EPTO 25th Anniversary lecture
There are different definitions of Philosophy :
1) It is the study of ideas about knowledge, truth, the nature and meaning of life;
2) The most basic beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group;
3) The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline; (Oxford dictionaries)
4) Conjunto de saberes que busca establecer, de manera racional,los principios mas generales que organizan y orientan el conocimiento de la realidad asi como el sentido del obrar humano.
There might be many more definitions but this is the essence. On purpose I have copied a Spanish one because it helps us to understand how differently we use words and how difficult it is to create a real encounter between cultures that express themselves differently.
Let us talk a little about Moreno’s Philosophy and how and what we think about it, trying to open up many questions to understand it . ENCOUNTER is the real focus of Moreno’s method .
“The 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 mine
and place them instead of yours.
Then I will look at you with your eyes and you will look at me with mine”
(Moreno ,Vienna 1914 ,Psychodrama vol I 1977) .
It is important to ask whether this situation includes a third person. In the first phrase, “The meeting of two, eye to eye ,face to face “seems to be said by a witness to this Encounter. Is this a third presence or not ? There is a description of the Encounter as seen from the outside.
Two protagonists talk to each other in the first person, this meeting takes places between two but to be able to describe it, there must be a third person watching so as to allow the protagonists to see at each other, to recognise each other and be separate beings and not symbiotic.
Moreno defines his philosophy as” the philosophy of the moment or of the here and now of the eternal Creation “and continues saying “In establishing a point of reference, three factors must be emphasized : the status nascendi, the locus and the matrix . (For those of you who may be unfamiliar with Moreno’s philosophy and psychodrama, let me give you the definitions: STATUS NASCENDI is the time of conception, LOCUS NASCENDI is the meaning for the place and moment of birth,in other words,the placenta in the mother’s womb. Moreno called the present structure the MATRIX,the fertilized egg from which the embryo develops later having psychological roles within our minds.These represent different phases of the same process. There is no thing without its Locus, no locus without a status nascendi and no status nascendi without its matrix “ (Moreno .Sociometry,vol 4,No 2 1941 PP205 226) Therefore any encounter between persons mediated by roles has its locus, its status nascendi and a matrix. Moreno and Buber both talk about the concept of Encounter.Even if it is usually said that it was Buber who created the concept, both of them met in Daimon, the Journal published from the House of the Encounter. (“Einladung zu einer Begegnung”, 1914 )
It was published by Moreno before Buber (Waldl, May 2012, pp.69-71) This is the core of Psychodrama, Encounter and role reversal take place within a locus, inside a matrix, as a space time for action, the status nascendi, an action that will develop from persons expressing themselves with their roles . The Philosophy of the moment. This is what can change and heal our own personal relationships, facilitating the understanding and communication among cultures and social matrices. Tele, the psychological expression of relationships, connections and disconnections will be the factor that will amalgamate the network of human relationships. All this takes place in everyday life, creation fueled on by spontaneity, the two cosmic roles are the constant factor in the normal living process. It is the action of the soul in its
original form. So, it is possible to say Psychodrama not only is born from life, it is life itself .
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