Sanford Meisner, Improvisation, and the Art of Psychoanalysis

ABSTRACT

This paper challenges the strictures in psychoanalysis that seem to decry creativity. Sanford Meisner, a renowned theater teacher, trained actors to perform the same script night after night with an unpredictable sense of freshness. This complex accomplishment was achieved through improvisation. These improvisations relied on imagination and creativity. Meisner’s approach afforded intense, affective engagement between two or more actors. The script created the context for interaction, while improvisation created the affective engagement that was unpredictably different with each performance. The case of Roberto demonstrates how Meisner improvisations afforded a creative entry into Roberto’s feelings of detached isolation. Through these improvisations, impasses in the treatment were transformed. New dimensions in the analyst/patient connection unfolded, and new understanding of the source of the patient’s protracted, detached, isolated, depressed states emerged. Roberto’s discovering new-found satisfaction not only with his analyst but in all relationships supports the value of improvisation as a creative contribution to psychoanalysis.

KEYWORDS:

• Affective engagement
• creativity
• depressed states
• Meisner improvisation
• psychoanalysis
• unpredictability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Arthur A. Gray

Arthur A. Gray, Ph.D., an honorary member of the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity (IPSS), is faculty, supervisor, and serves on its Coordinating Committee. Other faculty/supervisory positions are the Postgraduate Psychoanalytic Society’s Group Therapy Department, the Training Institute for Mental Health, and Adelphi University. He is Council Member of the International Association for Psychoanalytic Self Psychology (IAPSP), on the Institute Committee of the American Group Psychotherapy Association, and on the editorial board of the Psychoanalytic Inquiry journal. He consults with self psychology groups in South Africa and in Japan, and conducts supervision online using his published group supervision model. His published articles apply self psychology and subjectivity theory to individual, couples, group, and supervision. He has a specific interest in how improvisation informs the therapeutic process. His latest publication is, “Living Truthfully Under Imaginary Circumstances: Improvisation in Psychoanalysis,” in Psychoanalytic Dialogues 2015. In private practice in New York City, Arthur treats adults using individual, couples, and group psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.