, it is the dramatic form that holds center stage and narrating becomes part of the dramatic action. Interpersonal drama therapy (IDT) focuses on the immediacy of the personal and interpersonal conducts as experienced and expressed in mutually evocative communications, both conscious and unconscious, between patient and therapist. A central technique of IDT, confrontation, is correlated with free associa- tion and transference interpretation, with a view to revealing the meaning of the conscious (manifest) and unconscious (latent) content and intent of the patient’s and therapists communications in the process of psychotherapy. drama / story / dramatology / nonverbal and verbal communication / free association / transference Multa renascuntur, quae iam cecidere; cadentque Quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus, Quem penes arbitrium est et ius et norma loquendi (Horace) Many terms now out of use will revive; and many now in vogue will sink into oblivion if custom will it so, for usage determines laws, rules and principles of language. INTRODUCTION known), i.e., telling stories to a listener, and the dramatic (from the Greek root dran, to act), i.e., The two literary genres used to portray human showing staged and enacted plots to spectators. personal action and interaction, and to commu- Stories are primarily descriptive, are either auto- nicate the latter to another person or persons, biographical (first person accounts) or biograph- are the narrative (from Latin narrare, to make ical (third person accounts). Science also produc- es stories, research reports and case reports. The Henry Zvi Lothane: clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Mount Si- study of narratives, literary or scientific, is called nai School of Medicine, New York city. correspondence address: Henry Lothane 1435 Lexington Avenue New York, NY 10128. narratology, a term coined by Todorov [1] and it E-mail: [email protected] is found in dictionaries. 30 Henry Zvi Lothane Dramatology is a word coined by the author of actions and scenes in the story use words to [2, 3, 4, 5] to complete narratology. Dramatolo- evoke in the reader mental images of the ac- gy is not yet found in the dictionaries. A Google tions and scenes of the plot such that the read- search only yielded the word “dramatological” er becomes a vicarious participant in the narrat- in Wiktionary while dramatology is cited in ar- ed plots through the function of imagination [8]. ticles by the author. Dramatology means engag- Since drama contains no narrative description ing in interpersonal relationships through ac- and is all action and dialogue, it acts directly on tion and dialogue; facial expression and bodily the senses and the emotions of the spectators re- gesture and posture; mien, manner, mood and sulting in an ad hoc emotional bond between ac- music of the voice—all shaping the meaning of tor and audience. The story narrates about inter- communications to oneself and to the other in actions that happened in the past, i.e., a piece of interpersonal situations. Sociologically, drama- history; the drama enacts an interaction happen- tology is concerned with these components of ing in the present, directly in the here-and-now, drama: character, conduct, conflict, crisis, con- with the various dramatis personae gesturing, science, choice, confession, confrontation, con- speaking, and emoting; pleading and suggest- ciliation, and compromise, or catastrophe. Psy- ing; complaining and confronting; imploring or chologically, dramatology is based on the func- demanding affection and approval, or consola- tion of dramatization [6], the ability to represent tion and compensation, and more. What is cru- conflict and compromise in mental images of cial for psychotherapy is the appreciation of the nocturnal dreams and diurnal daydreams. The two forms of dramatization: (1) in fantasy and (2) dreamer dramatizes thoughts and feelings in in word and act, a distinction upheld by Anna mental images and imaginary scenarios involv- Freud [9]. Dramatology provides the conceptual ing actions, emotions, sensations, scenes, and basis for interpersonal drama therapy (IDT): speeches. Whereas narratology utilizes descrip- While medicine deals with monadic medi- tion and may contain conversation, dramatology cal conditions of the body, psychiatry deals with is all action and conversation, utilizing both non- interpersonal conduct in society. In spite of the verbal mimetic expressive action and the spoken current return to viewing neuroses and psycho- word. Dramatology is differentiated from dram- ses as brain conditions, what we call psychiatric aturgy, the art of writing, staging and perform- symptoms are conducts: actions and communi- ing dramas in the theatre. The goal of drama- cations that are interpersonal, from one person tology is to refocus psychiatry as person-orient- to another, or intrapersonal, thoughts and emo- ed and interpersonal, to emphasize the continu- tions directed to oneself. Ruesch & Bateson [10] um from the psychopathology of everyday life extended Sullivan’s ideas to “build a new psy- to the psychopathology of persons who become chopathology based on the criteria of communi- inpatients and outpatients seeking help from the cation.” My project is similar: to build psychopa- healers. Dramatology studies persons as acting thology on dramatology. Sullivan differentiated and interacting from choice vs. constraint, reflec- between observation of the medical patient and tion vs. reflex, deliberation vs. drivenness. participant observation of the psychiatric patient. Plato distinguished representation of objects Dramatology goes further: therapy is a participa- and persons by (a) description with words and (b) tion in the patient’s real life drama and is itself a imitation, or mimesis, as in dramatic mime. As dramatic process. elaborated by Aristotle, in drama imitation be- Interpersonal drama therapy is a new synthe- comes impersonation of characters and plots tak- sis and paradigm based on the dramatic nature en from real life and presented in plots and dia- of interpersonal relations and can be helpful to logues to portray encounters, events, and emo- professionals who… practice psychodynamic tions on stage [7]. With the modern invention psychiatry. The dramatic perspective facilitates of the printing press, the novel (literally, some- observing the person as a whole gestalt, in all his thing new) and the novella, or short story, be- particularity and uniqueness of the emotional came the predominant narrative genre, utilizing event, paying close attention to the facts of bod- description and usually read, along with print- ily appearance, dress, mental makeup, charac- ed dramas, by solitary readers. The descriptions ter, temperament, intellect, speech, culture and Archives of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, 2011; 4 : 29–43 Dramatology vs. narratology 31 social status. Such observation precedes prep- permanent data of the problem which culture at- aration of narratives and premature reaching tempts to resolve [11]. for closure in diagnosing disorder, resistance, As a method dramatology is also grounded in transference or any other formulaic interpreta- the primacy of perception. It starts with close- tion. It opens the door for comparing the analy- ly observing the perceived, manifest, or overt, sand’s and analyst’s interpretations, a source of actions, gestures, and speeches, the consciously learning for both. Dramatology and interperson- expressed thoughts of the person, or individu- al drama therapy approach the two participants al, and subsequently focuses on the secret, or un- not as abstractions or generalities but as unique consciously suppressed, motives of the manifest individuals in their aliveness, in their emotions, behavior. Similarly, psychoanalytically-orient- in their mutual need to love and to be loved in ed therapy seeks to uncover the person’s latent, return. i.e., repressed, thoughts, fantasies, emotions, and In dramatic interactions patient and doctor transferences. It cannot be emphasized enough are drawn into conscious and unconscious en- that the person of dramatology, even more than actments which take both members of the ther- the dramatis persona on stage, is not a gener- apeutic team by surprise and then offer consid- ic but a particular individual, i.e., a whole ge- erable heuristic and healing value. Such enact- stalt not further divisible, a singular embodied ments also transcend transference and counter- person. transference, which are determinations are to be made after the fact of the enactment, nachträglich [afterwards], as Freud said. Such enactments are DIAGNOSTIC DEFINITIONS OF DISEASE: SCIENCE inevitable. They pose no danger if both partic- VS. HEALING ART ipants keep faith with the procedure, process, and principles of ethics and mutual responsibil- The problem of the generic vs. the individu-