This paper aims to explicate the philosophical foundation of psychodrama and to provide how the philosophical thoughts of the Spiel can apply to our concrete life at the practical dimension of philosophy.
The philosophical thoughts about 'the Spiel' have emerged from ancient times. The theory of playing conceptualized by modern philosophers such as Kant and Schiller is connected to the psychoanalytic playing therapy. In that regard Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Gadamer claim that the subject of the spiel is not a man but the spiel itself, and they present anontology of the Spiel to which psychodrama is closely connected.
According to Gadamer, the Spiel is not related to subjective reflection. Rather, it is an existing method of pure self-expression similar to natural movement, and it is, like a work of art, transformed into the'formation' which involves, and speaks to, humans. Also, the temporality of the Spiel is, as the unique present, 'timelessness' that makes the distinction of ordinary time meaningless. The participants are absorbed in the Spiel and the thrilling self-oblivion that discloses the continuity with the self. In this way the Spiel and the world are combined with the continuity of meaning.
Psychodrama is a continuous spreading of 'spontaneity' like natural vitality, and it is the formation of genuine 'encounters' through the actions. The past and future can be taken, here and now, as 'the moment' in time, and there participants are absorbed in the 'surplus reality' so that they return to a creative cosmic being of 'I-God'. By means of participating in psychodrama, a man who lives in the restricted real norms can expand and change himself, so he can recover the natural spontaneity which results in therapeutic experience.