Social Work, Sociometry, & Psychodrama:
Experiential Approaches for Group Therapists, Community Leaders, and Social Workers
Dr. Scott Giacomucci, DSW, LCSW, BCD, FAAETS, PAT
Link to the book:
Theatre of Spontaneity 2021
Here is the printable flyer for Theatre of Spontaneity 2021
Open evenings of Psychodrama in Christchurch
First Tuesday of every month. 6.30 to 9.00pm.
Come and participate in an evening of Psychodrama conducted by experienced group practitioners. Psychodrama is an active and enlivening method which aims to increase spontaneity, strengthen relationships and build community. We explore what emerges in the group on the stage and sometimes the events have a theme. Social or community issues may be to the fore, sometimes the event is more about personal or professional development.
The name Theatre of Spontaneity has its origins in Vienna, early last century, when Jacob Moreno, the founder of psychodrama, conducted theatre in this style.
The event has been happening regularly since February 2013. Usually between 10 and 15 people come. The evenings are conducted by qualified psychodrama directors
You are welcome, no experience necessary.
Please arrive by 6.15pm.
Venue:
Quaker Meeting House, 217 Ferry Road, Christchurch.
Fee:
Koha
Organised by the Canterbury/Westland branch of the Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand Psychodrama Association.
AANZPA Canterbury/Westland AGM and Pot Luck Dinner — Flyer and Link to Meetup
Psychodrama
**** Potluck Dinner ****
Tuesday 17 November, 7pm
Phillipstown Community Hub
39 Nursery Rd, Phillipstown
Christchurch
Join us for an informal gathering for a potluck dinner from 7pm. Regional AANZPA members, associate members and affiliates welcome Theatre of Spontaneity attendees, Psychodrama trainees, and others interested. This will follow our regional association AGM (6.30-7pm).
https://www.meetup.com/theatre-of-spontaneity/events/274098541/
Serendipity and the Sociometric Matrix
Just read a post on John Frame’s blog on Serendipity.
… a strange force called synchronicity, or the coming together of things at one moment in time by that non-linear force called synchronicity. I argued how synchronicity might be related to the two greatest films in Hollywood and one of the most famous books in American history.
Lovely stories about great movies follow.
It made me thing about how drama work… how in psychodrama we use synchronicity – we don’t call it that, but we refer to making the sociometric matrix visible.
Synchronously I was just uploading my 1999 thesis to this blog. I read it through the other day and I was quite pleased with it. I am working with trainees who are writing psychodrama thesis. And it seems to do what I teach now.
Have a clear topic and audience. The central “thesis” needs to be present throughout.
Imagine the task of the group leader when faced with diverse individuals and how this might conflict with the desire to have coherent group life.
Join me as a systems thinker, becoming aware of the inter-relationships in the group, to be able to use the imagination to see the life of the group and the life of individuals.
In art, poetry and psychodrama things come together…
The Power of Intimate Relationships — A One-Day Workshop, October 10, Christchurch.
A Couple Therapy Training Day
with Walter Logeman
Saturday, 10 October
This one day workshop is for people who work
with individuals and/or couples.
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I’m pleased to announce this one day couple therapy training. The focus will be on engaging the couple.
Right from the start it is usually ONE person who makes contact. How to address that initial difference? There are so many ways and so many different scenarios.
This is where a sociodramatic approach comes into its own. The life in the group will bring forth the collective wisdom. Yes, we trust the power of intimacy in the group for learning about the power of intimacy in the couples we work with.
And what if you don’t see couples for some reason?
Counselling, if the matters raised include a partner, means it is relationship therapy. How to work with the power of love in that relationship?
There is a lesson in the relationship to learn, and one partner can transform a relationship. It’s better if they do that together.
Go here to see more and to enrol: Psychodrama.org.nz
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This one day workshop is a lead-in to Psychodramatic Couple Therapy Training
https://psychodrama.org.nz/couple-therapy-training/ the next four-day event is Wednesday 18 – Saturday 21 November 2020, you can enrol now.
Spontaneity-creativity
For Moreno spontaneity was “a new response to an old situation or an adequate response to a new situation” (1953, p. 336), with creativity adding the element of inventiveness.
Moreno, Zerka T. (1987) “Psychodrama, Role Theory, and
the Concept of the Social Atom.” in Zeig, Jeffrey K., Evolution Of Psychotherapy, first Conference. Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.
Zerka is quoting from the definition that is on the same page in the 1978 edition, 366.
Here is another quote from “Who Shall Survive?” 1978 edition, Page 42:
Spontaneity operates in the present, now and here; it propels the individual towards an adequate response to a new situation or a new response to an old situation. It is… the least developed among the factors operating in our world; it is most frequently discouraged and restrained by cultural devices.
So is spontaneity the response, or that which propels the response?
It’s only ontology.
From the Dictionary:
Ontology
noun: ontology; plural noun: ontologies
1.
the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being.
2.
a set of concepts and categories in a subject area or domain that shows their properties and the relations between them.
“what’s new about our ontology is that it is created automatically from large datasets”
Origin
early 18th century: from modern Latin ontologia, from Greek ōn, ont- ‘being’ + -logy.
I have long had a phrase I use “It’s only ontology”. I use it to listen to people as they talk about Jesus, Chi, Shan, God, spirit or soul and so on. My little phrase reminds me to listen to the person rather than get into a debate about the existence of this or that. Also, irrespective of the existence of stuff, ontology “shows properties and the relations between” categories. For an archetypal psychologist, for example, there is a fundamental distinction between soul and spirit. Other people may use the words differently, yet they can reveal much about their world view. It’s only ontology.
I am looking back on earlier posts in relationship to ontology. Here is one where my phrase does not hold:
Encounter The Heart of Psychodramatic Couple Therapy — AANZPA Journal 2019 — Walter Logeman
The Moment in History
I am a psychodramatist and hence a student of the work of J.L. Moreno. And I hold his philosophy and methods to be revolutionary in the sense of having potential to heal humanity. There is an area of his philosophy and outlook where he comes short of the potential, it is in the conception of mass action and the macro forces that operate in the world. He lacks a good grasp of Marxism. And I think Marxism lacks the science of sociometry, the outlook of small groups.
Continue reading “The Moment in History”
Facing the future… with an eye on the past
“Freud’s … therapy consisted in turning the patient into his past … instead of developing the direction of spontaneity into the future.”1
Wiese said that in to contrast with the work of Moreno. He’s right too. However embedded the present dynamics is the geneology. Whakapapa. Moreno talked of statu nascendi. It is in the swirl of unfolding from that moment of birth on that spontaneity happens and the new is created.
- Von Wiese, Leopold. (1949). “Sociometry.” Sociometry, Vol. 12, No. 1/3 (Feb. — Aug, 1949), pp. 202—214 Published by: American Sociological Association https://www.jstor.org/stable/2785387