The Founding Story of the Istanbul Psychodrama Institute

30th Anniversary of the Istanbul Psychodrama Institute

The founding of the Istanbul Psychodrama Institute is rooted in a dream I envisioned nearly 40 years ago. It dates back to 1983 when, as a psychology student at Ankara University, Faculty of Languages, History, and Geography (DTCF), I attended the Bergama Group Psychotherapies Congress. At that time, the Bergama Asklepion had recently been rediscovered by J.L. Moreno's student, Grete Leutz. Previously, this congress was held in Ankara, where Grete Leutz would travel to conduct training. Her meeting with Dr. Özbek in Germany and his decision to start psychodrama training marked the beginning of a series of transformative developments. Inspired by learning that the Bergama Asklepion was one of the oldest spiritual healing centers, Grete proposed moving the congress to Bergama, which took place for the first time in 1976. Guests stayed in Dikili, commuting a short distance by road to attend the congress in Bergama.

During one of these congresses, despite the fact that students were not allowed to participate in group therapy sessions at the time, Prof. Dr. Engin Gençtan included me in his existential group psychotherapy session. This was an incredibly educational experience for me. In the fall of the same year (1983), my professor, psychoanalyst Prof. Dr. Neriman Samurçay, mentioned an invitation she had received. For the first time in Ankara, a psychodrama group psychotherapy training program was being launched, and she had been invited to join. She was aware of my participation in the Bergama Group Psychotherapies Congress and had noticed my interest in the field. She asked if I would like to join the group in her place, and without hesitation, I accepted her offer. The first group sessions were truly remarkable, providing a unique perspective on the essence of psychotherapy through a very different system. The group was led by Dr. Özbek, and during the spring and summer seasons, guest psychodramatists from Germany’s Überlingen Moreno Institute and various parts of Europe, including Grete Leutz, supported our training. At the same time, Dr. Özbek was completing his own training while continuing his work. Among the guest therapists who participated in our training, Grete Leutz (Germany), Helmuth and Elenor Barz (Switzerland), and Eric Franzke (Sweden) had a particularly significant influence on me.

By the end of my first year in psychology, my future plans had become very clear. Even though there were no examples in Türkiye at the time, I decided to establish a "Group Psychotherapy Institute." This is where my dream began to take shape. Although I had no concrete plan on how to achieve this goal—and, in truth, it wasn’t necessary—the destination was clear. The journey to get there became, relatively speaking, the easier part of the process.

Throughout my life, I have witnessed the challenging psychological processes faced by those who lack a goal, constantly searching for one, or trying to adopt the goals of others. The truth is, goals are not found by searching; they reside somewhere within you and reveal themselves in time. You either embrace them or ignore them. Those who choose to ignore or run from their goals can never create a meaningful purpose by searching externally. Once you have a goal, all your actions begin to serve it, your mind becomes motivated, your choices align with it, and your communication with the world around you adapts accordingly. My journey and my goal serve as an interesting example of this process.

First, in 1995, under my leadership and in collaboration with Assoc. Prof. Dr. Haluk Özbay, we established AGI (Ankara Group Psychotherapies Institute). Later, in 1997, the institute relocated to Istanbul and took on a new name, becoming the Istanbul Psychodrama Institute. Both are products of a dream and a great goal conceived years ago. It was a big dream, and it was realized beyond my expectations. In 2025, we celebrate the 30th anniversary of our Institute’s founding. The process that began with training groups in Ankara continued with the establishment of groups in Istanbul and the joint efforts of Haluk Özbay and me in managing training sessions in both cities. Subsequently, the inclusion of Neşe Karabekir in our team, the training and addition of new trainers, and the founding of institutes affiliated with IPI in Ankara, Izmir, and Kayseri marked significant milestones in this journey. Merih Ünsal and Şeref Algur carried the torch even further by founding their own institutes and spreading our structure across Anatolia.

When you embark on a journey toward a goal, the path is always filled with challenges, both big and small, and this is natural. However, if your goal is significant and you encounter imitators or those who engage in competition with ill intentions, you may face even more obstacles. These challenges, however, are often motivating. A wise teacher once said, "If you wish to harm your friends, praise them." Based on this notion, I can say that those who opposed me with bad intent have, over the years, unwittingly contributed to my motivation and creativity. I owe them my gratitude.

Returning to the pages of history: after the first two training groups in Ankara, which I participated in, training groups were subsequently launched in Izmir and Istanbul. While training continued under the umbrella of the Ankara Group Psychotherapies Association, chaired by Dr. Özbek, two parallel associations were also established in Istanbul and Izmir. This expansion enabled the work to reach more aspiring professionals. The activities in Ankara progressed with marathon groups and the Group Psychotherapies Congress held in Bergama.Since the training programs were still in their early stages, the process naturally took some time and included occasional irregularities. In the following years, I took on the role of General Secretary of the Ankara Group Psychotherapies Association in 1994, working alongside Dr. Özbek in management. I also played a leading role in organizing the Bergama congress twice. I still vividly recall traveling in my old, beat-up car with Grete Leutz, Dr. Özbek, and his wife Velhan Özbek, visiting the Bergama District Governor and Mayor, and making trips between Bergama and Dikili. My younger sister, a psychologist at the time, also participated in the congress, and her participation certificate bearing my signature still adorns our wall to this day.

Approximately 6-7 years after the training began, during a Bergama Congress on May 26, 1991, I received my first psychodrama assistant therapist diploma. When I was close to completing the advanced level of training, Dr. Özbek entrusted me with a psychodrama training group alongside two assistant therapists. This group began in the group rooms of the Psychiatry Clinic at the SSK Dışkapı Hospital, where Assoc. Prof. Dr. Haluk Özbay was the clinical chief at the time. The construction of those group rooms, recording devices, and one-way mirror rooms were just a few of Haluk Özbay's accomplishments during that period.

Looking back a little further, an interesting development occurred in the third year of my training. After one of our training group sessions, Dr. Özbek informed me that, as I was still a student, I could no longer continue in the training program. This was a double shock for me. First, the group with which I had shared so much would no longer exist for me, which was deeply unsettling. Second, my planned goal would be delayed.

Feeling that something was not right with this decision, I decided to write a letter to Grete Leutz in Germany. In the letter, I clearly expressed my determination to specialize in psychodrama group psychotherapy and my intention to work in this field in the future. I also conveyed my concerns that the recent developments might not align with therapeutic principles and that the process seemed flawed. I distinctly remember writing this sentence in the letter: "Regardless of the decision, I am deeply committed to conducting psychodrama group psychotherapy work in Türkiye."

This letter reached its destination in every sense. Four or five months later, we reunited with all the experts at the Bergama Group Psychotherapy Congress. I had been away from my group for a while. The congress continued with conferences held during the day and group sessions in the afternoon. Second morning, during breakfast at the congress, Abdülkadir Özbek approached me and said, "Deniz, there has been a mistake; you can return to the group this fall." This was wonderful and meaningful news for me. Although some group members shared the experiences related to this process outside of the group, the leader never brought up the issue. Given Grete’s background, having grown under the vast vision and infinite acceptance of J.L. Moreno, it is entirely natural to assume that the matter may have been addressed within the group.

Thirty years after the establishment of the İstanbul Psychodrama Institute, today, I am a board member of IAGP - the International Association of Group Psychotherapy, the second major association founded by Moreno. Looking back, I realize that in almost every sentence I’ve spoken and every action I’ve taken, I was determined and justified.

During my years of training, I participated in the organization committee of the 1994 Bergama Group Psychotherapy Congress, where I served as the chair and handled the registration tasks. These were excellent opportunities for me to get to know the system and the experts. I am grateful to Dr. Özbek and his wife for the trust they showed me.

Years passed, and shortly after I submitted my graduation thesis on Psychodrama Group Psychotherapy (1994) to Dr. Özbek and Grete Leutz, which was supervised by Prof. Dr. Etem Özgüven at Hacettepe University Institute of Social Sciences, titled "A Comparison of Social Atoms in Psychotic, Neurotic, and Normal Individuals." During this time, Haluk Özbay, Abdülkadir Özbek, and I held a small meeting. I proposed a new structure under Abdülkadir Özbek's leadership, which would enable the training process to be more organized. Dr. Özbek was unable to attend all the groups and supervise the trainings. From what I understood, the teacher was not very receptive to my suggestion or perhaps did not evaluate it correctly in its entirety. My proposal aimed to improve the system and was based on my commitment to the system itself. Later, in a conversation with Dr. Haluk Özbay, he shared his thoughts that Dr. Özbek might have misunderstood my suggestion. Over time, a disconnection took hold of our communication with the teacher. I think Haluk Özbay was right in his perceptions.

After waiting for about a year, I still hadn’t received my psychodrama therapist diploma. The process had somehow stalled, and although the exact reason was still unclear to me, it was evident that something was going wrong. This situation seemed unsolvable. After a while, with my suggestion, we decided to establish a training institute with Psychiatrist Associate Prof. Dr. Haluk Özbay. Thus, AGI - Ankara Group Psychotherapy Institute, or AGE - Ankara Grup Psikoterapileri Enstitüsü, was established. While I took on the role of the institute’s president, Haluk Özbay assumed the role of General Coordinator. Later, Prof. Dr. Erol Göka also joined the institute and began leading training groups. Many renowned experts, such as Psychoanalyst Prof Dr. Ülkü Gürışık, strongly supported this initiative. Haluk Özbay, Erol Göka, and I led the groups as trainers. During this period, the institute gradually expanded to Istanbul, where training groups were also established. 

About one or two years after our institute was founded, we attended the Bergama Congress with most of our students. This was a chance for us to reconnect and strengthen our bonds. Haluk Özbay, Erol Göka, and I were already among the founding members of this initiative. However, at the congress, we were systematically excluded and subjected to negative propaganda. We witnessed foreign guest therapists being encouraged to adopt the same stance. They refused to sign the "guest therapist form"  prepared for our students for their trainning hours and told them that they did not recognize the İstanbul Pschodrama Institute. This planned, systematic error was a deeply upsetting behavior that disappointed everyone. What kind of feeling was behind this? Our students and we never attended that congress again. It was clear to us that our paths had diverged. As I had written in the letter to Grete years ago, I would continue on my own path. This marked a clear beginning of a new phase for me.

The rapid increase in the number of training groups in Istanbul led to my colleagues and me spending almost every weekend there, making it inevitable for us to move to Istanbul. Thus, two years after the establishment of the Ankara Group Psychotherapy Institute, the institute’s headquarters was relocated to Istanbul, along with me. Naturally, the institute required a new name, and we decided on Istanbul Psychodrama Institute (IPI). While the original name was more inclusive, choosing a name that emphasized our main field seemed more appropriate. Under the roof of the Ankara Group Psychotherapy Institute, I had planned and developed many practical seminars on around 15 different areas, and we restructured them to specialize in psychodrama group psychotherapy.

Before the establishment of the institute, with the invitation of the specialists from Erenköy Mental Health and Neurological Diseases Hospital, a psychodrama group psychotherapy group started there and soon transformed into a training group. Additionally, three more groups were established in Istanbul in a short period of time. After using the hospital’s rooms for training, we began utilizing the library halls of the Istanbul Municipality in Taksim. During this time, Neşe Karabekir, who had not yet completed her psychodrama group psychotherapy training in England, joined us as the coordinator of the Istanbul groups and as a member of Istanbul’s first training group. With the help of Neşe Karabekir’s and my international connections, the institute began to invite an increasing number of guest experts to the training sessions. After Neşe Karabekir’s graduation, we led the training groups together as two trainers for an extended period. After the institute became the Istanbul Psychodrama Institute, we moved to our first building in Nişantaşı. During this period, we established close relationships with the international community. Among the experts we invited and worked with at the institute were Anna Chesner, Sue Daniel, Jacquie and Bob Siroka, Chris Farmer, Marisol Bouza Filgueira, Jacop Gershoni, Christina Hagelthorn, Kate Hudgins, Dr. Sue Jennings, Marcia Karp, Peter Felix Kellerman, David Kipper, Kate Kirk, Jeanne Burger, Paul Holmes, Laila Kjellström, Eva Levaton, Louise Lipman, Joseph Moreno, Zerka Moreno, Yacov Naor, Elaine Sachnoff, Eberhard Scheiffele, Gong Shu, Bob Siroka, Ron Wiener, Paul Wilkins, Liz White, and Judith Teszary. These distinguished experts shared their knowledge with us in various workshops.

Among these experts, Zerka Moreno holds a very special place. J.L. Moreno's wife, Zerka, visited Turkey only once in 2000, and during her time with us, the workshops and conferences we held opened the doors to many important exchanges. This was a milestone for our institute. Zerka Moreno honored us by allowing us to carry the name of the International Zerka Moreno Institute, one of only four such institutes in the world. As an interesting development, she later made a kind gesture by sending me a Psychodrama Group Psychotherapy diploma with her signature. This was seen as a correction of an ethical mistake.

The institute thus entered a whole new phase, and during this period, I began writing my books, which today number seven. Five of these books are authored by me, and two are multi-authored. Additionally, we also published two translated books. I began Psychodrama practices in theater with Vacide Öksüzcü, the Director of the State Theaters in Ankara, and continued in Istanbul with Mustafa Avkıran and Övül Avkıran’s “5th Street Theater”. As an institute, we initiated psychodrama, sociometry, and sociodrama applications in schools and introduced the system to corporate training. Over the years, we have organized numerous national and international congress presentations, panels, and workshops related to our field. Our social media accounts bear witness to this period in our history. As an institute, we have also undertaken many social projects. Examples include the Bolluca Children’s Village Education Project and the aid projects we developed during the country’s earthquakes. We also took on the educational project for the football camps created by the Turkish Football Federation for children in Van and carried it out with the help of our experts.

In the same period, the Istanbul Psychodrama Institute was also carrying out work in another arena. Shortly after its establishment, in 1999, the institute was accepted as a member of FEPTO (Federation of European Psychodrama Training Organizations), which had only recently been founded in Europe. About two years later, we became an accredited training institution as a member of EAP (European Association for Psychotherapy), which FEPTO was also a member of. In the same years, we became an organizational member of IAGP (International Association for Group Psychotherapy). All these developments culminated in 2023 when I was elected as a board member of IAGP. Nothing is a coincidence; all these developments are the result of work, belief, and vision. When I was elected to the IAGP board, we celebrated the 50th Anniversary of IAGP with a congress in Zurich, Switzerland, where it was founded, and I chaired the celebration committee. For me, this was a historical development and the result of my dedication to Moreno’s legacy. IAGP is the second organization founded by J.L. Moreno in the world and has played an important pioneering role in the field.

Going back a bit in time, while Neşe Karabekir and I were leading the training programs together for a long time, it was now time to bring new trainers into our circle. After completing two separate trainer training programs, each five years apart, we now have a new generation of group trainers. Today, in addition to myself, Neşe Karabekir, Esra Bilik, Begüm Kodalak, Merih Ünsal, Şeref Algur, Esra Taşdemir Seyitoğlu, Muharrem Çapkın, Özge Erel, Gülay Karaman, Refika Yazgaç, and Ecem Demirel continue their work as group trainers. Senem Eke Yıldız and Fatma Nur Bayram serve as thesis advisors and supervisors.

Fifteen years ago, Şeref Algur founded the Kayseri Psychodrama Institute, while Merih Ünsal founded the Ankara-İzmir Pusula Psychodrama Institutes. They now conduct their training in cities such as Ankara, İzmir, Kayseri, Sivas, Gaziantep, and Mersin under the umbrella of the Istanbul Psychodrama Institute.

Eight years ago, as an institute, we started offering the course "Introduction to Psychodrama Group Psychotherapy" at BAU (Bahçeşehir University), and we continue to offer it today. Additionally, we have contributed to the academic world through articles and conferences. Most recently, we organized the “30th Istanbul Psychodrama Conference” at the same university to mark our 30th anniversary. The theme of the conference was “Dreams and Symbols in Psychodrama.” Of course, it is no coincidence. We celebrated the realization of our dream, which is part of J.L. Moreno’s grand vision. We are deeply grateful to this genius who taught us the courage to dream.

Before establishing the institutes, I began and continued the "Psychodrama Group Psychotherapy Groups for Everyone," which I believe we, as psychodramatists, are responsible for, and for which I am the namesake. I led these groups for over 25 years. Later, Esra Bilik joined this process, and many of our experts have periodically led experience groups. Currently, Esra Bilik, Muharrem Çapkın, Gülay Karaman, Refika Yazgaç, and Gizem Sezan Gezen are also participating in the management of these psychodrama group psychotherapy groups.

Our institute is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and soon, other institutes will begin celebrating their 15th anniversaries. This is a great source of pride. A quote from Moreno is very important: "Time is a reedemer." Time has honored me and my work, bringing us to where we are today. Fifteen years ago, at a FEPTO meeting, a trainer from another institute once told me during a large group session, "I admire your resilience!" At that moment, I witnessed tears in Grete Leutz’s eyes.

As for myself and the institute, we believe in the work we do. We think that all other processes are misguided, and that people and groups often put themselves into the same intentions that they wish for others. This can be dangerous. I believe that wanting the good is the right path to follow. Through trial, error, learning, and creating, we have come this far, and we will continue to do so.

I would like to thank Haluk Özbay, who supported me in the founding of the Ankara Group Psychotherapy Institute (AGI), Neşe Karabekir, who provided continuous support during the process of moving the institute to Istanbul, the establishment and development of the Istanbul Psychodrama Institute (IPI), and all the trainers, supervisors, and institute presidents who contributed to this journey. After establishing 5 training groups in Ankara, the process that started with Istanbul Group 1 continues today with Istanbul Group 65. In total, 70 groups have been established. When we include the groups from other cities such as Ankara, Izmir, Kayseri, Mersin, Gaziantep, and Sivas, approximately 90 groups have been formed under the institute's umbrella. The institute’s advanced level groups traditionally carry the number of previous groups, so it is also important to remember the 20 advanced training groups that have been established. We have met with nearly 1500 specialists and trainees, and I would also like to thank all our students and graduates who have chosen our institute. The lists of all our graduates and the theses of our Advanced Level Graduates are available on our website: www.istpsikodrama.com.tr. They are the most important parts of the institute's psychodrama group psychotherapy training goals.

Happy 30th Anniversary of Our Institute.

Psych.M.A. Deniz Altınay
President of İstanbul Psychodrama Institute