With the term encounter Moreno denoted a meeting, contact of bodies, confrontation, countering and battling, seeing and perceiving, touching and entering into each other… in a primary, intuitive manner… a meeting on the most intense level.
The image that Moreno used to visualize this most intense level of the meeting is impressive:
“A meeting of two: eye to eye, face to face.
And when you are near I will team your eyes out
and place them instead of mine,
and you will tear my eyes out
and place them instead of yours,
then I will look at you with your eyes…
and you will look at me with mine
and we will meet.”
Moreno was interested in what happened here and now between people. In his descriptions of both the encounter and the tele phenomenon equality, reciprocity and mutuality between the two are prominent – in contrast to the psychoanalytical concepts of transference, projection, etc., which have a subject and an object and the significant event takes place at some different place or time.
In addition to the significance of the category of the moment, Moreno also highlighted another category which was overlooked until then – the action (enactment). According to Moreno a person is a performer of roles.