ABSTRACT
Philosophers who influenced Moreno are known to include Socrates, Dante, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche (see Marineau 1989:49). From these philosophical roots, Moreno came to emphasise the primacy of the original encounter and to contend that human life develops against a background of
the group in which one lives and action. He, among others, stressed the necessity to alter the form taken by culture to arrive at a more ‘fruitful chaos’. Malcolm Pines, a British group-analytic psychotherapist, has pointed out that the schools of psychotherapy have different styles and metapsychologies. He likens Moreno’s to the Dionysian:
In Greek mythology…Dionysias, Pan…brings from his Asiatic sources a super-abundance of creative energy with which to celebrate life that leads to a desire for destruction in order to bring about change…. Dionysias is always surrounded by a Bacchantic crowd, bringing cathartic release from the oppression of individuality.
