Category: Psychodrama

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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.

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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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Force Field Analysis

Is this sociometric?

Force field analysis is an influential development in the field of social science. It provides a framework for looking at the factors (forces) that influence a situation, originally social situations. It looks at forces that are either driving movement toward a goal (helping forces) or blocking movement toward a goal (hindering forces). The principle, developed by Kurt Lewin, is a significant contribution to the fields of social science, psychology, social psychology, organizational development, process management, and change management.

en.wikipedia.org

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Action Research and Sociometry

In my exploration of Moreno’s ideas on Methodology I have come across Action Research. Kurt Lewin’s name comes up again. I recall he had something else that was *like* Moreno, but not quite? Yes, Force Field analysis, (see next post). I wonder how connected it all is, and how useful? Or if it is important to see the specific Moreno aspects that might be overlooked? I imagine the ideas of wap and Maximum Voluntary participation might not be present. Will check out, and would be interested in comments from people who know!

Action research
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Action research is a reflective process of progressive problem solving led by individuals working with others in teams or as part of a “community of practice” to improve the way they address issues and solve problems. Action research can also be undertaken by larger organizations or institutions, assisted or guided by professional researchers, with the aim of improving their strategies, practices, and knowledge of the environments within which they practice.

Kurt Lewin, then a professor at MIT, first coined the term “action research” in about 1944, and it appears in his 1946 paper “Action Research and Minority Problems”. In that paper, he described action research as “a comparative research on the conditions and effects of various forms of social action and research leading to social action” that uses “a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of planning, action, and fact-finding about the result of the action”.

en.wikipedia.org

Action Research

I am interested to get hold of the article by Philip Carter

And one by J Guntz

Continue reading “Action Research and Sociometry”

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Psychodrama Biblography

Comprehensive. Must get them to add my thesis!

This international bibliography of psychodrama is available to anyone with Internet access. It is the fruit of an attempt to compile an exhaustive list of citations of scientific works on psychodrama since its creation by J. L. Moreno. It now contains some 5,600 entries,

pdbib.org

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Rage

I like the writing of Dawn Lipthrott on Imago.

For example: How does Imago differ…

I got something clear from a passage in that article, and it will assist me in moving to a “Parent Child Dialogue”.

In the article she speaks of the importance of the unconscious processes, and how they emerge with safety through lack of interpretation but with full Mirroring Validation and Empathy

Read on…

Continue reading “Rage”

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Relational Thinking

There are two really crucial ideas that are relatively new in the therapy field, that anyone in a relationship needs to know. They make up the the systemic, relational paradigm shift that for all its value, and having been around for decades, could be missed! To miss it would be like missing out the penicillin and micro-organism knowledge if you had an infection when that was just taking hold a ninety years ago. To embrace this relational paradigm is more important than the exact approach one uses, though it needs to be a relational one. Imago, Psychodrama, Non Violent Communication and many other approaches are systemic and relational, or at least not actively opposed.

One is that the right here, now, in the relationship is the solution to the relationship problem. How to get there might be painful and hard, you will need to learn skills, make effort, but individual therapy or leaving, or searching for a better mate has all those problems and will lead to similar relationship problems, or to no relationship at all.

The second is that it takes only one person in the relationship to commit to really working on it. In fact the ability or desire to take that role is never even and equal, so it is never quite fair.

These ideas seem straight forward to me now, but they fly in the face of much more prevalent notions, ones I was actively taught, and took on board as wisdom, and have had to unlearn: That it is good to sort yourself out before you have a relationship, and that each person needs to commit to doing their share, that it is 50/50.

Al Turtle puts all these things very well. Great to find his site today.

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