At one of its recent meetings, the Social Relations Society gave a demonstration of a new kind of group psychotherapy. It is called "Psychodramas," and its inventor, J. L. Moreno, was on hand to run the show. The new yellow, red, and green psychotheater on Mt. Auburn street was filled to standing-room-only for the occasion.

Dr. Moreno was a short, heavy-set man whose pale eyes and greying countenance made him look not unlike a Rivera self-portrait in lithograph.

In his preliminary talk before giving his first demonstration, Dr. Moreno said he was "like Freud an innovator. . . an inventor of gadgets--social gadgets...Psychoanalyst's couch, which is a mess, as you know. The patient couldn't get out and fight! Couldn't make love to anybody! He was tied down. The whole orientation of psychoanalysis has developed out of the patient's recumbent position." Dr. Moreno punctuated his remarks with colorful gestures, and his gusto of delivery could qualify him for another role--that of basso buffo.

"Now, who will be first?" A young man named Tom came forth from the audience. "You're the one I spoke to earlier, aren't you?" asked Dr. Moreno, softly. Tom's problem was getting a date. "Ahha! With a boy or a girl? A girl? Select one from the audience to act with you...Do you know many girls, Tom?" Yes sir, "Ah, well, the more you know, the less you have!"

In acting out the situation, Dr. Moreno's assistant, a Miss Tocman, served as the girl. Her "stage" experience proved too much for Tom. She twisted his attempts at casual pre-class time talk into insults. Tom still didn't get the date.

The next participant was a lanky fellow who said-he "really didn't have a problem," but that he was out for track, and that when he runs he loses his breath. "Anything else?" queried the doctor. "Well, I get scared, too," was the reply.

For this problem, Dr. Moreno made the trackman run around a circular table on the stage, followed by a student from the audience who had been appointed "auxiliary ego" to run beside him and offer encouragement.

Dr. Moreno, seemed thoroughly pleased with the proceedings. Next, a girl acted out an unpleasant experience of two years ago, when she had needlessly hurt her father's feelings with something she said. When she had finished, the doctor told her to go through it again only correcting her errors this time. "How many of us do not wish we could re-enact something in the past and do it right? Psychodrama gives that opportunity. You see, we started out this afternoon with caricature and now we warm up and have some very tragic psychological problems presented.

A Radcliffe girl, wearing a man's shirt and have a problem, either. She said that she was always fighting with her mother because whenever she had a date her mother wanted her to help with the dishes. At the doctor's suggestion, the girl played the mother, and accused her daughter (herself) of many wanted things, among which was "always reading the CRIMSON when I ask you to help me."

Throughout all the demonstrations, Dr. Moreno stood at the edge of the stage ready to slap and shove his actors into giving a more lively performance. Sometimes he functioned as a kind of jester, making pertinent wisecracks about the going-on. At other times, he appeared to be meditating, with chin resting on chest, one hand across his back and the other across his heart.

In his closing remarks, Dr. Moreno reminded his audience that "this is a didactic demonstration, nothing more."

As to whether the success of a psychodrama depended on the intuitive Powers of the director, Dr. Moreno said that even Albert Einstein had to rely something on hunches.