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Coming to Life
A day of experiencing Psychodrama

Linking here as the whole site is worth exploring:

Moreno Institute East – Biographies:

New research out of the University of Vienna by Dr. Robert Waldl shows the enormous influence that Dr. 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. Dr. Moreno’s 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 Moreno, Psychodrama Network News, Winter 2007).

The five instruments:

• Stage
• Audience
• Director
• Protagonist
• Auxiliary Egos

Word documents on this available here.

Five elements of Spontaneity:

• Adequacy
• Creativity
• Vitality
• Originality
• Flexibility

From J. L. Moreno (But where?)

Moreno’s writings:

Bibliography of the Work of J. L. Moreno (Published 1986 in Journal of Group Psychotherapy, Psychodrama & Sociometry, 39, 95-128.) Compiled by A. Paul Hare

Just bought John Nolte’s ebook from Lulu

Here is his own website.

I recently learned this bit of theatre jargon.  Psychodrama obliterates the fourth wall, and at the same time totally makes the distinction between audience and stage.

Fourth wall – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The fourth wall is the imaginary “wall” at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play.[1][2] The idea of the fourth wall was made explicit by Denis Diderot and spread in nineteenth century theatre with the advent of theatrical realism,[3] which extended the idea to the imaginary boundary between any fictional work and its audience.

The presence of the fourth wall is an established convention of fiction and drama, which has led some artists to draw direct attention to it for dramatic or comedic effect. When this boundary is “broken”, for example by an actor onstage speaking to the audience directly, or doing the same through the camera in a film or television program, it is called “breaking the fourth wall.”[1][4]

Winnicott famously said “there is no such thing as a baby.” (reference?) meaning of course there was always a baby and someone. Jacob Moreno’s notion of a social and cultural atom (reference?) is similar and more startling. There is a minimum set of roles (interactions) that need to be present for survival. In other words there is no such thing as a mother either, there is always a mother and a father (absent or not). The reference to role systems and dynamics is important here. We are not talking about people but relationships and ways of relating. People who don’t do anything are dead. Primacy of the relationship is not an uncommon idea in psychotherapy, even when the word ‘object’ is used in some schools of therapy, it is the ‘object relations’ that are important. For all that it is a big mind-shift to go from the every-day world of things and entities into the psychological world of dynamics.

The physical body, physical reality, so easily belies psychologically potent reality. Psychodrama has the power to reveal all the subtle bodies usually invisible, the use of the term surplus reality facilitates this. But even in psychodrama the mind-shift can be hard to make. Imagine a group of people, with their bodies invisible, see them as three dimensional movie programs of archetypal dramas, developmental processes and graphical depictions of experience of ecstasy & trauma in the cellular memory. The current state of warm-up is the movie that is playing right now. At any moment other movies could grab the screen, all the programs are networked. The body does not betray the soul, but it can fool us into thinking there is no soul. No wonder we have the idea of the eternal soul, it is collective, unconscious and interconnected back to the big bang.

The implications for psychotherapy are well known but difficult to fully implement. One potent central idea, is that the therapeutic relationship is the source of healing. Even that one, well established and standard in most definitions of psychotherapy is always under threat by talk of dependency, measurable evidence, behaviour, genes, chemicals, brains. And of course the demand for reports and videos introduce more elements into the relationship. The third eye kills the diad and creates a group. This may not be a bad thing if it were consciously embraced. If we said there is no such thing as a diad, however it often advocated that the third presence should be ignored. “After a while we forget there is a video camera in the room.” Denial of surplus reality. In the face of all these onslaughts psychotherapy has survived, and the healing power of relationship is constantly experienced and valued.

More important is the idea of social atom repair. In therapy all too often people warm-up to working on the relationship with the mother, and then later the father. As a psychodramatist I work, even in one-to-one settings with the idea of repairing the social atom. Whatever the medical mental health diagnosis people come with relationship difficulties. DSM style diagnosis are always blind to the psychological as they are totally fooled by and perpetuates the idea individual people. Those difficulties are present in the parental diad in some form. An investigation of the role system in the parental diad often sheds light on the current relationships. The most successful work I have done is where the “parents” enacted by the client, come to relationship psychotherapy. The client then, in the regressed state of the child, experiences their renewed parents. A new social and cultural atom is available to them.

This is similar to the TA idea or “re-parenting the parent”, but taken to a relational level.

Couple therapy, working directly with a relationship follows from the fundamental idea of a dynamic psyche. Yet therapists often talk of individual work as needed for a healthy relationship. Harville Hendrix’s Imago therapy, and Moreno and psychodrama before it, as well as all forms of family therapy with a systemic approach are more in tune with the psychological reality. In making the ‘imago’, the unconscious images operating in the relationship, the unit of therapy is a major breakthrough in psychotherapy. Hendrix’s phrase “The purpose of marriage is to heal childhood wounds.” (reference?) is profound. If we in the psychotherapy field embraced this we would use the healing potential in the couple relationship rather than the therapeutic relationship for psychological repair far more than we do.
There are time when couple work is not indicated, apart from when people are not in a couple. When attachment wounding is so strong that taking turns with each other and with a therapist is unbearable and leads to disruptive behaviour, I think it is rare.

People are myth. What is significant is ‘surplus’ to the physical entities, it is imaginal and systemic.

~~~
(Below is a quote that I found of interest, though a bit peripheral to my main points)
Perspectives – Vol. 6, No. 1 – A Primer on Narcissism – Page 3 of 3:

The first to seriously consider the similarity between Narcissistic and Schizoid pathologies was Melanie Klein. She broke with Freud in that she believed that we are born with a fragile, easily fragmentable, weak and unintegrated ego. The most primordial human fear is the fear of disintegration (death), according to Klein. Thus, the infant is forced to employ primitive defence mechanisms such as splitting, projection and introjection to cope with this fear (actually, with the result of aggression generated by the ego). The ego splits and projects this part (death, disintegration, aggression). It does the same with the life-related, constructive, integrative part of itself. The result of all these dynamics is to view the world as either “good” (satisfying, complying, responding, gratifying) – or bad (frustrating). Klein called it the good and the bad “breasts”. The child then proceeds to introject (internalize and assimilate) the good object while keeping out (=defending against) the bad objects. The good object becomes the nucleus of the forming ego. The bad object is felt as fragmented. But it is not gone, it is there.

This is a word used in psychodrama circles. Used to describe roles. They can be

• absent
• embryonic – is a word used on occasions
• underdeveloped
• overdeveloped
• conflicted

or

• adequate

Adequacy is in the psychodrama domain is the pinnacle of performance – there is nothing more needed. It is not faint praise, as if a schoolteacher looking at an essay using the word might use it to mean. I’ll pass it but only barely.

The word is also used in the definition of spontaneity.

“An adequate response to a new situation.”

~

I am reflecting on this word that I have come to appreciate. I like the humble tone. The implicit belief that adequacy is enough. Adequacy echoes the idea in other modalities of “good enough”. The delight of “adequate” is that there is no more required. Adequacy is fitting, nothing more is needed now.

But what is adequate in a new situation? Crying, running, fighting… who arbitrates these things?

Theory does not make sense on its own. Psychodrama theory requires a psychodrama context. Roles occur on a stage, one of the five instruments: Stage, director, auxiliary egos, protagonist and audience.

In such a context there is a warm-up, an enactment and sharing.

The enactment and protagonist emerge from the group. In an enactment there is never one role. The purpose of the endeavour is already defined and explicit. A warm-up may include a purpose and a yearning. Obstacles will be in the consciousness of the group. Adequacy is part of an outcome created collectively, and shared by the group. Adequacy is measured by applause, boos and hisses, laughter and tears.

And of course there will be new discoveries and new developments. After all the situation we have just seen on the stage is now an old one, demanding a new response. And the next time we meet what was adequate last time may be just a step towards the new.

My recent post: Can we Survive? is a draft for an item in a psychodrama publication. In that post I link Wisdom Councils and – Creative Insight Councils to the Sociometric methods of J.L. Moreno. The main idea is that there is a lager community and the small group resonates with the larger group in isomoprhic harmony, and can thus give back compelling insights and wisdom.

In this post I want to add a related idea.

From Dynamic Facilitation and the Wisdom Council theory I have got it clear that a small group can achieve something in addition to personal therapy for its members, and assist an organisation or community in developing its life, and in its decision making.

Jim Rough calls it “option creating”, I am not yet sure exactly what he means by this but it is not just a list of possibilities or wild ideas from a brainstorming session. The breakthrough in a group happens when there is an insight into a real option – something the whole group would like to see happen.

Such breakthroughs are possible over the longer time frame of a group, of diverse members, meeting for several days and sharing at a deep level. Traditional meetings can’t achieve this depth.

For a group to be of use to a larger community there needs to be a thorough warm-up before the event as to the purpose and context. While in psychodrama we are aware of the importance of the frame, I have not experienced a group in that tradition that has the focus of leading to outcomes for the whole community. In our organisations we tend to make decision in meetings, and while there is plenty of interaction and depth work, it is not specifically an clearly focussed on future actions. There may be specialist sub-committees, or work groups, but they tend to be by the people with special positions an ongoing positions within the organisation.

Imagine randomly selected diverse small group – from an organisation or community – doing depth work groups with the task of one or two of the following topics:

What is our strategic plan?
What is our vision?
Principles for the Constitution.
Who should be a member?

The group would present its findings to all members of the community or larger organisation and its governing in one a4 document, and 20 minute audio file at a special hui for the occasion.