Category: Psychodrama

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Encounter, Buber & Moreno

From:

Marineau, R. F. (1989). Jacob Levy Moreno, 1889-1974: Father of Psychodrama, Sociometry, and group psychotherapy. United Kingdom: Routledge.

The third idea is the notion of ‘meeting’. of ‘encounter’. Moreno has argued that Martin Buber, who wrote an article in the magazine Der Neue Daimon (see page 56) in 1919. was influenced by his own concept of ‘Begegnung’ (encounter) of 1914. It would be very interesting to establish the exact nature of the relationship between the two authors and clarify the extent of their mutual influence. There seems to be no historical basis for putting too much emphasis on direct influences. Buber’s thinking developed gradually, but can be traced back to his own childhood. His contribution to the journal Daimon was minimal. But Moreno and Buber did have common friends and relations in the persons of Max Brod and Franz Werfel.

The two men also had a lot of other things in common. Both read Socrates, Dante, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. Both acknowledged the primacy of the original ‘encounter’: Moreno says that at the beginning was action and the group. while Buber says that at the beginning was the relationship. Both stress the necessity to alter the form taken by culture to arrive at a more ‘fruitful chaos’. Both also stress the importance of ‘experiencing’ reality as a means of change rather than just talking about it. Both were highly emotional people, giving prime importance to the body: Buber, still smarting from the loss of his friend and companion Landauer forty-five years after his murder, told Carl Rogers: ‘Now once more. I was compelled to imagine this killing, not only visually, but with my body.’ Moreno, equally sensitive to bodily experience, developed the concept of tele.

See also the post that confirms that Buber was influenced by Moreno.

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What is Psychodrama

Looking for suitable descriptions to link to.

Here is a paragraph from the The Federation of Psychodrama Training Institutes in New Zealand (FTINZ) site:

What is Psychodrama

Psychodrama is the name given by J.L. Moreno to the method he developed for helping people become more creative in day to day living. It has applications in many different areas in which people are learning, changing and relating to others, in training, education, healing, spiritual life, business, performing arts and in organisations. Practitioners of this powerful method integrate all levels of a human being: their thinking, their intellect, their imagination, their feelings and their actions in their social context. In this way, learning is able to be applied directly in actual living situations at work, outside the home, in other organizations and in close relationships.

There is a link there to
anzpa.org

The page is good too, not sure if the general criticism is needed of other modes of work, though I agree with what I is saying; the first paragraph follows:

Continue reading “What is Psychodrama”

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Dr. Rory Remer

Homepage
I am delighted to have discovered Rory Remer’s site. A Psychodramatist, TEP. Now more focussed on Chaos theory and how it leads to other psychotherapeutic modalities.

Of particular interest are these papers:

An Introduction to Chaos Theory for Psychodramatists

The interesting thing is that here, for the first time I have seen someone make the same point I have in my Psychodrama Thesis and in my Moreno & Scientific Method paper. The fractal nature of the systems.

Blinded By The Light
A critique of “evidence based” practice.

Gender Issues
Has a link to a good article “Did I Hear You? What Are You Really Saying?” (not by him but Denise Twohey and Antoinette L. James University of North Dakota)

And an interesting couple of pages on supervision.

I want to read more some of this carefully!

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Varieties of Encounter

On the back burner I have a study / paper I want to do: Varieties of Encounter, today I was delighted to read a snippet from Elizabeth Synnot’s Thesis. The delight is there too because I want to bring forth dialogue, encounter in the training for the CITP

A SOCIODRAMATIST AT WORK
Producing Genuine and Reciprocal Relating
to
Create a Leadership Renaissance

September 2005

A quote follows from her thesis available on the ANZPA site

Continue reading “Varieties of Encounter”

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Theatre guru Augusto Boal

I’m motivated about theatre after todays experience is Second Life, both because of it being a Theatre par excellence AND because our host Kim had such an exciting deep perspective about drama and education. Learning about Boal was a find, though it is more a case of finding something lost. I think I owned a copy of Theatre of the Oppressed at one time, having a brush with Paulo Friere in the early seventies. He spoke here just as we were setting up a school.

The motivation is not just an external thing, it has been on my mind as I prepare to train others in Psychodrama this year. Theatre is an essential component of Psychodrama – it is as much theatre as therapy, it is therapy because it is theatre… but we must go further than that. Psychodrama is not only “clinical Psychodrama” it includes applications on the world, good theatre can transform the world.

I don’t like the line he has below, though the last thing I really want is a debate, I love the spirit of all this,

“it is a rehearsal for the revolution”

The reason I don’t like that in therapy is more obvious. It is possible in surplus reality to scream, shout, and annihilate whole planets, to do what you will. This only works if people are stable enough to see this as NOT a rehearsal.

So what is it?

Transformation, making things possible in the world.

So, when it comes to Sociodrama, that too might be a way of transformation, making things possible in the world.

Theatre guru Augusto Boal: “As workshop leader, I am merely an instrument”
February 2008 –

“I always fiercely opposed our government, but that is over now. Gilberto Gil is an excellent Minister of Culture. The Minister of Justice recently announced that cultural centres will be established in two hundred Brazilian cities. That is fantastic, because I know this is not an empty promise. It feels like a reward for our years of work.”

Augusto Boal
Augusto Boal
Augusto Boal (Rio de Janeiro, 1931) wrote his first book, Teatro del oprimido (Theatre of the Oppressed), in 1975. His philosophy has attracted followers under that name throughout the world. “The audience holds a general rehearsal for what happens in daily life. Key concepts are human development and freedom. The theatre shows us new roles. In essence, these roles are ready and waiting for the time when the viewer actually needs them. The theatre itself is not revolutionary: it is a rehearsal for the revolution.”

powerofculture.nl

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Systems Approach to Social Networks

While tidying up my cupboards I found a sheet of info from my Social Work training in the early 80s. I have OCRed it and it appears below. It is one of the best things I got from the Social Work training. SYSTEMS.

Systems Approach to Social Networks

The conceptualisation of the human body into systems e.g. digestive systems circulatory system, autonomic nervous system assists in the treatment of individual people. Social work is developing system concepts which can assist in the treatment of social problems.

The system concept used in the management of cases includes the following four systems:

CHANGE AGENT SYSTEM.
The initiators of planned change. Usually .kis unit, but at times other agencies – e.g. Child and Family Guidance Centre.

THE CLIENT SYSTEM,
The individual, family or group-that is the expected
beneficiary of the change.

ACTION’ SYSTEM
The various people that effect the change – this
can of course include the client or the chance agent but also any other avalilable.resources.

TARGET SYSTEM.
The people or groups that need to be changed in order to achieve the goals.

It is important to note.that in one “case” there may be a variety of goals and that for EACH goal there will be a different content in each system.

E.G.

A patient may wish to improve her relationship with her
husband – (goal 1). She may wish to have her children back
from a foster placement (goal 2). Each of these goals may
have quite different TARGET, ACTION, CLIENT systems.
Note: that each goal is contracted with the client and social worker
and must be acceptable to both

Social Work Practice
Model & Method
Pincus & Minahan., Peacock Pub. 1975.

Continue reading “Systems Approach to Social Networks”

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Research

I am intrigued by the parallel between the physics of particles/waves that change depending on the observer, and the psychotherapy process.

Once an observer is introduced we change the nature of the psychotherapy. The very stuff we grapple with in a diad, trust, engagement, transference are impacted in many ways if there is a third party observer. All the relationship stuff of the psychotherapy would be present with the observer as well. In addition what happens to the unconscious processes as a result of the invitation, allowed by the therapist, on the work with the therapist?

In a brief conversation today with colleagues I noted two comments that I’d like to reflect on more.

“Even inside the group there are things we can’t see.” (A)

And the other…

“Deciding to LOOK at the process changes the group as well, even when the observers are all members.” (G)

~

It might be useful to see how these observations relate to Moreno’s “Rules” of sociometry, which is a form of research relying on practice based evidence. I’ll quote my summary of them.

  1. Participants are informed, ready, willing and able to participate.
  2. Participants in the group are “researchers”, and the leader is also a participant.
  3. Participation is done in action. Learning is experiential, it is learning by doing.
  4. There is acknowledgment of the difference between process dynamics and the manifest content. To quote Moreno: “there is a deep discrepancy between the official and the secret behaviour of members”. (1951:39) Moreno advocates that before any “social program” can be proposed, the director has to “take into account the actual constitution of the group.” (ibid)
  5. Rule of adequate motivation: “Every participant should feel about the experiment that it is in his (or her) own cause . . . that it is an opportunity for him (or her) to become an active agent in matters concerning his (or her) life situation.” (ibid)
  6. Rule of “gradual” inclusion of all extraneous criteria. Moreno speaks here of “the slow dialectic process of the sociometric experiment”.

References are to: Moreno, J. L., 1951, Sociometry, Experimental Method and the Science of Society . Beacon House, Beacon, New York. Page 31

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Unfroze and Compulsory

I just bought & downloaded “The Concordance” as my friend Simon calls it.

THE WORDS OF JACOB LEVY MORENO:
Vocabulary of Quotations from Psychodrama,
Group Psychotherapy, Sociodrama and Sociometry
ROSA CUKIER

It is an index to some of Moreno’s main writing, handy!

It is often translated from the Portuguese or Spanish etc. Hence we get some interesting words.

This is the first passage quoted:

ABREACTION
… A variety of improvisation is often called “abreaction.”
Whereas improvisation has an esthetic aim and is characterized
by some degree of freedom, abreaction has no conscious esthetic
aim, it is unfroze and compulsory. Both have a low degree of
mental organization.
Theatre of Spontaneity p. 79
El Teatro de la Espontaneidad p. 141
Teatro da Espontaneidade p. 96

“unfroze and compulsory”, I love that.

I wonder what the original was, was that in German?

I imagine the idea is one that I think of as central to the psyche.

What emerges in states of spontaneity, a state of freedom, comes unbidden, autonomously from the self, from beyond the ego. Jung calls this the autonomous psyche. Feelings are like this, but whole ways of being, roles can emerge as well.

“How are you?”

There is no choice, you are who you are right now, in this moment… compulsory. Yet there is choice as to how to express that, how to be with that, how to transform that, unfroze.

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Mirroring & Cybernetics

… the ability to perceive difference is a crucial, perhaps a necessary prerequisite for spontaneity. I saw more clearly one of the purposes of the psychodramatic technique of mirroring, it allows information, potentially lost* to be maximised and responded to.

This is a quote from an article I wrote in 1987! My friend Don said he had something I wrote back then, he dug it out. Wonderful to see it. Thanks Don! I recognised it as something I had written, especially the typeface from my old Brother Golf Ball printer but that was about it, I recalled nothing of the content.

I quite like it though, and here is a link to the whole paper, now scanned and online.

Mirroring & Cybernetics

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