Psychodrama, Surplus Reality and the Art of Healing by Rutzel Thomas & Blomkvist Leif Dag & Moreno Zerka T

Author:Rutzel, Thomas & Blomkvist, Leif Dag & Moreno, Zerka T.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-01-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Diagnosis in psychodrama

In psychiatry and psychotherapy there is a great deal of focus on finding a diagnosis, such as schizophrenia, which labels the patient. The word ‘diagnosis’ is of Greek origin. Gnosis means ‘knowledge, cognition and cognizance’. Agnosis is the opposite. The word ‘diagnosis’ can be split up two ways: dia-gnosis and di-agnosis. The first version would, therefore, mean ‘knowledge through cognizance’. The latter could be understood as ‘taking away the not knowing’.

The word ‘diagnosis’ in psychiatry loses its impact: it should describe a process rather than an end product. What most professionals regard as a diagnosis is actually nothing more than categorization. The word ‘category’ also derives from ancient Greek. In its root it means to speak publicly in the marketplace. Categorization could then, if one so wishes, be understood as marketing a product, which to some extent patients are considered to be today.

DAG: Psychodrama is a method of clarification and action. In the roles we play in life we have a lot in common with other people, but we are also unique. Awareness of this differentiation and what one’s unique place in this world looks like is vital. To find your own uniqueness in psychodrama in relation to the world is one of psychodrama’s goals. It seems to me that you and J.L. Moreno were excellent diagnosticians. You put people in a process, you did not label them. You gave them an auxiliary world to relate to, for instance, in your treatment of hallucinations.

ZERKA: Moreno comes from a model of health, not from a model of pathology. He did not believe in labels. Unlike Freud he did not conceive the psyche as consisting of a number of layers. He did not think in those terms. He saw you in your totality and with your potential, not just with your failure. That was the difference. He would say even about a psychotic, ‘Yes, the patient may be considered as displaying pathological spontaneity, but it is my task to turn it integrative rather than disintegrative’. He did not believe that if you have a category, if you name it, then you know it. He was not a linguist in that sense. The linguists believe you give it a label and then you know it. Nonsense. He did not believe that language is the royal route to or could absorb the entire psyche. Language does not convey everything you need to know.

For example we label foods. You go to the grocery store and you buy a jar of raspberry jam because you love that jam. You already have the experience of what raspberry jam tastes like and you know that you like the taste. But until you open that particular jar you do not know what that jam tastes like. It is exactly the same with people. You see certain patterns, you see certain phenomena. Let that particular person open up to you and you see something very different.

While Moreno did not use psychiatric diagnostic categorizations in his writing or teaching, as director of a psychiatric hospital it is clear that these categories were documented.

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