Ivana Slavković

SPONTANEITY THEORY OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT

Each psychotherapeutic modality that aims at being recognized as original and separated
from other modalities needs to encompass a specific theory of personality development. In
classical psychodrama there are two theories that intend to offer rationale for personality
development: Spontaneity Theory of Child Development and Role Theory. The former will
be the focus of this chapter.

General postulates

Spontaneity Theory of Child Development supposed to bring out the new approach in
understanding of human development in comparison to other exiting approaches at the
time. Moreno (1994), criticized the studies that were growing out of the theory of
evolution and that were trying to find links in development of humans and animal
organisms. On the other hand he opposed the psychoanalytical theories that were linking
personality disorganizations of adults with the oral and anal strivings of the infant (para.
48).
In comparison with psychoanalytical understanding Moreno approached human
development in an inverted manner. Thus, in Spontaneity theory of Child Development
human infant is not seen as underdeveloped or lower organism but on the contrary the
infant is portrayed as a potential genius that is driven by the most positive phenomena:
spontaneity and creativity.
Most importantly, the emphasis on the significance of relationships between infant and
individuals in his/her environment for the overall development of the infant represents
major contribution of Moreno’s theory at the time it was formulated. Moreno was as early
as in 1917 committed to exploration of human groups and understanding the impact that
interpersonal relationships may have on individuals. In 1934 he finalized creation of the
Sociometry as a method that aimed at measuring interpersonal relations within different
groups and providing tangible information about the position of individuals in the group as
well as data on group dynamic.
In 1946 Moreno wrote that relational aspect had been neglected in contemporary
descriptions of the human development. He advocated for the achievement of deeper
understanding of all underlying issues of the term environment and similar terms
describing environment. (para. 49)
Hence the spontaneity theory of child development and role theory (that will be discussed
in the next chapter) are both created as interactional/relational theories. These theories
bring the focus of psychodramtic exploration purposefully on interactions of individual with
other person throughout the life cycle. An individual in psychodrama cannot be understood
outside of his/her set of relationships – in the words of Sociometry - outside of his or her
“social atom”.

In summary, the general postulates of the psychodrama theory of child development can
be presented by the following ideas:

 Human infant is looked “from the platform of the highest concrete example of
human embodiment and achievement” … “the genius of the race” (Moreno, 1994, p.48);

 Certain dormant capacities that are difficult to trace in the average individual
come to their most dramatic expression in the time of infancy (spontaneity and creativity),
(Moreno, 1994, para.48);

 For development of an infant the most important part within environment are
interacting individual organisms; “It is important to know how these individual organisms
interact and particularly how the human infant interacts with other individual organisms.”
(Moreno, 1994, p.49)
Birth situation and warming up process

Moreno (1994, first edition 1946) described the situation at birth as an enormous change in
which vulnerable infant encounters numerous novelties such as breathing, sucking,
swallowing, being awaken and aware of the external world. This change is extremely
sudden and within only few minutes the infant needs to adjust completely to a new
physical environment and totally unknown set of relationships. In order to survive in this
new environment the infant needs to establish some sort of equilibrium of his own. The
great difficulty but also perplexity of the successful adjustment lies in the fact that infant
“has no model after which he can shape his acts.” (p. 50) Thus, spontaneity plays the
central role and it is considered to be the major factor for the survival of the infant after
the birth as well as for the later development of the child.
Infant’s spontaneity will enable the infant to respond to enormous number of novel
situations that he/she encounters in the period of infancy. For the sake of survival infant’s
responses have to be positive, indefatigable and more or less adequate. In order to
produce such responses the infant has to have an access to certain amount of spontaneity
especially in crucial moments. Moreno’s perception of the infant as the “potential genius
of the race” comes from his observation that infant encounters immense number of novel
situations (as never seen in later stages of life) in which he/she demonstrates very high
level of adaptability. This high level of adaptability is, in Spontaneity theory of child
development, explained as a direct consequence of operation of spontaneity as a plastic
adaption skill.
“This factor [spontaneity] is more than and different from the given energy conserved in
the young body of the newborn” (Moreno, 1994, p. 50). By this suggestion Moreno indented
to make a distinction between the concept of libido and his concept of spontaneity as non
- conservable energy.

The situation of birth itself is a result of long process of warming up of both mother and
child for the spontaneous act of birth. For this act the infant is using physical starters –
he/she is pushing against the muscles of the womb using his/her body. Mother is also
warming herself up by using mental as well as physical starters such as voluntary and
involuntary muscular contractions. “The moment of birth is the maximum degree of the
warming up to the spontaneous act of being born in a new setting … It is not a trauma, but
the end stage of an act for which nine months of preparation were required” (Moreno,
1994, p.54).

After the birth the infant is able to warm up himself/herself for spontaneous acts such as
sucking by using his own physical starters. 1 The level of spontaneous readiness varies from
one infant to the other. In the same time the warming up process of auxiliary egos, mother
or other care givers, who are basically using mental starters, have to meet the warming up
of the infant by understanding the needs of the infant in order to help him/her to function
adequately. Therefore alongside with spontaneity of the infant the auxiliary egos in
infant’s environment represent another crucial factor for the immediate survival of the
infant as well as for the later development.

Stages of development
Although Moreno introduced the stages of early development within the Spontaneity theory
of child development these concepts have never reached the form of elaborated theory.
Instead of elaborating those concepts further Moreno was presenting stages of
development mostly as a basis for implementation of psychodramatic techniques and
interventions.

Furthermore, there is a considerable difficulty with terminology used in description of the

stages. Moreno’s usage of different terms was inconsistent. He had also been creating
various synonyms for the stages over the years. The situation is not much better in
contemporary literature where different authors use different terms formulated by Moreno
or they do not name the phases but instead present them in a descriptive manner.

1
Moreno claimed that in the very beginning of the life infant used only physical starters since differentiation
of two separate ways of starting was not yet available for the infant (Moreno 1946, 1994; 53)
At first, Moreno differentiated five stages 2 as the process of gradual differentiation and
individuation. These five stages were rather ambiguous and they were later reformulated
into three main stages of development most probably for reasons of clarity and
comprehensibility.
Therefore, this chapter focuses on three stages as they represent summery of the
previously defined five stages and are better applicable to the practice of psychodrama. In
addition, the development described in three stages is also commonly present in
contemporary psychodrama literature.

Three main stages of development include (all synonyms for stages used by Moreno are
included3):

1. Matrix of All – identity (or Matrix of Identity or the Stage of Identity, or the First
Universe)
2. Matrix of Differentiated All–identity (or Matrix of Differentiated All-reality or the
Stage of the Recognition of the Self,)
3. Matrix of the Breach between Fantasy and Reality (or the Stage of Recognition of
the Other, or the Second Universe)

2
For the purpose of the overview of evolution of Spontaneity theory of child development the five stages of
development are listed below:
The first stage is that of the other person being a part of the infant in all earnestness-that is, complete
spontaneous all identity
The second stage is that of the infant centring attention upon the other stranger part of him
The third stage is that of the infant lifting the other part from the continuity of experience and leaving all
other parts out, including himself
The fourth stage is that of the infant placing himself actively in the other part and acting its role
The fifth stage is that of the infant acting in the role of the other towards else, who in turn acts in his role.
With this stage the act or reversal of identity is complete (Moreno, 1994, pp.61-62)

3
All presented synonims for phases of develompent Moreno are taken from Psychodrama Volume 1, 1994 (first
edition 1946) between pages 56-84 and Moreno’s article Psychodramatic Production Techniques first time
published in Group Psychotherapy, Psychodrama and Sociometry 4 in 1952 pages 273-303.
Matrix of All- identity: co-existence, co-action and co-experience
Moreno (1994, first edition 1946) argued that in the first phase of development which lasts
only few weeks after the birth, in the Matrix of All –identity the infant is not separated
from other persons, especially mother or from the objects in infants surrounding. The
infant is united with the mother and “experiences all objects and persons as co-existent
with him” (p.54) In the process of feeding mother, her nipple (or a bottle), milk, infants
mouth and the space in between are all united in the act of feeding. Infant needs helpers
in order to function and he/she feels these helping persons as if being extensions of
his/her own body. (Moreno, 1994, p.59).
In the Spontaneity theory of child development the helpers that are necessary for the
adequate living performance of the infant are called auxiliary egos4.
Mother is a child’s most important auxiliary ego and child develop a special relationship
that is “a two way relation involving cooperative action rather than individual behaviour
patterns separated from each other” (Moreno, 1994, p.59). In other words mother and
child are both active players that are united in the act, for instance, the act of feeding.
Regardless of whether or not it is possible to empirically prove that the infant is totally
unable to differentiate himself from his environment it is important to notice that Moreno
sees the infant and the mother (or mother substitute) as one undividable system in which
mother is the first auxiliary ego and the infant cannot be understood outside of the
relationship with her. This idea suggests that the quality of mother-infant relationship is of
the primary importance for the human development. This is fully congruent with the ideas
of Donald Winnicott formulated in 60tees of the last century who argued that the mother
was able to feel what the infant felt and what the infant exactly needed based on her
identification with the infant. This represents a live adaptation to the infant’s needs and it
is, according to Winnicott the essence of “good-enough” mothering. In the same line with
Moreno Winnicott (1964) concluded: “there is no such thing as a baby” meaning that if you

4
The term “auxiliary egos” also refers to the members of the psychodrama group that are taking the roles of
protagonist and significant others in the psychodrama enactment. This is an important links between the
methodology of psychodrama and psychodramatic theory of child development. Psychodrama is almost
impossible without the auxiliary egos in a similar way in which the child’s survival is impossible without
auxiliary egos. The presence and involvement of the others, of the social network, of the group is essential
for survival and development of an individual in the early life but it is also essential for the healing of an
individual in the adulthood, in particular for the healing in the course of psychotherapy.
set out to describe a baby, you will find you are describing a baby and someone. A baby
cannot exist alone, but is essentially part of relationship” (p.88).
Although, according to Moreno, the infant experiences in the very beginning of her life the
mother and her “tools” (breast, bottle etc) as an extension of herself, mother is still a
separated and detached entity who from time to time leaves the growing infant alone and
comes back to her when she is in need. Moreno claimed that it is a particular shock for the
growing infant to “discover the difference between attached and detached tools. The I and
you have not yet emerged” (Moreno, 1994, p.60). Thus, at the stage of Matrix of All-
identify when the mother’s tools (nipple, bottle, hand) are taken away from the infant
they are still experienced by infant as being attached and co-existent with her.
According to Dayton (2005), harmony in mother-infant dyad within the Matrix of All
-identity penetrates into the infant and he experiences it as harmony within himself. In the
same way disharmony in mother-infant relationships is experienced by the infant as
disharmony within himself. The parent needs to become the attuned double for the child’s
experience in order to provide the child with the sense of place and feeling of belonging. If
the child is left without adequate doubling the child may feel incomprehensible to others
and ”a sort of fissure may occur within the self due to feeling misunderstood or out of sync
with his external representation of self…” (p.160)

In this stage the first role taking process occurs (infantile role taking). Role taking is a
process of learning i.e. adoption of the role. Role taking is followed by role playing, when
the taken role is played out in the way it was learned. According to psychodrama Role
theory humans are spontaneous role players and the processes of role taking and role
playing are of essential importance for emergence of the self.5
The infant is mostly sensory being at this stage of development and therefore the roles
he/she takes are primarily psychosomatic (i.e. physiological) 6 such as the roles of eater,
sleeper, defecator etc. Role processes are not only responsible for the emergence of the
self but also for continuous development of personality. Infant starts to take first roles
5
Role playing can be also followed by “role creating” which assumes that an individual brings new elements in
role playing (changes the role) that were not learned previously but that are based on individual’s spontaneity
and capacity for creativity. The next chapter focuses on Role theory which explains role processes in details.
6
Psychosomatic roles represent one of the three clusters of roles that are defined in the Role theory.
According to this theory they are the first roles that emerge in life.
immediately after the birth and slowly the repertoire of roles enlarges thus forming
gradually over the years the sense of self. According to Moreno three stages of
development “represent the psychological bases for all role processes and for such
phenomena as imitation, identification, projection and transference” (Moreno, 1994, p.
62).
The infantile role taking consists of two functions: role receiving and role giving. There are
two roles present: the one of the giver and the other one of the receiver. Moreno (1994),
described the feeding act from the perspective of role taking. Mother is warming up for
the infant in the act of feeding and she develops acts with the certain level of consistency
while the infant is in the same time warming up for the set of actions that also reach a
certain level of inner consistency. “The result of this interaction is that certain reciprocal
role expectancy is gradually established in the partners [mother and child – giver and
receiver] of the role process. This role expectancy lays the ground for all future role
exchange between the infant and auxiliary egos.” (p.62)
Thus, the role taking of the infant that includes his role of the receiver and mother’s role
of the giver in their co-action results in image-building or role expectancy which
represents the first emotional learning in the life of the infant. (Moreno, 1994, para.62)
With the notion of infantile role taking Moreno laid particular emphasis on differentiating
the learning by imitation or identification as one way relation from the learning in joint
action that represents two way process and two way relation.
Moreno argued (1994) that the processes of imitation, identification, and projection could
not occur on the early stage of life of the infant given that all those processes entailed the
existence of two separate selves/egos. In order to identify with another person there has
to be an awareness of one’s own separate self that would like to be alike the other
separate self. The infant has still not reached the level of awareness of himself as a
separate person, he is living in the act-fusion with mother and other auxiliary egos and
therefore the processes of imitation, identification and projection are not available to him
(para. 63).
Thus, Moreno proposed the idea that the primary learning happens in the role taking
process within the Matrix of All-identity where infant lives more or less in unity with the
world around him/her and especially in unity with his/her first auxiliary ego (mother or
mother substitute). The first learning occurs in joint activity and existence of the infant
and the auxiliary egos.

Moreno proposed the concept of the “joint existence and action” as an alternative to the
processes of imitation and identification as a basis of early learning. However he did not
specify further which processes occur in the joint activity of the infant and auxiliary ego
that could be considered as basis for formation of role expectancy between infant and
auxiliary ego and consequently the basis for early learning process. Nevertheless the level
of warming up of mother and child for their joint action, harmony or disharmony
(acceptance and rejection) in their joint existence as well as influences of different
factors in mother’s and infant’s wider environment may be considered to be of the
significant importance for early learning.
In addition, Moreno considered that co-existence and collaboration with the stronger ego -
the auxiliary ego (mother or mother substitute) in the phase of Matrix of All-identity
encourages the infant for independent action. As the infant matures during this phase the
amount of mother’s assistance is decreasing while the amount of the activity and
participation of infant is increasing. In this way the mother is assisting in shaping of the
infant’s own roles and permitting him gradually more independence.

Matrix of Differentiated All–identity

This is the stage in which the infant is not any more merged with the mother and other
surrounding objects but he/she achieves the very basic sense of separateness. According
to Moreno in this phase of development “…things, persons and objects are differentiated,
although there is no differentiation between real and imagined, between the appearances
of things and their reality.” (Moreno, 1994, p.69)
Dayton (2005) pointed out that at this stage of development even though the child had
some sense of separateness he/she might still feel that the world existed at his/her
command (p.163). This means that the baby still feels as if being in some level of control
of the environment.
While at the previous stage of Matrix of All-identity sense of nearness and sense of
distance are not differentiated at the stage of Matrix of Differentiated All-identity infant
develops the sense of physical distance and closeness from persons and objects. According
to Moreno (1946; 1994; p 68) this is the first social reflex which indicates the appearance
of “tele” which is a psychodramatic term that primarily describes deep and authentic
relationship of an individual with other individuals. Moreno (1994) considered that this first
social reflex was: “the nucleus of the later attraction-repulsion patterns and specialized
emotions – in other words, of the social forces surrounding the later individual (p.68)”. He
also pointed out that “tele” develops with the development of physical receptors (visual
and auditory) but in turn it stimulates further physical development. In the phase of
Differentiated All-identity “tele” becomes also differentiated on “tele” for persons and
objects 7 and on negative and positive “tele”.
Aside from differentiating objects from persons at the stage of Differentiated All-identity
infant can differentiate to a certain degree him/herself as a separate entity i.e. recognize
his/her existence separately from other persons and object. In the same time infant can
still not differentiate between animated and dead, appearance and things, real from
imagined and that is why Moreno also named this stage- the stage of All-reality, where
everything (real and unreal) is experienced as real.
According to Dayton (2005), this stage starts at the age of nine months when the infant is
able to shift the attention between an object and a person and also can observe the other
person’s attention towards an object. These new skills of infant result in ability of infant
to share experiences. The ability to share experiences further enables infant to perceive
her surrounding as a variety of reflections of the self unlike in the first phase of
development in which infant perceived her surrounding as belonging to or being the “self”.
If the reflections from surroundings are positive and if infant needs are met adequately
he/she will probably start to develop the sense of security and positive self image. “If on
the other had her reflected world is unattuned to her needs, desires and drives, she may
experience herself as unmoored to anything constant, as difficult to understand, comfort

7
The concept of “tele” relation encompasses the presence of mutuality in a relationship which is one of
the main characteristics of “tele” relationship. Mutuality in relationship is a quality that can only be
assigned to human beings or at least living organisms. Thus, formulating the idea of “tele for things” is
ungrounded since it contradicts one of the major characteristics of “tele”. In order to overcome this
inconsistency it would be needed that the attraction –repulsion relationship of humans towards inanimate
objects is described within different concept.
of be with. This can clearly translate into a discomfort or dissonance within the
self”(Dayton, 2005, pp. 162-163).
Dayton has connected first two phases of development to the need of infant for the
holding environment and emphasized the importance of the therapeutic holding being
provided by the therapist through unconditional acceptance. The healing occurs when the
holding is provided to the client and “therapeutic relationships reach through the role
relationship into the unconscious and give it new shape” (Dayton, 2005,162-163).

Moreno hypothesized (1994, 68) that the stage of the Differentiated All- identity
corresponded to the appearance of the first dreams and that infant had been dreamless in
the previous stage of development. Moreno’s reasoning behind this hypothesize is that in
the short period after the birth infant fully lives in the moment of action (immediate
situation) where he/she invests most of the energy and therefore little energy is available
for the process of recording i.e. remembering. Since the infant cannot remember in the
stage of the Matrix of All-identity (where auxiliary ego remembers for him) and his sense of
time has only the dimension of present (past and future dimensions are still nonexistent)
Moreno argued that consequently the infant could not had developed unconscious yet.
Without having developed unconscious in the first stage of development the infant could
not have dreams, at least as we know them from adult experience. According to Moreno,
the infant starts to dream only when he enters into the stage of the Differentiated All-
identity given that adult dreams have the characteristic and structure that is equivalent to
this developmental stage (Moreno, 1994, pp.69-70). Moreno believed that the psychic
functioning (differentiation level) at the stage of Differentiated All- identity is similar to
dreaming in adulthood where persons, objects and the dreamer herself are differentiated
but there is no differentiation between real and imagined; all is perceived as one reality.
In addition, Moreno (1994) claimed that dreaming increases further when infant enters the
third phase of development while the act hunger (living in the act) decreases
simultaneously (p.69)
At the time these hypotheses were created there were no evidence based studies available
that would support or deny the ability of infant to dream in the first few weeks of life.
Moreno’s claim was only based in the observation that there are no traces of dreams found
in adults that would possess the structure of the first stage of development as he
formulate it –the fusion of infant with the mother and the environment.
Moreno’s hypotheses about dreaming in infancy have not reached clinical applicability and
relevance for psychodrama therapy. Presumably these hypotheses could be primarily
understood from the point of view of the opposition to Freud’s ideas of unconscious with
its impulses (drives) operating from the first days of life and the function of dreams as
regression and revival of early childhood.
Although the content and characteristics of infant dream stayed unknown up to the
present day the empirical data from neuroscience indicate that infants do dream since REM
phase that is directly connected to dreaming exists in infant sleep and it is even more
present than in adult sleep.8 Thus, the evidence of research in neuroscience refutes
Moreno’s belief that infants cannot dream in the first weeks of life. However his
observation that the infant’s world represents a mixture of reality and fantasy and that
infant slowly goes towards differentiation of reality from the fantasy is valuable.

Matrix of the Breach between Fantasy and Reality – The Second Universe
Moreno offered another way to describe the stages of development by dividing the overall
development in two chief stages which he named “the first universe” and the “second
universe” The “first universe” is comprised of the first two stages of development as
described above while the “second universe” starts with the Matrix of the Breach between
Fantasy and Reality which is the third stage of development.

In the third stage of child development which marks the beginning of the Second universe
the breach between reality and fantasy occurs. This means that the infant slowly starts to
differentiate between fantasy acts and reality acts. However the infant continues to “live”
parallelly in both spheres of existence. The spheres of fantasy and reality are equally

8
“Babies do, in fact dream, more so than adults. According to Science magazine, babies dream more in
the first week of life than they will at any other period in their lives. As babies grow and their brains
mature, the amount of time they spend in the REM state gradually decreases. The REM state is directly
linked to brain development. A maturing brain needs less and less REM sleep. This is why adults dream
less than babies.” /Published October 04, 2007 by: Kathleen Matthews
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/377191/infant_dreams_tots_have_more_vivid.html?cat=25
important for human existence yet for adequate functioning it is also necessary that an
individual is able to shift from one sphere to the other swiftly and whenever required.

The “second universe” is characterized by forming of two sets of warming up processes:

the one towards reality acts and the other towards fantasy acts.
These two paths (warming up processes) continue to exist during the lifespan of an
individual.
“The problem is not that of abandoning the fantasy world in favour of the reality world or
vice versa, which is practically impossible, but rather to establish means by which the
individual can gain full mastery over the situation, living in both tracks, but being able to
shift from one to the other”(Moreno, 1994, p.72). Thus the difficulties in psychic
functioning including psychic disorders could be understood as impaired ability of some
individuals to adequately shift from one sphere to the other sphere of existence after the
breach between fantasy and reality had taken place.
Moreno identified spontaneity as the key factor that would enable rapid shift and that for
this purpose it would be necessary to develop it consciously through spontaneity training as
a constructive principle in building personality. He argued that the lack of spontaneity can
harm the relationship of individual towards real situations and objects as well as towards
imagined situations or objects.

According to Moreno reality function start to operate by appearance of resistances and

limitations that are introduced to the infant by the others and by relationships with them,
as well as by time and space dimensions (things and distances in time and space).
In this stage of development infant lives in the same time in two separate dimensions (real
and unreal) which sometimes struggle and strive towards reunion as it was in the first
universe when infant could live in one world and where all warming up processes in role
taking where united. Moreno has pointed out that this struggle between living in the
fantasy and living in the reality remains throughout the life: “As long as he lives, he tries
to merge the original breach and because he remains, in principle, unsuccessful, the
human personality, even in its most integrated examples, has a tracing touch of relative
imperfection. There is this continuous struggle within the individual trying to maintain a
balance between these two different routes into which his spontaneity attempts to
flow”(Moreno, 1994, p.72).

Prior to the start of this stage of development the infant has been living primarily in the
act that takes place in the present. Thus the infantile time in the previous stages of
development could have only one time dimension – the present while the roles in the first
two stages of development were dominated by physiological (psychosomatic) roles
(sleeper, eater, defecator etc).
The stage of the Breach between Fantasy and Reality is characterised by appearance of
two new sets of roles: psychological (psychodramatic) roles and social roles. In this stage
the child does not live first and foremost in the act but also in ideas and feelings
(psychological roles) as well as in social relations in her primary group which she starts to
observe. This is an important change given that the role processes (continuous role taking
and role playing) are crucial for further development of personality. To be able to adapt
and to function in an adequate manner a person needs to be able to take a big number of
various roles originating from all three major role clusters – physiological role cluster,
psychological and social role cluster. Accordingly, the image of a healthy personality in
psychodrama is the one of the spontaneous role player with large and rich role repertoire. 9

In this stage of development Moreno’s focus was on making relative the idea of one
uniform reality and thus distinguishing between objective and subjective realities. Human
existence does not necessitate the complete acceptance of the objective reality
throughout the life and human being partially functions on the fantasy level. Although
psychodrama does not have elaborated theory of psychopathology general understanding of
etiology of psychopathology is that many dysfunctions are caused by inability of a person
to shift easily and timely between the spheres of fantasy and the objective reality. Thus
when the breach between fantasy and reality occurs it is essential that the pathway for

9
The function of roles and especially their importance for development of personality is the
subject of psychodramatic “Role theory” which complements the Spontaneity theory of child
development.
communication and mobility between two spheres of existence (fantasy and reality) is
available and free. When a blockage in this pathway takes place different
psychopathology phenomena emerge. These are primarily but not exclusively psychotic
experiences resulting from the state of being stuck in the fantasy sphere of functioning and
not being able to move freely from fantasy world into reality. The reasons that could be
considered crucial for appearance of obstacles on the pathway between fantasy and reality
are related to the negative impact of environment and especially negative impact of
unsatisfactory relationships with significant others (family members) that are characterised
by lack of empathy, lack of acceptance and lack of support. If environment is hostile the
child will tend to protect by withdrawing from the external reality and regressing to the
fantasy world of the First Universe where he/she had experienced more safety and the
feeling of being in control. The same protection mechanism in adulthood can produce the
appearance of psychotic symptoms or severe addictions as a consequence of withdrawal
into the fantasy world which although in paradoxical manner still offers more sense of
security and some sense of being in control.

As in the first two stages of development in the third stage Moreno put a great emphasis
(for both healthy development and for development of psychic disorders) on the
importance of the environment and particularly on how the “outside” world imposes the
reality by setting limitations to the omnipotent fantasy world of the infant and on what is
the resulting learning process within the infant.

The ideas about different levels of reality and importance of environment for development
have great impact on psychodramatic procedures. Fantasy world (subjective reality) is
appreciated as relevant part of existence and it is constantly explored in psychodrama by
externalization and exploration on the psychodrama stage. When conducted in the
atmosphere of acceptance this externalization and exploration of the fantasy world can in
return facilitate the growth of spontaneity and appearance of creative responses of
individual. When these new responses are produced within the basic external limitations
set by psychotherapeutic setting they assist healthy adaptation and acceptance of
(objective) reality. Thus, psychodrama is principally designed to offer a bridge between
two parallel spheres that were once joined (in the matrix of all-identity and matrix of
differentiated all-identity) but were separated in the Matrix of the Breach between
Fantasy and Reality aiming at facilitating of the adequate shifting from one sphere of
existence into the other and balancing between those two spheres of human functioning.
The idea of two realties is further elaborated and applied to psychodrama therapy within
the concept of “surplus reality”.

The relationship between phases of development and major psychodrama techniques

According to Moreno the three stages of development have their counterpart in the
following main psychodrama techniques: double technique, mirror technique and role
reversal technique (Moreno, 1952, p.133, in Fox, 2008).
a) The first stage of development corresponds with the double technique
b) The second stage of development corresponds with the mirror technique
c) The third stage of development corresponds with the role reversal technique

a) The mother (or mother substitute) is the first and the most important double of the
infant. The infant experiences “an identity of herself and all the persons and object of her
surrounding, with the mother agent” (Moreno, 1952, p.133, in Fox, 2008). Mother presents
child’s external representation of self (Dayton, 2005, p.161) and thus it is of the great
importance that mother or mother substitute is attuned with the child. Similarly to
appropriate mothering where the mother was doubling the infant by being tuned with
infant’s emotional and physical needs the client in psychodrama (called protagonist) is
doubled by the therapist or by auxiliary ego (group member). Psychodrama therapist
and/or auxiliary egos tune themselves to recognize unspoken or even unconscious feelings,
thoughts, needs and wishes of the client, take client’s role and speak them out instead of
him/her thus making them conscious and explicit while in the same time providing the
client with holding and containing. In this way double technique tends to assist the client
to complete or remedy the possible problems in relation to achievement of the
developmental tasks of the first stage of development – the awareness of one’s own
existence and the awareness of underlining processes (content) of this existence – feelings,
needs, act hungers, bodily sensations etc.
b) In the mirror technique client sees herself from distance while the group member takes
her role in the situation which client had presented on the stage. This technique allows the
client to look at herself “from outside” and recognize her own way of being (physical
posture and body language, feeling, thoughts and behaviour) in other words to recognize
herself in relation to other persons, objects, her own motives, needs, inhibitions etc. The
mirror technique corresponds to the second stage of the development when the infant
starts to recognize that she is a separate self and to get first reflections from the
environment, primarily mirroring herself in the mother’s (mother substitute) reactions
toward her. Psychodrama mirror techniques aims primarily (and not only) at
accomplishments that are in line with developmental tasks of the second stage of
development – achieving sense of separateness to a certain level and building the
boundaries between the self and the environment.

c) The role reversal technique the client reverses roles with significant others, that is,
she/he takes a role of her/his partner, friend, colleague, parent etc. It is also possible that
a client takes a role of imagined persons, animals and objects. While being in the role the
client moves and talks as if he/she is somebody/something else and can from this role
relate to him/herself portrayed by his/her double (auxiliary ego in his/her role). In this
way the client can try to recognize the other (feelings, thoughts, motivations etc) while in
the same time he/she can better recognize him/herself (feelings, thought, motivations,
needs) which further facilitates the process of distinction between client’s own and
another person’s psychological processes. In addition role reversal can strengthen the
ability of client to articulate both his/her internal processes and those recognized in the
other. Role reversal further facilitates separation processes and enhances individuation
process thus corresponding to the third phase of development: “…in the mirror stage, we
presuppose that the infant gradually learns to recognize himself as an individual separated
from others. The reversal presupposes, in addition, that you can move out of your own
position into the position of the other and act his part.” (Moreno, 1952, p.136, in Fox,
2008). Moreno noticed that “The growth of the reversal strategy of the child is an indicator
of the freedom from the auxiliary - the mother or the mother-substitute. It signifies the
first step in the liberation of the child from dependents, if not in fact, at least in its
imagery…of being grown up some day and doing everything for himself without the aid of
an auxiliary ego”.

The reversal ability of the child also supports the further process of differentiation
between fantasy and reality since reversal of the role with the other assumes the
possibility to acquire more knowledge about the other. Therefore through the role reversal
child may be stepping into the reality of the other and in return may give up some of his
fantasy about the other as well as about him/herself. Thus the role reversal represent the
way of learning about the external reality, the way of replacing some of the imagination
about the world and oneself with the information about it.

The stages of development and their connection with psychodramatic techniques were the
subjects of investigation of many psychodramatists (Leutz 1974; Kruger 1997, Kellermann
2007, Dayton 2005) and consequently different versions of stages and their connection to
psychodrama techniques are available in contemporary psychodrama literature. There is a
general disagreement over the beginning of the second universe as well as over connection
between the psychodrama techniques and the particular phases of development.
Peter Felix Kellermann (2007), stated that the five stages that Moreno had firstly
formulated were later reformulated by Zerka Toeman Moreno, into the following three
stages: the first universe, the second universe and the third universe (para.88). The
difference here is only in the usage of terminology – the addition of the term the “third
universe”. However these three stages do not differentiate from the three stages that
were described above and that were placed into only two periods- the first universe and
the second universe.
On the other hand Dayton (2005), adds one more stage, so she differentiates four stages of
development: “The stage of double”, “The stage of mirror”, “The stage of auxiliary ego”
and “The stage of role reversal”, hence she interpolates the stage of “The auxiliary ego”.
The difference she made is not significant since the description of “The auxiliary ego
stage” gives the impression of being a sub-stage of the role-reversal stage (third stage in
Moreno’s terminology). In Dayton’s interpretation “The auxiliary ego stage” represents the
beginning of the process of achieving separateness from the mother and environment as
well as “maturation out of the narcissistic position, where others are seen only as
extensions of the self”(p.165), while the stage or role reversal represents the “true sense
of separateness.” (p.164) Thus Dayton placed additional emphasis on the gradualism in
human development.
Kellermannn (1997)10 keeps three stages of development but he connects them to four
psychodrama techniques unlike Moreno who connected them to three techniques.
According to Kellermann the technique of soliloquy 11 was based on the first phase of All-
identity, doubling and mirroring were based on the second phase of partial differentiation,
while role reversal is based on the third phase of differentiation (para. 88)

End notes on the Spontaneity Theory of Child development

The Spontaneity Theory of Child development lacks the clear identification of the points in
time in the life of the infant/child when he/she steps from one stage of development into
the other. As well, the developmental tasks of stages overlap, primarily the tasks of the
second, mirror stage and the tasks of the third role–reversal stage. The process of
differentiation between fantasy and reality that is primarily the developmental task in the
third stage must be to some extent also occurring in the previous stage, the mirror stage.
If the child starts to experience the self and starts to perceive herself as a separate from
the auxiliary ego and the environment than the child has to have the ability to perceive to
some extent the reality around her. Therefore the mirror phase could also represent the
ground for separation between the fantasy and reality as well as the ground for some level
of recognition of the other which are the developmental tasks identified by Moreno as
belonging first and foremost to the third stage of development.

Regardless the differences and challenges in identifying the number of stages of

development, their connections with psychodrama techniques and problems in identifying
the points in time in the life of the child when the stages occur, the main ideas of
development formulated by Moreno remain valuable rationale for conducting psychodrama
10
“Let’s face it” in new book
11
Psychodrama technique in which protagonist /client is asked to talk aloud his inner voice
and free associate at the psychodrama stage
therapy. Infant develops gradually from co-existence with the mother (auxiliary ego)
towards accomplishment of the separate sense of self and “…from psychologically
undifferentiated to a more and more differentiated personality” (Moreno, 1994) (p.48).
In this processes of separation and individuation the quality of relationships between infant
and his environment (mother and other significant persons) is of the crucial importance for
the development. According to Kellermann: “People who are given the opportunity to
express themselves freely, and who are provided with adequate mirroring, doubling and
role reversal will continue to develop and grow”. (1997, p.89)
Based on ideas of development the mirroring, doubling and role reversal techniques in
psychodrama therapy are used in order to remedy the lack or inadequate doubling,
mirroring and role reversal that may had occurred in the early life of the clients. This is
achieved through psychodrama action at the stage as well as in psychodrama group where
therapist and group members provide opportunities for adequate doubling, mirroring and
role reversal as a part of holding and containing function aiming at insight gaining and
facilitating change. In addition, on psychodrama stage members of the group that are in
the roles of protagonist’s significant others (called auxiliary egos) can act in the way in
which significant others supposed to act and they were not. Thus, significant emotional
corrective experience is offered to the clients aiming to unblock development and provide
opportunities to personality growth.
The Spontaneity theory of child development does not provide the comprehensive
explanation of the child development and it needs to be complemented with the Role
theory as the structural theory of personality in psychodrama where ego equals with the
role or roles which a person takes and identifies with. For the course of
separation/individuation and for the appearance of the integrated self role taking and role
playing represent an indispensable process that is based in the adequate doubling,
mirroring and role reversal. Without role taking and role playing processes personality
development would be impossible. Therefore, previously described stages of development
are of major importance due to the fact that they represent the ground for emergence and
shaping of roles, thus determining the appearance and characteristics of the
personality/self.
REFERENCE LIST

Dayton, T., 2005, „The Living Stage“, Deerfield Beach, Florida, Health Communications,
Inc.

Kellermann, P.F., 1997, “Let’s face it: mirroring in psychodrama” in “Psychodrama,

Advances in Theory and Practice” Baim C., Burmeister J., Maciel M., Ed. Hove, East
Sussex, Routledge

Moreno, J.L., 1994, (First Edition 1946), “Psychodrama“ Volume 1, New York, Beacon
House INC

Moreno, J.L (2008) „Psychodramatic Production Techniques“ (first published 1952) in „ The
essential Moreno, Writings on Psychodrama, Group Method and Sociometry by J.L. Moreno,
M.D. (p133)“Jonaton Fox , Ed. New Paltz, NY, Tusitala Publishing

Winnicott, D.W.,(1960), The Theory of the Parent-Infant Relationship in The Maturational

processed of and the facilitating environment, London, Hogarth Press and the Institute of
Psycho-Analysis, 1965