Jacob Moreno

I think that a person who contributed a lot of knowledge and skills, in original way, was Jacob Moreno. He was born in Romania in 1889, he studied at the University of Vienna, and he was psychiatrist and psychologist.

Moreno was the founder of psychodrama and one of the inventors of group psychotherapy. Psychodrama is a psychotherapy that is based in the theater of improvisation, it can be performed by one, in pairs or groups. Its aim is achieve a strong contact with the own emotions, feelings, thoughts and fantasies, that not always can be achieved only through the conversation. When a person understands it, will be able to understand some situations in real life and may be better prepared to act on future. For example, if a couple has problems, they perform different events that have occurred.

Moreno contributed a lot in group therapy, in this technique the interactions between group members and the therapist becomes the material wich the therapy is conduced. Along with past experiences and experiences outside the therapeutic group, the problems arise from patients, and may be treated together; generating lessons that can be “translated” to real life.

I like the contributions and the work done for Moreno, because he helped in the creation of new techniques that had never before been applied to psychology. I think this makes him "the best" because it helped psychologists of different approaches (especially humanistic approach) to obtain new tools to address a more profound and innovative people's problems, not to stay in the typical image of the couch and the conversation.