Spontaneity
and the Politics of Action in
Psychodrama
In the realm of the tragedy Antigone by
Sophocles
Workshop Leader
Leif Dag Blomkvist
MA, TEP, Psychologist.
Director of training at Swedish Moreno
Institute. Trained and certified at
Moreno Institute NY as Director of
Psychodrama. Member of the American
Board of Examiners as a Trainer,
Educator & Practitioner (TEP); Board
Member of the Nordic Board of Examiners
(TEP).
The seminar stresses that spontaneity
can only exist in the public space and
between two or more persons. It also
stresses that the concept of spontaneity
relates to the experience of freedom
existing as long as he/she acts; not
before or after. Action, coming from the
verb in Greek “archein” meaning to
begin, to start something off, to rule
and the verb “prattein” to complete,
to follow indicates an “inter-est”
an “in-between” encounter that will
bring spontaneity into appearance.
However,
spontaneity is not inherent in human
nature but belongs to the common world.
The spontaneity principle is related to
thinking, judging and principles in the
sense of “inspiring from the outside”
rather than by the faculty of the Will.
Spontaneity, refering to the Latin word
“sponte” of free will also used by
J.L. Moreno, finds no support in this
argument. Freedom from the Greek point
of view was a matter of Polis and
politics of action. The faculty of will
from this point of view is not related
to freedom. The will in the sense of
I-will, I will not, I-can, I-can not,
relates to subjective matter and was
brought much later into philosophy.
The
freedom of action lies in the act as
well as in its unpredictability which
always brings something new to the world
and breaks cultural conserves or
automatism. Rather than stressing
spontaneity as a response to a new
situation, the seminar stresses the fact
that spontaneity is bringing something
new into the
world.
Spontaneity
and courage are related to the
experience of freedom of action. If this
argument has truth, psychotherapy today
is much too focused on the private world
where spontaneity is forced into
behavior or a question of the free will,
and thereby looses the possibility to
appear and become human. Spontaneity, a
quality that can only be experienced
through inter- action, will only become
visible in the public space. Hannah
Arendt writes concerning courage and
action and the experience of freedom
that:
“Courage
is a big word, and 1 do not mean the
daring of adventure which gladly risks
life for the sake of being as thoroughly
and intensely alive as one can be only
in the face of danger and death.
Temerity is no less concerned with life
than is cowardice. Courage, which we
still believe to be indispensable for
political action, and which Churchill
once called "the first of human
qualities, because it is the quality
which guarantees all others," does
not gratify our individual sense of
vitality but is demanded of us by the
very nature of the public realm.
For
this world of ours, because it existed
before us and is meant to outlast our
lives in it, simply cannot afford to
give primary concern to individual lives
and the interests connected with them;
as such the public realm stands in the
sharpest possible contrast to our
private domain, where, in the protection
of family and home, everything serves
and must serve the security of the life
process. It requires courage even to
leave the protective security of our
four walls and enter the public realm,
not because of particular dangers which
may lie in wait for us, but because we
have arrived in a realm where the
concern for life has lost its validity.
Courage liberates men from their worry
about life for the freedom of the world.
Courage is indispensable because in
politics not life but the world is at
stake”
Antigone by Sophocles has inspired these
thoughts concerning spontaneity, action
and tele. With her courage to be seen
and heard, lead by the principle of
honor and disobedience, she brings
something entirely new into the world
for the sake of the world. During the
whole drama she experiences freedom of
action through spontaneity. She masters
whatever new situation she encounters,
inspires people and brings them into
insight. Spontaneity and well being are
not necessarily related, however the
experience of freedom through action
remains.
