Finally, Zerka Moreno tells her memoirs about psychodrama

In psychology and psychotherapy networks, Jacob L. Moreno and his wife Zerka T. Moreno were a pioneering couple.

Now we can read about Zerka's life in To Dream Again: A Memoir, just published this month by Mental Health Resources.

Zerka met "Doctor" in 1941, when she brought her psychotic sister to Moreno's alternative hospital in Beacon, N.Y.  His creative approach of psychodrama -- sans medication -- gave the sister great relief, and Zerka was enchanted by the charismatic physician who had emigrated from Vienna, Austria to the United States.

She  became his co-worker, partner, wife and  helpmate until Dr. Moreno died in 1974 and continued to refine and develop the psychodramatic method and traveled around the world to teach until she was well into her eighties. She now lives in Charlottesville, Va., still drawing great respect and pilgrimages as the "mother of psychodrama."

I had the great good fortune throughout the 1990s to study with Zerka  as my primary trainer. It was she who recommended that I pursue becoming a trainer -- even though I was convinced I still had a lot to learn as a practitioner. 

I'll write more about my relationship with Zerka, a true wise woman, in coming blogs. However, for now, I'll repeat the words of Marcia Karp, a  well respected trainer in England and co-author of Psychodrama Since Moreno, and another of my treasured mentors:

"Zerka Toeman Moreno tells us many wise stories of survivor courage, steely determination, graceful dignity, witty humor and just plain guts. This is a guidebook for being alive, being awake, caring about oneself and the world, taking ethical action, being fully human."

New book combines psychodrama and the body

As the newest research in neuroscience reframes how and why experiential psychotherapies bring significant healing to the brain and body, a new book, "The Body Alchemy of Psychodrama" by Rebecca Ridge, arrives to show how one practitoner puts these theories into practice.

As a psychologist, psychodramatist and bodyworker, Rebecca combines her knowledge and skills to show how the action method of psychodrama blends very well with the subtle hands-on practices of craniosacral therapy, positional release, reflexology and shiatsu.

Rebecca says:

"Alchemy is a wonderfully expressive term to describe the philosophical, psychological and biological processes that illuminate and transform the body mind in each of us. The body is still and may remain forever to some degree a mysterious universe, no matter how much we might be able to explain the complexities of our body and brain’s physiological intricacies. Thus Body Alchemy involves the mystery and the potential to keep evolving one’s relationship to our body mind."

Rebecca is a Midwest trainer, educator and practitioner who divides her time between Anoka, Minn., and Australia. She explains psychodrama as an embodied form of psychotherapy and includes a historical background of  somatic psychology theories. 

As more pracititoners incorporate some kind of touch in their work, she offers a valuable chapter on the ethics of touch for the group therapist, psychodramatist and psychotherapist so that they may safely apply practices of touch in therapy. Her ideas are now incorporated in my annual experientially based ethics training, "Ethics In Action."

See Rebecca's site, which includes articles and a link to order her book here.

A resource for psychodrama books

Mental Health Resources works with the Inquiring Minds Bookstore and finally has a Web site where you can find many books about psychodrama and drama therapy -- at least 80 items, including some past issues of classic psychodrama and sociometry journals. Check it out!

The books are listed on the Mental Health Resources site so that the site compares prices on the Amazon and Barnes and Noble sites. See: http://www.newpaltzbooks.com/psychodrama-and-drama-therapy-c-22.html