Moreno’s saw the “stage” as his first of five instruments, and he saw “reality” as third of four universals. Psychodrama aims to produces the reality of a person’s life – What has been, what is current and what yet may be. The stage can contain it all and dramatize it reveal the essential reality. The creativity of everyone is brought together to be true to what is. Companians as audience are ready to be assistant actors. It is not only the future that is exploratory and open to new possibilities. Past and current life is explored, expanded and there is freedom to experiment with any alternative – nothing is ruled out.

The actor who begins follows their life’s narrative and is the protagonist, the audience member who comes from amongst the audience so that everyone considers in action and interaction how things work in their lives. One story links to all stories. One life has commonalities in theme and dreams to all others. The lead actor is the source of data consciously and unconscious. They are playwright, script writer, producer, as a psychodrama proceeds they play the auxiliary egos of their life story. Their narrative brings forward their subjective and objective reality and their surplus reality.

The beach at low tide has strands of creamy sand soft smooth and firmed by the waters. these days the result of scouring storms leaves the volcanic rock jumble of twists and jags a slow awkward journey to make along the beach. For three months the beaches were cleaned up and graded to mound new sand dunes and recover the rocks. Three days churning waves whipped up by storms beyond the horizon were enough to set all the work to nought. Since then gentle movements has sand moving back again from beyond the rocky reefs that skirt the beach.

In 1985 the five day Training Workshop ends. The trainer’s saying that “psychodrama is rehearsal for life” clashed with the vitality and immediacy of my experience. I went home and wrote a prose poem. I knew what it was for me. It was not rehearsal. Knowing what it is not for ourselves can begin our knowing of our own truth – a truth to a “self chosen path”.

Here it is:

Mirroring and Cybernetics

Here is a more recent one:

Engaging the Muse

In self-managing work-groups where productivity and quality and adequacy of service are crucial and where consensus decision making requires ensuring the place and influence of all members teams review relationships health and respect individual vulnerabilities and give assistance to each member’s ability to contribute adequately. Where vulnerabilities are owned and shared if the the relative vulnerabilities are not sufficiently balanced then sharing openness will diminish and well-being distress balances will be  hidden. In any such group, which can be seen to include family life, reciprocity is crucial.

In polynesia you give me I must give equal or more. Although come to think of it – it is not quite that simply regulated. Assessment is subtle and mutually appreciated wealth and material assets are precisely transparent through the community and every relationship has both sides able to assess differentials of need and resources and proportionality will be precisely judged by both sides so “more than” could be “less than” but according to resouce differentials “more than” proportionally! In 1967 the building workers as their custom was sat around a banana box and put their fortnights wages down for one man to have all that was available after each of them took out what was absolutely needed for him and his family that week. Needs vary week to week family size differs and each is happy that on their turn they will get what is there for the major expenditure which other wise they’d need to save for in a pot or a Post Office account. This was adjusted reciprocity and trusted community provision. No complaints.

What of reciprocity in psychotherapy or any contracted relationship of helping by one of another – whether entered into freely or under duress. “Differentials of power” are recognised to be crucial as are “transferences”. But, what if we explore this endeavour at base exchange realities of reciprocity and balance. Then cognitive dissonance becomes a key player. The first question is: is there sufficient equity to sustain the health of both parties and what are the leverages towards health where the focus, and the contract, are to one person’s health and not the other.

That may have been “guided imagery” or it might be “psychodrama”. In psychodrama the space that becomes the stage where encounters occur whether a space in our minds for creative imagery or a space cleared on a floor, within which to stand and be “self” and then to cross the floor turn and speak for and as “the other”. Active body movements and speaking free-flow out loud can release what we don’t know we know inside, and have us discover what we otherwise will fail to recognise.

Not then seances, but stars and planets for one, and being a star in her own psychodrama with her hero in “surplus reality” for the other. Hilary Clinton is not with a medium but a therapeutic guide facilitaing a warming her up to herself and her vision of her hero, her dreams and her own aspirations.  The psychodrama producer is a companion watching for the body cues that a person themselves wil not see so that Hilary or any client can be alive to them and gain motivation and confident flow towards making her goals a reality in her life. Psychodrama is not weired or spooky and nothing to do with letting all hell rise up and run loose. Psychodrama is about meeting and integrating ones own truths.