Psyberspace » Relationships

Hermes: Guide of Souls — Karl Kerényi

Walter — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:14:55 +0000

Hermes: Guide of Souls — Karl Kerényi

This is, short, dense, with epiphanies built in. I have just stumbled on it in this better edition than I’ve had, as I’m editing my essay Archetypes of Cyberspace for Kindle!!

Dan Wile Collaborative Couples Therapy – Books & Interview

Walter — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:39:06 +0000

I’ve just purchased a couple of Dan Wile books, they are in the mail. I’m looking forward to going on one of his workshops. He comes highly recommended, by both Harville Hendrix and John Gottman

Amazon

From Psychotherapy Net

http://www.psychotherapy.net/interview/dan-wile

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Ruth Wetherford:	Dan, thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for Psychotherapy.net. I’m delighted to be interviewing you to bring more information about collaborative couple therapy to the world. Let’s start with the question of how you got into psychology. How did that happen for you?
Dan Wile:	Well, it was in the family. My mother is a psychiatrist, and my sister became a social worker. I was planning to be a psychiatrist myself. But when I went to the University of Chicago, I discovered that if I was going to be pre-med, I wouldn’t be able to take the University of Chicago Great Books courses. So I decided at that point to be a psychologist.
RW:	In your writing, you often credit the work of Berkeley psychologist Bernard Apfelbaum for contributing to your ideas. Do you have specific memories of working with him that stand out for you?
DW:	A bunch of us would meet with him every month, we’d present all kinds of ideas and cases, and he’d always come up with a fascinating new angle for looking at the matter. He seemed to be thinking at a higher level than practically everyone else I knew. Whenever I do therapy, I think, “What would Bernie say about this situation?”
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RW:	The growing emphasis in psychotherapy on the quality of the relationship between the therapist and the client, more than on the accuracy of interpretation, has contributed to a cultural milieu perhaps more receptive to your ideas, and your approach is gaining more interest and attention in recent years. What is it about your work that makes it more appealing to people at this point in the development of the profession?
DW:	I use my relationship with my client couples to improve the accuracy of my interpretations. I make guesses about what they’re thinking and feeling but not saying, check with them whether these guesses are accurate, and revise my statements according to what they say. We figure out together what’s true about them. And I use my interpretations to create a collaborative relationship with the partners. They like the fact that I take their view of the matter into account, and, in fact, make them the final arbiter of the accuracy of the interpretation. And they like that my theory of personality and relationships leads to interpretations that are non-pejorative. That was the problem with the old style of interpretations and what got them into disrepute—they were pejorative.
RW:	Interpretations frequently imply blame, and have the pejorative connotations you just referred to. Your approach emphasizes the opposite of that: acceptance.
DW:	A big problem in couple therapy is that we react to clients in the same way partners do with each other when they fight. A big problem in couple therapy is that we react to clients in the same way partners do with each other when they fight. When clients act in an arrogant, bullying, or other off-putting way, we get angry at them—though, of course, in a much milder way than the partners do with each other. Being angry, we think of these clients in pejorative terms, make pejorative interventions, and lose the ability to look at things from their point of view. When a client says or does something off-putting, you can stand back in negative judgment and say to yourself, “Well, this is borderline or sadistic or passive-aggressive,”—or you can imagine what it’s like being in that person’s position and what inner struggle the person is engaged in that’s leading them to be stuck in this off-putting behavior. I spend a lot of my effort in couple therapy trying to recognize when I’m standing back in negative judgment so I can overcome it.
RW:	That process of putting yourself in the other’s position and seeing how it makes sense that they could be stuck—is that what you call empathy?
DW:	Yes, that’s a good way to put it
RW:	Would you discuss the centrality of empathy in your work?
DW:	A big problem in couple therapy is finding yourself siding with one partner against the other, feeling unempathic. And that’s not a place where you can do therapy. So I try to think how to shift out of my pejorative view of this person and imagine what it’s like being in their shoes and seeing the hidden reasonableness in their seemingly unreasonable and irrational behavior. If I can get myself in a mood where I’m not reacting to them, I can make a pretty good guess as to what that is or think of questions to ask that would bring it out.
RW:	You’re pointing to the importance of self-control of the therapist’s own emotional reactions. Do you have some tools you can share or ways that you manage yourself internally?
DW:	I have three tools. First, just recognizing that I am reacting and viewing them in negative ways may be enough to shift me into a more compassionate place just recognizing that I am reacting and viewing them in negative ways may be enough to shift me into a more compassionate place and enable me to begin to look at things from their point of view. If that isn’t enough, the second thing is I have slogans—statements I make to myself or questions I ask myself—that remind me of my theory and help me shift to a more compassionate mode. One slogan is, “My job is to become spokesperson for the partner I find myself siding against.” Another is, “What is the internal struggle this person is having?” It’s great to ask myself that question because until I ask it, I don’t think there is an internal struggle—I think that person is just enjoying being provocative. Another question I ask myself is: “What is the vulnerable feeling that, because the person can’t express it, is causing this person to act in this off-putting way as a fallback measure?” Still another question is: “What can I say or ask that will enable the person to feel listened to?” If these slogans and questions aren’t enough to get me out of my adversarial state, the third thing I do is I try to get myself out of this state by expressing what I need to say to clear my gills, just as I try to get partners out of their adversarial state by helping them express what they need to say. One of the advantages of couple therapy is you can move in and speak for the partner. I use a psychodrama kind of method— I move over and kneel next to the person I am speaking for. I move over and kneel next to the person I am speaking for. For example, if I’m reacting to how one partner seems to be bulling the other, I can move over and, speaking for that person, I can say, “When you get bullying like this, I just stop listening and wonder why I’m in this relationship.” The partner I’m speaking for usually likes this, and I feel much better—so much so, in fact, that I’m suddenly able to look at things from the point of view of the bullying partner. My feeling of empathy has returned for that person and I move over and make a confiding statement for him.
RW:	What might that be?
DW:	I might say for that person, “Well, I know that you don’t listen to me when I come on strong like this. I feel helpless and get frustrated. I’ve lost some friends because I’ve come across this way. But there’s something important I’m trying to say and I wish I could find a way to say it that doesn’t blow you away.” Of course, I would immediately check with this person to see which parts of this, if any, capture how he feels.
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RW:	You talk about the “leading edge,” and I know that’s one of your core concepts. Say more about the leading edge and how you try to elicit the couple to talk about this.
DW:	Well, I figure that, at any given moment, there is a thought or a feeling each person is having that is who they are at the moment. It’s what Marshall Rosenberg calls “what’s alive at the moment.” If there’s going to be intimacy between the two partners, this is what each needs to confide to the other and feel that it gets across. I’m looking, at any given moment, for the feeling the person needs to express that would make them sigh with relief and feel closer to their partner. I’m looking, at any given moment, for the feeling the person needs to express that would make them sigh with relief and feel closer to their partner. And the term “leading-edge feeling” sort of captures what I have in mind.
RW:	It seems like at any given moment there could be any number of feelings that they’re having, such as, “I’d better keep my mouth shut—I’m scared.” Another one could be, “I feel lonely; I feel distance.” Another one could be, “I’m so angry—I don’t deserve this.” How do you determine which is the more salient or the one you want to focus on more?
DW:	I may be wrong, but I think that there is just one leading-edge feeling at any given moment—but it can quickly shift from, to use your example, fear to loneliness to resentment. But you’re right that if I ask partners a multiple-choice question, they might pick the leading-edge feeling they had two moments before, one moment before, or right now.
RW:	A multiple-choice question.
DW:	If people don’t respond when you ask them how they feel, you can help them along by suggesting possibilities. I might say, “Let me make it a multiple choice question: Are you feeling, A, hurt, or B, angry, or C, lonely, or D, something else entirely?”
RW:	You’re very clear that you want people to feel more connected by increasingly confiding their inner vulnerabilities in a way that can be understood by the other. But when you’re trying to get them to reveal those things and they’re presenting their default modes of anger or withdrawal, you don’t shy away from that. How does that work?
DW:	Well, at times withdrawing or being angry is a leading-edge feeling. So I would help people capture that. I might help them express their anger in a way that is more satisfying to them and easier for their partners to hear. Moving over and speaking for them, I might say, “I’m still fuming about what you said ten minutes ago. I’m not even listening to anything you’re saying. It wiped me out.” I’m hoping that the person I’m speaking for will express a sigh of relief and, when I ask whether I got her feelings right, will improve what I said to make it more accurate. If a partner is withdrawing, I’d try to give words to that. I’d move over next to that person and, speaking for that person, say, “Well, when you say what you just did, I get despairing, and feel hopeless about us and kind of give up and don’t have anything to say.” A statement like this—if the person were able to make it—is the way for that person to be intimate at that moment.
RW:	It seems like so much of your method is in the nonverbals: your tone of voice and your facial expressions that imply what you want is for them to get closer by being able to confide and have so-called “elegant conversation.” You seem to be equally accepting of rancor and disconnection—you believe it’s just as important to talk about that as well. Is that right?
DW:	That’s right. I’m looking for the leading-edge feeling of the moment, and it could be any feeling, positive or negative. I’m always thinking that there’s a way of confiding it rather than just acting from within it.
RW:	That reminds me of another thing you emphasize, which is the “relationship atmosphere.” Talk about that.
DW:	My focus in a couple is whether they’re in an adversarial cycle, which means fighting—either a quiet one or a loud one—or a withdrawn cycle in which they’re disengaged, or an intimate cycle in which they’re expressing their leading-edge feelings and it’s getting across to the other person. Those are three different moods that a couple goes through. And my task is to shift them from the withdrawn or adversarial mood they’re in, into the collaborative one.
RW:	That’s where intimacy occurs.
DW:	That’s right. That’s intimacy. And sometimes I show them what it would look like by enacting the conversation they’d be having right then if they weren’t angry at each other, but instead were feeling intimate. sometimes I show them what it would look like by enacting the conversation they’d be having right then if they weren’t angry at each other, but instead were feeling intimate.
RW:	By speaking for them.
DW:	By speaking for them.
RW:	You’ve written in your book, After the Honeymoon, that “a relationship is a busy place. It’s like an airport with lots of things going on and scheduled and unscheduled feelings arriving and departing.” Say more.
DW:	In the metaphor of the airport, I was thinking particularly of the observation tower, where people up there would be looking at everything going on—the planes, or feelings, going in, going out. So the couple could be in that observation tower noticing how they shift among those three moods—how there’s anger, withdrawal, and tenderness—and having an ongoing way of talking about what’s happening in the relationship. The “permanent platform” is another metaphor I use.
RW:	This has a lot of implications for your view of what constitutes intimacy. Do you have a summary about that, a distilled view?
DW:	Yeah. It’s that intimacy is each partner saying what’s on their mind, their leading-edge feeling, with the other one understanding. And you could say that a goal I have in couples therapy is to get the partners to develop, or develop further, such a permanent platform from which they can co-monitor the relationship. Intimacy is created by the way partners talk about what’s happening in their lives and, in particular, about what’s happening between them. It’s a consequence of their ability to be mutual confidants. That’s a key point to my approach—the goal of the couple developing the ability to observe their own interaction patterns, the permanent platform.
RW:	So it’s not about agreement or consensus—it’s about being more revealing.
DW:	Yeah, it’s having a way of getting in touch with what you need to say, what you’re feeling, and having a relationship in which the other person is able to take it in, is eager to hear it, and has a confiding comment to make in return. And it doesn’t become a fight, and the other doesn’t withdraw. When people are saying the main things on their mind, their main worries and concerns, their ache of the moment, and feel it’s heard by the other person—well, that’s the height of intimacy. When people are saying the main things on their mind, their main worries and concerns, their ache of the moment, and feel it’s heard by the other person—well, that’s the height of intimacy.
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RW:	The ache of the moment—that reminds me of your comment about the power of negative thinking. Say more about that.
DW:	Well, that was my cutesy way of talking about the permanent platform, in that the couple would know that there are certain problems that arise, certain conflicts that they have, certain issues that keep coming up, and they have an ongoing way of talking about that in a collaborative way when it arises. That means you’re not just trying to talk yourself out of the problem and look on the positive side, but are fully appreciating that it’s a problem—that’s the power of negative thinking.
RW:	So you’re saying that couples who can go in and out of collaboration and intimacy are having conversations, not just about what they’re enjoying in their lives, but about what they’re not enjoying of the important things, including the relationship.
DW:	Yeah. So it’s an increasing ability, after a period of fighting or withdrawal, to have a recovery conversation where you figure out what happened and get together in an intimate way about what went wrong—which is one of the more intense experiences of intimacy that people can have, if they can have it.
RW:	Tell me about the recovery conversation.
DW:	It’s inevitable that partners are going to fight and withdraw. Some couples are lucky to have the fight end without it escalating too much, and they wake up the next morning and go on as if nothing had happened. And maybe that works for them okay. But for some couples, that doesn’t work. And there’s a disadvantage anyway, because a fight or withdrawal is an opportunity for intimacy, in the discussion of it afterwards. But it’s understandable that a couple might want to avoid having such a discussion, since it often gets them back into the fight. Having productive conversations is a skill that evolves over time. The goal of such a discussion is to end up with a picture of how each partner’s position made sense and how the two of them got stuck in something. So it’s a compassionate, commiserating, from-the-platform view of what happened in the fight.
RW:	It’s been said that your compassion-based approach is compatible with attachment work. How do you see it being congruent with issues of secure and insecure attachment?
DW:	Well, I’m trying to create secure attachment by enabling partners to confide their ache of the moment. When, in every given moment, or maybe in just enough moments, a person can confide their ache of the moment—this leading-edge feeling—and feel that the other understands, this increases the security of the bond between them.
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RW:	You know, one aspect of your work that you describe a lot is your role of being utterly non-defensive. Anyone who knows your work would say that. How can you be so non-defensive?
DW:	I tell myself to be non-defensive and take pleasure when I succeed. And if a client criticizes me, I’m grateful the person is doing that rather than just quitting therapy without saying anything. And if a client criticizes me, I’m grateful the person is doing that rather than just quitting therapy without saying anything. And I believe that such criticizing is often a fallback measure the person engages in because they couldn’t say something more vulnerable. So I don’t want to make the mistake of reacting to the fallback measure when what I really want to do is help them discover the more vulnerable feeling underlying it, such as, “You know, I feel uneasy about the therapy for this reason or that reason,” or “I worry that we’re really not getting anywhere,” or “I’m afraid that nothing can help me.” Well, if they can’t get that out, they may be stuck just blaming me for something. So I want to track back to the person’s vulnerable feeling rather than react and defend myself.
RW:	Right. You’d call that “the pleasure of being non-defensive.” What’s pleasurable about it?
DW:	Well, it’s a goal I set for myself. Instead of feeling defeated or whipped, I have a certain amount of pride in being able to do that. Also, I find it enjoyable when we escape from polite conversation. So when a person is expressing some disappointment or anger at me that I could get defensive about, that person is likely to be saying something more direct than they’ve said for some time. For me—and I believe for others as well—there’s some intrinsic pleasure in shifting from the level of politeness to that of directness. And so this would be a shift towards more directness—that would be enlivening, you’d get to feel more there. And you kind of slump when there’s a movement in the other direction, of people saying things that are just polite and not engaged. Yes, there’s more energy, more feeling, more aliveness with the escape from politeness.
RW:	You describe things you tell yourself as slogans, implying you repeat them, you remind yourself frequently. And I know the repetition of thoughts and images that we want to acquire does lead to their acquisition. I would imagine that would be an important tool, to have some of these slogans that people can put in their own language and learn.
DW:	Yeah—now that you say that, I realize a therapist’s orientation can be thought of as developing from the slogans and questions that arise automatically in the individual’s mind. For instance, one common automatic question or slogan in a therapist’s mind is, “What family of origin issues could create the problem this person is having?” If that’s one of the main questions you automatically ask, your therapy will go in a certain direction. Or, “What unconscious purpose does this serve?” Thinking that, your mind and your therapy will go in another direction. So there’s the set of slogans and questions already in your mind. When I’m put off by a client’s behavior, I can lose certain of my slogans that lead me to be compassionate.
RW:	How does that happen?
DW:	When I’m feeling okay, one of the questions I ask myself is, “What’s the hidden reasonableness in what’s going on?” But when I’m reacting to the person, I don’t ask myself that—I just think the person is totally unreasonable. I lose the ability to do therapy, since therapy requires my appreciating how both partners’ positions make sense. It’s a temporary loss, because I get up in the tower of the airport as soon as I can, so I can notice what is happening and regain my ability to do therapy. Yeah, so in any given session, particularly with a difficult situation to handle, or with partners who might feel provocative, I can lose and regain my ability to do therapy repeatedly throughout the session. Hopefully I keep my mouth shut when I’ve lost the ability and only talk when I have it.
RW:	And this is just like the couples—gaining and losing the ability to connect with each other over time.
DW:	Exactly, yes.
RW:	Well, we’re just about out of time. Is there anything else you’d like to add to this?
DW:	You’re a great interviewer—the questions you’ve asked got me more clearly in touch with my own theory. So between the two of us, we created a momentum where I became more able to get at it than if you’d asked other kinds of questions that would have taken me away from my theory.
RW:	Thank you so much. We collaborated.
DW:	Yes, we collaborated.

Dan Wile, PhD is the developer of Collaborative Couples Therapy, and the author of Couples Therapy: a Nontraditional Approach, After the Honeymoon: How Conflict Can Improve Your Relationship, andAfter the Fight: Using Your Disagreements to Build a Stronger Relationship, as well as over 20 articles and chapters. John Gottman, the preeminent researcher on couples therapy has described Dr. Wile as “a genius and the greatest living couples therapist.” His website is www.danwile.com.

Dr. Ruth Wetherford is a San Francisco–based psychologist who has been practicing psychotherapy and teaching for the past 30 years. She specializes in couples therapy, family-of-origin issues and money matters. Her website iswww.drruthwetherford.com.

Psychodrama Training for Couple Therapists

Walter — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 08:53:55 +0000

The workshop I will be running for counsellors and therapists this year has gone up on the CITP website. It is run under the auspices of the Psychodrama training institute, and I’m pleased that this workshop I ran for the first time in Blenheim in November has a niche in the psychodrama setting.

I will also be doing a 3 hr workshop at the Brisbane ANZPA Psychodrama Conference this month.

Details of the July Christchurch workshop follow:

Psychodrama Training for Couple Therapists

Institute: Christchurch Institute for Training in Psychodrama

Year: 2012

"… an active form of psychotherapy in which the personal and interpersonal problems … are treated at the same time."

J.L. Moreno, Psychodrama vol 1 p233

At the heart of the family is the couple. Being in the couple relationship is often the most fulfilling and difficult aspect of a person’s life. Deepening your awareness of couple dynamics and learning specific processes will assist you to help people as they grapple with their lives.

This training workshop is for counsellors and psychotherapists. To the fore will be the work developed by J.L. Moreno in encounter, role dynamics and working with the interpsyche. You will develop your ability to:

- be more effective in your work with couples;

- include couple work in your practice if you don’t do that already; and

- strengthen your relational perspective in one-to-one work

What we will cover

Psychodramatic techniques such as doubling, mirroring, role reversal will be taught in such a way they can be used with all couples. We will explore in action the co-conscious and co-unconscious of couples we are currently working with to develop assessment skills.

We will work with what is of interest to members. You can expect to practice, experiment and learn new processes with generous coaching. The following topics will give you an idea of the scope of this workshop.

• Encounter – the relational perspective

• Assessing and using role dynamics in relationships.

• Using action methods with couples

• Structured conscious dialogue

• Your relationship with the relationship

• Transform criticism blaming and shaming

• Going deeper – the relationship as therapy

• Affairs and crisis – creating hope

Training approach

• Brief teaching and hand-outs

• Demonstrations

• Practice and coaching using role play

• Supervision of case work – in action

Hours from this workshop are accredited by the Australian and New Zealand Psychodrama Association, Inc., ANZPA and count towards practitioner certification by that body. Further information may be found on the web site http://www.anzpa.org

Dates: 19 July, 2012 – 21 July, 2012

Training Hours: 18

Leader: Walter Logeman

Location: Christchurch

Venue: Campbell Centre, 44 Bealey Avenue, Christchurch

Times: Thursday 6.30 to 9.00, Friday 9.00 to 5.00, Saturday 9.00 4.00

Workshop Code: CITP-2012E

Fee: $330.00* Enrol by 1 July 2012 * A discount of $50.00 is available to trainees enrolled in Psychodrama Training.

via Psychodrama Training for Couple Therapists | Australian and New Zealand Psychodrama Association Inc.

Co-Unconscious

Walter — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 05:22:26 +0000

The unconscious is a slippery idea by its very nature, if we become gradually more aware of our own dynamics, more conscious then we realise that there was stuff going on unconsciously before. I recall the day, for example, when I realised my mountaineering was associated with escape from social difficulty, originally in the family. Moreno talks of the unconscious all the time, though he belittles the idea occasionally and claims he surpassed it with the notion of warm up.

“The unconscious lives on as a by product of the warming up process.” Who Shall Survive? page liv.

“The antiquated couch was transformed into a multi-dimensional stage, giving space and freedom for spontaneity, freedom for the body and for bodily contact, freedom of movement, action and interaction. Free association was replaced by psychodramatic production and audience participation, by action dynamics and dynamics of the groups and masses.

the couch is in the stage
sexuality is in spontaneity
the unconscious is in the warm up
transference is in the tele

With these changes in the research and therapeutic operation the framework of psychoanalytic concepts, sexuality, unconscious, transference, resistance and sublimation was replaced by a new, psychodramatic and sociodynamic set of concepts, the spontaneity, the warming up process, the tele, the interaction dynamics and the creativity. These three transformations in vehicle, form and concept, however, transcended but did not eliminate the useful part of the psychoanalytic contribution. The couch is still in the stage – which is like a multiple of couches of many dimensions, vertical, horizontal and depth – sexuality is still in spontaneity, the unconscious is still the warming up process, transference is still in the tele; there is one phenomenon, productivity-creativity, for which psychoanalysis has given us no counterpart.” Who Shall Survive? page 120

productivity-creativity

In Psychodrama Volume 1 Moreno is quite happy to use the word unconscious again, especially when seen as co created in what he terms “intimate ensembles”:

See the full quote here

Therapy can make the unconscious conscious. In the same way, in couple therapy the repeating patterns the couple enact are revealed. The formerly unconscious becomes conscious. For example, a classic role description used in Imago therapy is the hailstorm and the turtle. The more one partner storms the more the other hides in their shell. Such dynamics are well understood by therapists but the couple may be totally oblivious to this co-created dynamic. To really see it in action and to reverse that cycle both parties need to be present.

Warm up to Dialogue

Walter — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 10:29:56 +0000

I’ve been listening to the Gottmans for hours on the CD as they talk at the 2010 Imago conference. I’m finding it very useful, perhaps their research is somewhat sociometric! I appreciate mostly the language and processes they add to the field:

Soft start
Four Horseman
Repair
Questions
C L Alt

And lots more…

… more to integrate/translate into psychodrama interactive relationship therapy.

I’m really interested in warm up. Thinking as the Dialogue as a tool for repair is useful. That also makes more of an event than just good communication, its therapy. The dilemma I had re the self help and therapy (see post about Stolp) is reduced.

So to see the Dialogue as repair is a warm up and also leads to the need to create a good warm up to it. … Its all in the warm up.

In my draft handout for the training I have this:

Appreciation
Collaboration
Intention
Identify feelings under anger & frustration
Yearning
Self soothing
Kindness

Warm up is a central concept in psychodrama, it means ready, willing and able. It can describe a state, eg they were warmed up to fighting, for example ready, willing and able to fight! Or as something we can create, individually or as a group. For example the director with a few crisp instructions warmed people up to being aware of their physical sensations, and a willingness to name them. The director can play a big part in creating a warm up. As a therapist every move we make helps create what will come next. How then does a the couple prepare to work on their relationship? How can we assist them in their warm up? It is complex in that if they have a constructive warm up we could just go with it, tweak it enhance it. Or if they are full of blame and stonewalling then there are many ways to assist the couple to cut across that warm up and engage and prepare them couple to be more conscious and constructive. It might take a while!

(I began this post a while back and it is related to the last one on warm up)

Warm up

Walter — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:39:42 +0000

Here is the section on warm up from my paper: The Group and its Protagonist.

The occasion is that I am thinking about warm up in the context of couple therapy, and warm up to dialogue. Following the quote is translation of this section to apply it to couple therapy.

The term warm-up is widely used in psychodramatic circles, sometimes to refer to individuals, and often to a quality of the group as a whole. The latter use may be in reference to the sociometry in the group as well as the roles of the members. I think of warm-up as being the extent to which a person or group is “ready, willing and able” to do a specific task. Moreno defined it as “the operational expression of spontaneity.” (Moreno, 1953, p. 42) Warm-up is relevant to the selection of a protagonist, perhaps more so than an application of any specific sociometric techniques. Moreno is speaking to the audience about the warm-up:

“Another significant aspect is the warm-up. In this session the participants were entirely unprepared, while in other cases they may be warmed-up in advance as to the problem to be worked outâ€¦ Then there is the warm-up which takes place in the first few minutes of the session… The form which the warm-up takes may come from the director or the group itself.”

(Moreno, 1951a in Fox, 1987, p. 177)

Warm-up is also a quality of the group as a collective. The degree to which the group operates with spontaneity is influenced by such things as the purpose and planning that has gone into the event, such factors as the communication prior to the meeting is influential. The warm-up is not simply a given, warm-up can be created by the director. The aim of the current study is to focus on the ways the director may assist in the revelation of the warm-up and name it. An accurate assessment of the current warm-up will assist the ability to influence it.

The term warm-up is useful when working with couples. It is also useful for couples to grasp the idea, as trying to relate with a poor warmup is not fruitful. The term can refer to each of the individuals, and also to the climate they create between them. I think of warm-up as being the extent to which each partner, and how the two of them together are “ready, willing and able” to do a specific task. Moreno defined it as “the operational expression of spontaneity.” (Moreno, 1953, p. 42) Warm-up is relevant to deciding who will initiate a dialogue, who will be the protagonist, bringing their concerns to the fore to further connection.

The term was coined in the context of groups. Moreno is speaking to the audience about the warm-up:

“Another significant aspect is the warm-up. In this session the participants were entirely unprepared, while in other cases they may be warmed-up in advance as to the problem to be worked outâ€¦ Then there is the warm-up which takes place in the first few minutes of the session… The form which the warm-up takes may come from the director or the group itself.”

(Moreno, 1951a in Fox, 1987, p. 177)

The degree to which the couple can operate with spontaneity is influenced by such things as the purpose and planning that has gone into the event, such factors as the communication prior to the meeting is influential. The warm-up is not simply a given, warm-up can be created by the therapist, who can assist in the revelation of the warm-up and name it. An accurate assessment of the current warm-up will assist the ability to influence it.

Tammy Nelson – recovering from affairs

Walter — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 23:36:19 +0000

Tammy Nelson on recovering from affairs

This is the topic of her new book, not yet out? There is a wealth of info here. It is worth listening to a couple of times and making notes, a few of mine follow:

Affairs create curiosity. Reframe the ‘detective’ as someone who is curious, and reframe questions about facts into questions about feelings.

Revision the future & it will create the future. Make the future explicit, concrete.

Attraction involves separateness

Forgiveness is part of it but a trap. Means the end of talking. Implies perpetrator.

Affairs involve sex, thus repair involves sex.

Affairs are not all bad. Crisis can help.

Monogamy agreements vary. A breach of the agreement is what is important, not simply the sex. Dishonesty is the worst

Internet has changed everything.

All affairs are different.

Affairs are not always the result of something wrong in the marriage, they can have their own unconscious purpose. Affairs can reactivate wounds, inorder to heal.

Yearning for growth

Trust is different to safety.

Gottman – Imago Audio

Walter — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 00:47:11 +0000

Imago Gottman in dialogue. This Audio begins with the Gottmans explaining their methods, it is followed by a discussion with all four of them.

I’m interested mainly in the relationship between the two modalities, on the way I noted Gottman’s research on emotions and children. He mentions that towards the end of the Gottman talk before the discussion.

imago-Gottman-2010.mp3

I found the book on children:

RAISING AN EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT CHILD: THE HEART OF PARENTING BOOK

Its pretty basic, details follow, but it was nicely put in the audio, so worth a listen.

Dr. Gottman draws on his studies of more than 120 families to zero in on the parenting techniques that ensure a child’s emotional health. He then translates his methods into an easy, five-step “emotion coaching” process to help parents:

Be aware of a child’s emotions
Recognize emotional expression as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching
Listen empathetically and validate a child’s feelings
Label emotions in words a child can understand
Help a child discover appropriate ways to solve a problem or deal with an upsetting situation

Repairing the core scene

Walter — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 10:51:42 +0000

One fight, one repair
Iâ€™ve heard it said that couples only have one fight and they have it for about forty years. Core conflict is another term for it, not sure who first made these observations but they ring true. Its an art to spot what is at the core of persistent difficulties in a relationship. Couples may already have a name for it. Transactional Analysis is another way, where we can see â€œparent, child, adult ego statesâ€ in the transactions. The Karpman triangle also has its roots in TA. Roles, as used in psychodrama is a good way to describe the way people interact. Harville Hendrix and Helen describe one syndrome as the hailstorm and the turtle. That is a role description of complementary roles.

The corollary of the one core scene is that it call for one core repair. Dialogues are not about good communication or a way of life. It is a tool to repair a role system gone wrong.

Getting the sex you want – by Tammy Nelson

Walter — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 03:34:24 +0000

I recommend:

Amazon Book or on the Kindle