SCANDINAVIAN MYTH ABOUT THE PSYCHODRAMA A COUNTER-STATEMENT TO S. R. SLAVSON'S "PRELIMINARY NOTE"

Abstract

A peculiar myth has been built up around the origin of the psychodrama and, in connection with it, the early formative period of modern group psychotherapy. The October 1955 issue of the International Journal of Group Psychotherapy carried a paper which should have destroyed J. L. Moreno's claim to originating the psychodrama. Of course, practically everyone who has witnessed Moreno's performing and enlarging the scope and applicability of the psychodrama through the years, and also everyone who has followed his writings about the practice and theory of psychodrama (from The Godhead as Comedian in 1911 and Das Stegreiftheater in 1923) 2,20 has felt quite confident that J. L. Moreno was thoroughly creditable as the creator of the psychodrama, as a cultural as well as a therapeutic innovation. Not so S. R. Slavson, the author of the aforementioned paper, "A Preliminary Note on the Relation of Psychodrama and Group Psychotherapy."According to Slavson: "The origins of psychodrama date to the early decades of the present century, around 1915, when Dr. Karl Jorgensen of Sweden had introduced his Stegreiftheater or the spontaneity theater.