Psyberspace » Psychodrama

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.

Moreno on God

Walter — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 05:44:45 +0000

YouTube audio

The rest of the audio can be purchased here.

Am I responsible for everything if I’m God?

Partner in its creation

I must have been in the beginning

I created myself

Mirroring

Walter — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 05:38:52 +0000

Mirroring is a word used in both the Psychodrama and Imago modalities. In a classic psychodrama the protagonist returns to the audience and is companioned by the conductor of the drama, who instructs the auxiliary egos to re-enact the scene. This can be done for a variety of reasons. One is to reveal to the protagonist how their actions look from another perspective. Another reason might be at the end of a drama or role training session for the protagonist to see the new development in their being. The mirroring in the Imago sense shares these purposes though the form different.

I’m finding it helpful to think of two mirror positions.

1. Face to face

2. Spectator

Here is a quote from Moreno highlighting the spectator mode.

The technique of the mirror â€˜portraysâ€™ the body image and the unconscious of A at a distance from him so that he can see himself. The portrayal is done by an auxiliary ego, who has made a close study of A. … In the mirror technique the protagonist is a spectator, an onlooker, he looks at the psychological mirror and sees himself. Fig 4(Moreno, J.L., 1959, p. 53).

Here is an example from Peter Kellerman:

“.. Bob presented a scene in which he quarreled with his wife. He stated his case and argued that she did not pay enough attention to him and neglected his needs. A woman in the role of his wife presented the other side of the story, throwing fuel on the already overheated marital conflict. And so it went on in what seemed to be an endless battle of words and accusations. The director used the mirror technique in an effort to break the deadock. He asked Bob to step out of the scene and watch it all from the outside (as if in a mirror), with another man playing the role of himself.

Watching the fight as a spectator, Bob listened carefully to both partners. ” Page 92

Peter Kellerman also gives an example of mirror that is face to face.

“A group member to another: When I meet you, I feel enriched. Because you look at me from another perspective. Page 92

The purpose of mirroring

I can see two broad, slightly different purposes of mirroring.

1. Revelation

2. Validation

The first is so the person can see themselves either from a new perspective or how others see them. The second is to assist the person to have a sense of being seen and understood,and having value.

Both types have an existential quality, the person will get a sense they exist.

Mirroring becomes a very broad category we think of the whole field. As the term is used in all these ways within psychodrama and in other modalities I think it is useful to be able to distinguish the various processes that are called mirroring. Most examples of mirroring would fit into one of the following four combinations of form and purpose.

	Face to face	Spectator
Validation
Revelation

Psychodrama – Resources

Walter — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 22:13:52 +0000

There will be many more – some will be available in the contextually related posts below.

My pages:

Moreno

Multi-Level Curriculum

My writing page – has a section

Papers – links to resources:

Psychodrama Network News PNN_Winter_07.pdf

Contains: Message to the Membership
from Zerka Moreno
Part II of Moreno’s Influence on Martin Buber

Psychodrama and Psychotherapy – Resources

Walter — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:33:35 +0000

This post is just for BOTH psychodrama and psychotherapy – see als Psychodrama – Resources and Psychotherapy – Resources. I’ll add more as I discover more.

A comparison of psychoanalytic and
psychodramatic theory from a
psychodramatist’s perspective
LARS TAUVON

abstract A comparison of Freud’s and Moreno’s theories with regard to their implications
for psychodrama therapy. Basic differences in the theories are discussed with special regard to
therapist role, transference and tele, insight and catharsis, the time concept, the body, and
developmental psychology. Other topics treated are concepts of drive or energy, psychic structure
and role theory, psychic determinism contra the doctrine of spontaneity-creativity and differences
between an intrapsychic and an interpersonal approach. An outline of the relationship of
psychodrama and its philosophy and practice to other schools of psychotherapy is given.

Five Instruments of Psychodrama

Walter — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 12:02:27 +0000

The five instruments:

Stage
Audience
Director
Protagonist
Auxiliary Egos

Word documents on this available here.

Outcomes in Small Group Process

Walter — Sun, 09 May 2010 02:26:41 +0000

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.

Socialising & Socio

Walter — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 08:49:44 +0000

Jane & I discussing Socio over dinner after our great ANZPA conference in Sydney.

A photo follows!

“Group Psychotherapy” Journal Vol. VIII Nos. 3 and 4

Walter — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:00:47 +0000

Full text of “GROUP PSYCHOTHERAPY”
Vol. VIII, Nos. 3 and 4.

The whole volume is online in a poorly scanned version.

Transference and Tele: Section I, Transference

Walter — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:00:47 +0000

This is the second post while doing a close reading of Moreno’s lecture on Tele, “given by the author during his European journey, May- June, 1954.”

Note: I continue to edit these posts, they are a work in progress for now, not really be good blogging practice. If anyone comments or there are track backs, I will not change what I wrote so conversations make sense.

First Post
Transference and Tele (tag).

Quotes from the lecture, some research on Google and my detailed comments follow.

The opening paragraph of Section I (page 3):

Mesmer asserted that hypnotic cures are due to animal magnetism. Liebeault and Bernheim demonstrated that it is not animal magnetism which produces cures, but the suggestibility of the subject. Freud discarded hypnotic therapy and claimed that the core of suggestibility is transference. We can go a step further and declare that also psychoanalysis as a therapeutic method has not fulfilled many of the hopes it aroused. Whatever unconscious material is delivered on the couch, group and action methods can elicit more easily and, in addition, materials which the couch vehicle hinders in being delivered.

First a bit of research on the people he mentions:

Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault
“father of modern hypnotherapy” (Wikipedia)

Hippolyte Bernheim
Hypnotist. “Bernheim also had an influence on Sigmund Freud, who had visited Bernheim in 1889, and witnessed some of his experiments, though he was known as an antagonist of Jean-Martin Charcot (Freud was a student of Charcot).” (Wikipedia)

Primitive and flawed as some of these early therapies were, they were steps on the way. The fact is that Mesmer’s therapies worked a lot of the time by the sound of it… (Check out the podcast I mentioned in the previous post.) And yes, to attribute the cure to a “force” called “animal magnetism” was an error, but it is ironic that Moreno is critical (Is he critical?).

A note on naming
Moreno is into explaining phenomena by creating words, and there is some use in that. Postulating something that causes events explains things, it is both helpful and deceiving at the same time (perhaps always). The Phlogeston story is a good example, it is not just a silly idea. It is worth reading this essay by Jim Loy who asks us (even though we know it is not a true) to suspend our “righteous contempt for this phlogiston theory” and goes into some detail to show how the science of combustion and metabolism evolved. Moreno is in the tradition of the Phlogistians and the Antiphlogistians here, and like the Antiphlogistians he relies on research and experimentation. More about the question of naming will come up in my comments I expect.

“Freud discarded hypnotic therapy and claimed that the core of suggestibility is transference.”

I don’t know enough about what Freud said on this but the two words (to me) describe related phenomena both of which I have experienced. Did Freud discard hypnosis or simply prefer his own “talking cure”, with his insights into what he called transference? Whatever the plusses and minuses of hypnoses and Freud’s methods, Moreno is setting the scene for us to warm-up to a reflection, an exploration of what happens between people.

“We can go a step further and declare that also psychoanalysis as a therapeutic method has not fulfilled many of the hopes it aroused.”

Couch vs Action
Moreno leaves us in no doubt that he is dismissive of Freud’s method, and the word ‘also’ means he dismisses animal magnetism & suggestion. He is not as open minded as he advocated in the Intro! He then boldly dismisses the couch in favour of the group and action. Analysis elicits whatever unconscious material analysis delivers and Moreno’s method elicits whatever unconscious material they deliver. Knowing exactly what is delivered is a tricky thing. You had to be there. It different every time. How can we research this? How would we know what is easily elicited here, and to what end?

OK, onto the next paragraph (2) of Moreno’s lecture, he goes on to talk about group research:

Contrary to current opinion, group psychotherapy has within scientific medicine no therapeutic ancestor to emulate or reject. It is a new device. In order to develop as a therapeutic method it required a preliminary study of concrete groups and their dynamics, a carefully organized expedition into “group research”. But no group research in the specific sense of the word existed before 1923, the year when the Viennese Stegreif laboratory was founded. The task and study of “real” groups through direct observation and calculated experimentation is, whatever its merits or demerits, the achievement of our generation. Neither the theoretical formulations and suggestive insights of LeBon and Freud, nor the lecture techniques of Pratt and Lazell can be considered as based upon “group research”.*

Footnote:

* Because of the rapid growth of small group research inside and outside the borders of sociometry, it may be useful to define “group therapy research” as dealing directly with therapeutic problems and “group research” as dealing only indirectly with therapy.

A bit more Google research:

Viennese Stegreif laboratory
“Psychodrama had its beginning in Vienna with the Theater of Spontaneity, which Moreno first conducted in 1921 … He invented the open stage in the center of the room with access from the audience all around. His theater invited actors and audience to portray their own dramatic situations from the here and now, and to speak impromptu, without written lines, in response to one another. He perceived this as a kind of dramatic religion, a theater to call forth the spontaneously creative self” Psychology of Religion, Paul E. Johnson

Gustave Le Bon (Wikipedia)
The Wikipedia article shows how Le Bon’s interest in groups left a lineage of influence through Trotter & Bion to the Tavistock clinic.

Pratt and Lazell (Google Search)
The search shows just how often they are attributed to being founders of group therapy.

Good item on origins here, mentions Moreno: A pragmatic approach to group psychotherapy By Henry I. Spitz, Susan T. Spitz

Groups are as old as humanity, but Moreno chooses his words carefully, and rightly so; “within scientific medicine”, “specific sense” of the word research, he is saying that to consciously investigate group in a scientific way, within the medical tradition is new. His footnote emphasises that he is talking about therapy here. Perhaps People who conducted groups were forerunners, but that was not really looking at groups in an investigative way. Whatever the outcome of this investigation, I think Moreno is stating that to look at groups, consciously to understand more is a new bold step, he certainly recognises it importance: “the achievement of our generation”. It is a wildly confused realm, with each group having its own theory and language, it was then, and it still is.

I understand why he says this is “the achievement of our generation”. He sees a connection with his own sociometric approach and a whole new realm of science and a form of secular religion, its all linked in his work, and if widely understood would make a huge transformation of humanity.

Section I, Paragraph 3 (page 4 and 5):

But group research is an essential prerequisite to group psychotherapy. Regrettably, much group psychotherapy literature is written today in a dogmatic manner, with little or no emphasis upon research. Among the many concepts which are used uncritically and without sophistication are transference and countertransference. Therefore, we may consider first the smallest possible group which dominates modern counseling, the group of two, the “therapeutic dyad”. In every therapeutic situation there are at least two individuals, the therapist and the patient. The interaction taking place, for instance, between therapist and patient is the first point in this discussion.** Let us see how psychoanalysis views this interaction. Freud observed that the patient projects upon the therapist some unrealistic fantasies. He called this phenomenon “transference”: “A transference of feelings upon the personality of the physician . . . it was ready and prepared in the patient and it was transferred upon the physician at the occasion of the analytical treatment (Collected Papers, Vol. I, p. 475). . . . His feelings do not originate in the present situation and they are not really deserved by the personality of the physician, but they repeat what has happened to him once before in his life” (I, p. 477). A few years later Freud discovered that the therapist is not free from some personal involvement in return and this he called “counter”-transference: “Counter-transference arises in the physican as the result of the patient’s influence on his unconscious feelings” (Collected Papers, Vol. II). Actually, there is no “counter”. Counter-transference is a misrepresentation, it is just transference “both ways”, a two-way situation. Transference is an interpersonal phenomenon.

Footnote:

** J. L. Moreno, “Interpersonal Therapy and the Psychopathology of Interpersonal Relations”, Sociometry, Vol. I, 1937.

“Among the many concepts which are used uncritically and without sophistication are transference and countertransference.”

I imagine Moreno is exaggerating about the situation in 1954, however in my time as a psychotherapist there is plenty of sphisticated writing. Within the Jungian tradition I have learnt from Guggenbühl-Craig’s Power in the Helping Professions (1971). I will be quoting from Transference and Countertransference edited by Swartz-Salant and Stein (1984). An excellent collection of essays each one full referenced to indicate the fullness of the discussion. I imagine much of these Jungian writings would meet Moreno’s idea of sociometric research to some extent.

“…emphasis upon research”

Note the emphasis on research. It is a word used without (at least in his lecture so far) a clear description of what it means. He tells us he uses it in a “specific sense”. I have an inkling of what that is from a broader reading of sociometry. (see the entry in Wikipedia on sociometry that describes this more fully.) I think what he refers to is a finer delving into what is actually happening in the group (or dyad) in the here and now, in the work itself. It is more like what Carkhuff and Truax called “immediacy” (what is going on between us right now).

See my post on Freud, my take on Freud there would support his work as research too, much like Moreno’s, this post will come in handy later in this exploration too I think.

Transference
He quotes Freud’s description of transference. He is not at this point disputing the actual phenomena, he makes the point that the use of the counter pre-fix is not needed, as it is simply transference going the other way.

Countertransference (edited since I first posted)
Moreno’s main point is that there here is no qualitative difference between transference and countertransference, it is the same thing going the other way. His point, in discussion about countertransference is often made. However there is plenty of reason to identify the direction of the transference. I like the use of ‘counter-transference’ when it refers to the therapists “buying into” the transference of the client. For example thinking they are a truly great therapist is the client says “You are such a great therapist!”. There is probably transference involved in that, but I can see why we would call it counter-transference, much as we might talk of a counter role. I simply read “countertransference” to mean the therapists transference onto the client. It might be best to call it the therapist’s transference. However there is a rich tradition of the use of the word countertransference.

Moreno’s next paragraph elaborates the point about the symmetry of the transference:

The definition of transference as given to us by Freud is obviously made from the point of view of the professional therapist. It is the therapist’s bias. If the definition would have been made from the point of view of the patient, then the description given by Freud above could be reversed without change, except by substituting the word “physician” by the word “patient” and the word “patient” by the word “physician”. “A transference of feelings upon the personality of the patient . . . it was ready and prepared in the physician and it was transferred upon the patient at the occasion of the analytical treatment. . . His feelings do not originate in the present situation and they are not really deserved by the personality of the patient, but they repeat what has happened to him once before in his life.” If this phenomenon exists from the patient towards the physician it exists also from the physician towards the patient. It would be then both ways equally true. That educational psychoanalysis produces a basic change in the personality of the therapist cannot be taken seriously. Irrational trends in his behavior continue. It provides him at best with a method of therapeutic skill. According to this we could just as well call the physician’s response transference and the patient’s response countertransference. It is obvious that both the therapist and the patient may enter the treatment situation with some initial irrational fantasies. As I pointed out in the paper quoted above “a similar process—as in the therapeutic situation—happens between two lovers.” The girl may project into her lover on first sight the idea that he is a hero or that he has the mind of a genius. He in turn, sees in her the ideal dream girl he has wanted to meet. This is transference from both sides. Who can say which is “counter”?

Moreno makes clear he values the equality of two humans and is against a bias of professionalism.

Functional difference
I recall getting clear about equality between client and therapist in a discussion with George Sweet. Counselling involves two equal human beings, with a “functional difference”, i.e. each have a different job to do. (I just Googled it, and it does not come up, maybe it is an original George Sweet idea?

“According to this we could just as well call the physician’s response transference and the patient’s response countertransference.”

Exactly. Perhaps it is a more recent phenomena, perhaps because of Moreno’s work, to see the countertransference in a neutral way. We can use it withought bias. However there is more! Moreno has other problems with the term.

“That educational psychoanalysis produces a basic change in the personality of the therapist cannot be taken seriously.”

Or can we take that seriously? Look at the training we require, not just education but personal work. Look at this idea from Jung described by Harriet Machtiger quoted in an essay by Murray Stein (1984):

One of Jung’s basic premises was that the patient’s illness needs to be met by the analyst’s health. This interaction requires the confrontation and conscious interpretation of the conscious and unconscious contertransference/transference position of both analyst and patient, and the subsequent integration of the contents. (p. 100)

Note that there is not an assumption that the therapist does not have countertransference or health. All this needs attention.

It is obvious that both the therapist and the patient may enter the treatment situation with some initial irrational fantasies.

It is obvious. More than that these fantasies are the very substance of what is under investigation. Here he calls them “irrational fantasies”… yet they probably all makes sense in the full context of the encounter, with all the perspectives built on experience from the past included.

One of the healthy aspects we can expect a therapist to bring is an awareness that anything might be a fantasy, a projection, a transference and thus hold it more lightly than one who insists it is all “out there”.

Moreno makes the last point, still about what is “counter”, using the example of lovers. “This is transference from both sides.”

Indeed, love is blind.

After having eliminated the bias of the therapist as the one which defines the therapeutic situation, assigning to himself a “special status”, an unjustified status of uninvolvement and after some insight had come to display, still giving himself the benefit of being only “counter”, we arrive at the simple, primary situation of two individuals with various backgrounds, expectations and roles, facing each other, one potential therapist facing another potential therapist.

“… one potential therapist facing another potential therapist.”

His use of potential gives us that sense of equality, and allows for functional difference as well.

The rest of this Section moves onto “tele” and I will continue in a new post.

[stextbox id="custom" caption="References"]Guggenbühl-Craig, A. 1971. Power in the Helping Professions. New York, Spring Publications.

Stein, Murray, 1984. Power, Shamanism, and Maieutics in the Countertransference. In Swartz-Salant and Stein (1984)

Swartz-Salant, Nathan and Stein, Murray (Eds.), 1984. Transference and CountertransferenceChiron Publications, Illinoise.[/stextbox]