Jacob L. Moreno - Summary of Contribution

Summary of Contribution

There is evidence that the methods of J. L. Moreno have held up respectably over time. Subsequent research from the University of Vienna shows the enormous influence that Moreno's theory of the Encounter (Invitations to an Encounter, 1914) had on the development of Martin Buber's I-Thou philosophy, and Buber's influence on philosophy, theology, and psychology. His wife, Zerka Moreno, writes: "While it is true that Buber broadened the idea of the Encounter, he did not create the instruments for it to occur." Moreno "produced the various instruments we now use for facilitating the human encounter, sociometry, group psychotherapy, psychodrama, and sociodrama". Zerka is herself an expert in psychodrama and sociometry, and continues her late husband's work.

With training centers and institutes on nearly every continent, there are many thousands of students who are expanding and developing training and teaching the Morenean Arts & Sciences across the disciplines, to more fully realize Moreno's vision to make these social sciences available for "the whole of mankind."

Moreno is also widely credited as one of the founders of the discipline of social network analysis, the branch of sociology that deals with the quantitative evaluation of an individual's role in a group or community by analysis of the network of connections between them and others. His 1934 book Who Shall Survive? contains some of the earliest graphical depictions of social networks.