www.psychodrama.world – History
How it all began
During the meetings of the FEPTO Research Committee issues concerning the theoretical and methodological foundations of contemporary psychodrama were often debated. In 2011, during the Research Meeting in Innsbruck, the idea of drawing inspiration from Wikipedia to share definitions of the basic concepts of psychodrama theory was first mooted. However, this idea was not realised. In 2014, Paola de Leonardis and Marco Greco decided to take up the project independently and started a survey among all FEPTO Training Institutes regarding training methods and the theoretical and methodological content of the training itself. The main objective was to initiate a cultural exchange between FEPTO training institutes in Europe.
They called this research: Survey on Identity, Theory and Methodology of Psychodrama. Main objective of this survey: to create a platform on which psychodrama trainers and trainees can compare their theoretical and methodological references, in order to establish, as far as possible, a common terminology. The results of these surveys were presented and further developed at the subsequent FEPTO Research Meetings and in small group work during the Annual Meetings. Psychodrama-keywords were defined and described and two thematic areas emerged: Theory and Techniques in Psychodrama and Integration of other Psychological and/or Educational-Training Theories into Psychodrama. Paola and Marco have constructed two corresponding concept maps, which summarise in a graphic representation the fruit of work that has developed slowly over more than four years. Here is a simplified version:
Psychodrama – Theoretical and Methodological Specificity
Psychodrama – Integration with other approaches
In the two illustrations, only the main categories of these maps are recorded. The whole maps are much richer and can only be inadequately depicted here.
Do we make a website?
In a small working group at the FEPTO Annual Meeting in Bulgaria 2017 we continued to work on these two maps and at the end came the question: How can we share this maps with the psychodrama community? Can we put these maps with the key words, categories and sub-categories on the website?
Roger Schaller took on the task of checking the feasibility and presenting a project at the next FEPTO Annual Meeting. It quickly became clear that the task was much more complex than Roger had imagined. In 2019 at the FEPTO Research Committee meeting in Padova/Italy and the Annual Meeting in Tallinn/Estonia, a first version of the website www.psychodrama.world was presented. The initial idea of creating a kind of psychodrama Wikipedia slowly developed within the next years but encountered many difficulties. Although our project met with a great deal of approval, we remained a small group of activists. The website was now online but hardly anyone visited it. And then the corona pandemic hit: we were busy with other issues and our own health. However we met regularly for online sessions and also participated in the online meetings of the FEPTO Research Committee. During those years, we were busy with the structure, financing, and organisation of the website.
New momentum
A new momentum came at the Fepto meeting in Ohrid/Macedonia in 2022: our project group grew and new members joined and they brought new energy and new ideas. Three important tasks were assigned: Hannah Salomé took over the practical editorial work, Vedran Korusic took over hosting and technical support and Inanç Sümbüloglu made the liaison to the FEPTO Research Committee and the FEPTO Council. In the same year the FEPTO Council decided that the website would now officially become a FEPTO website. We also developed a new format: the Journal Club: every two months a 90 minutes-session focuses on a selected article and includes the author as a guest, creating space for direct dialogue and shared reflection.
As the website and the project group grew, new organisational issues arose, in particular the question of the project group’s position within FEPTO. This was resolved when, at the beginning of 2025, the project group www.psychodrama.world became part of the FEPTO Training Committee and is now headed by Tamara Cavic.