SPONTANEOUS REMARKS ON "THE DISCOVERY OF THE SPONTANEOUS MAN"

Abstract

What a relief to read Moreno's outline of the complex, infinitely rich, many-sided, living, and fascinating nature of the human being and his cosmos after the prevalent picture of a "mechanical man," reduced to automatic reflexes, the picture of a "castrated human animal'' and "castrated universe" daily depicted by a legion of "scientific" explorers of man and of his universe I I can but welcome this renaissance of a sound conception of man and of his "mysterious" universe in all their creative richness, spontaneity, complexity, and "cosmic hunger." Moreno's catalogue of the functions of a role playing and of a role-reversal techniques convincingly shows a much deeper, wider, and important role of these techniques than we have hitherto thought. Personally, for instance, the functions of expansion of the self, of satisfaction of "the cosmic hunger," and several other functions these techniques perform are a sort of revelation for me