Monthly Letter by Max Clayton

Dear Colleagues,

Between March 1988 and December 1994, Max Clayton, the prime mover in establishing the Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand Psychodrama Association, wrote 57 monthly or bimonthly letters to members and other subscribers around the world. He pictured his readers as a developing community of learning, his letters the focus of their study, their communications stimulated by the relevancy of the dialogue to the readers. As he took up the challenge to produce each letter fresh and new, he also challenged his readers:

Can we follow through with the resolve to improve our functioning through love of the work, through looking at what we are doing and being aware of its results, through communicating with one another, encouraging one another, teaching and coaching one another?

Max found wonder in the ordinariness of a reader keeping a letter by their bedside, studying it bit by bit, absorbing and applying it effectively in their daily life, and in the extra-ordinary hope that readers may be strengthened in their ability to be expressive human beings, going out on a limb where the constraints of logic have no hold, treading where no one has ever gone before.

He also experienced self-questioning before writing each letter.

Will the content be of value to you? Will I focus on the right areas? I have been very glad to receive responses from many of you during the year. I have been confirmed each time you have let me know that a particular letter has been useful.

By the end of the seventh year of writing Max reflected that the letters’ original purpose to build a community of learning which would bring readers strength and knowledge had, he felt sure, been achieved to some degree. The regular writing had been a big task but a most satisfying one.

Now in the 90th year since Max’s birth, his letters are newly available to readers all over the world. We have compiled them into one volume, displayed in a flipbook format on this webpage and downloadable as a single PDF subject to copyright. In either format, you can scroll through the pages or go to the contents pages and indexes to click on any highlighted item to go to the relevant section of the volume.

We imagine Max would feel satisfied that AANZPA members and others who knew him and those who never met him will now have the opportunity to study and be stimulated by his letters and that this may lead to further “…communicating with one another, encouraging one another, teaching and coaching one another” and much more.

With our best wishes,
Craig Whisker, Chris Hosking, and Philip Carter (Editorial Team)