Category: Psychodrama

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The Locus of Therapy – Moreno

When I was a social worker in the early ’80s and a person was waiting in the waiting room to see me, the receptionist would ring me and jokingly say your client system is here to see you.

Social Work has had a strong sense for a long time that the individual is always part of a system. This same systems theory was taught to me as being central to Psychodrama, specifically through an article by Lynette Clayton.

Recently I have read some good material in Imago Relationship Therapy : Perspectives on Theory, particularly by Randall C. Mason, Ph.D. who talks about the Relational Paradigm, and sees it as distinct from systems thinking.

I have been wanting to tie all this together, and Moreno’s contribution is significant. I love the way he sees the origin of our thinking of individual psyche ties in with the body as being the locus of treatment in medicine. What a fallacy it has been to continue to think like that in psychotherapy!

The opening of the Chapter on Sociometry in Psychodrama Volume one follows.

I’ve also added more notes on Sunday, 29 November 2015

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PSYCHODRAMA: What is it?

Here is a statement from the ASGPP, collecting these to help with the wording of a brochure I am writing for Supervision Training. The training will use Psychodrama as a training method.

asgpp.org

PSYCHODRAMA:

Conceived and developed by Jacob L. Moreno, MD, psychodrama employs guided dramatic action to examine problems or issues raised by an individual (psychodrama) or a group (sociodrama). Using experiential methods, sociometry, role theory, and group dynamics, psychodrama facilitates insight, personal growth, and integration on cognitive, affective, and behavioral levels. It clarifies issues, increases physical and emotional well being, enhances learning and develops new skills.

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Begegnung

anzpa.org

THe Australian and New Zealand Psychodrama Association Inc. title page …

Begegnung conveys the notion that two or more persons meet not only to face one an other, but to live and experience one another as actors, each in his own right. It is not only an emotional rapport, like the professional meeting of a physician or therapist and patient; or an intellectual rapport, like a teacher and student; or a scientific rapport, like a participant observer with his subject. It is a meeting on the most intensive level of communication. The participants are not put there by any external authority; they are there because they want to be, representing the supreme authority of the self-chosen path.
(J L Moreno Encounter)

Where is this quote from? The idea behind it is great. It seems to suffer, like the Motto, from translation.

Here is the wikipedia page with quotes in German.

This page was automatically translated from German. – translate.google.co.nz

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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:

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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

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