Reconnecting Gestalt therapy with its psychodramatic roots

Abstract

This article examined the profound but under-researched connections between Gestalt therapy and psychodrama, two action-oriented approaches that emerged as alternatives to classical psychoanalysis. Drawing on historical documentation — including Fritz Perls’ learning from Jacob Moreno, their documented encounters, and Perls’ explicit acknowledgment of the influence of psychodrama —, the article traced how the principles of psychodrama shaped the evolution of Gestalt therapy from the Perls’/Goodman’s model of 1951 to the Perls’/Moreno’s model of 1969. Fundamental parallels are explored: the shared philosophical foundation in Buber’s philosophy of encounter, the revolutionary emphasis on embodied action over verbal analysis, and the transformation of psychodramatic role reversal into Gestalt’s inner dialogue technique. The article demonstrates how Perls himself explicitly praised Moreno’s techniques as “one of the most vivid” manifestations of integrative principles, and Moreno, in his turn, acknowledged Perls among pioneering therapists of embodied methods.