Category: Psychodrama

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The Reader and the Writer

Just read this here:

The reader is the musician of the book

https://austinkleon.com/2018/04/23/shelf-life-2/

“Books are frozen voices, in the same way that musical scores are frozen music. The score is a way of transmitting the music to someone who can play it, releasing it into the air where it can once more be heard. And the black alphabet marks on the page represent words that were once spoken, if only in the writer’s head. They lie there inert until a reader comes along and transforms the letters into living sounds. The reader is the musician of the book: each reader may read the same text, just as each violinist plays the same piece, but each interpretation is different.”

—Margaret Atwood

This of course rhymes and echoes with the concept of the Canon of Creativity – conserves > warm up > spontaneity > creativity.

I’m writing this post as it goes well with a thought we developed recently about The Writer.

The writer is the servant of the vision.

The writer can give the voice to the vision.  The writer is not you, or the whole of you. The writer has a job to to.  The vision needs no bounds. The writer will prune and edit in a way the visionary can’t.

The discipline of the writer will paradoxically enhance the vision.

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What is the universe up to?

On the first day of training in Imago therapy Maya Kollman characterised a couple relationship as “A microcosm of the universe trying to repair itself.” In different words psychodrama includes the same idea, the therapeutic tele is distributed in the group, it’s not just in the director.

And there is qualitative evidence for this… A group, or a couple, once the connection is established and there is a warm up, will hum its way to more and more enabling solutions. I see it so clearly in psychodrama groups – each drama assists the whole group in a quest that is finally resolved. The terminology of ‘disturbing motive’ and ‘reactive fear’ is used to describe this process. Even this naming implies that it is the ‘disturbing motive’ that arises first and the the ‘reactive fear’ is simply the obstacles of the cultural conserve (CC) that need to get out of the way. CC is a term from the psychodramatic theory Canon of Creativity

An earlier post grapples with the same idea. https://psyberspace.walterlogeman.com/2018/the-survival-dance-that-gets-in-the-way-of-the-encounter/

There is a layer of conserved coping that is somehow “man made”, the reactive fear, which is usually followed by flight or fight i.e. Criticism and blaming or avoidance. There is another layer – the universe trying to heal itself. Lets just call it eros or love. Gt the crap out of the way and the love will come through.

Both psychodrama and Imago have the philosophy that the therapist is the catalyst, simply providing tools, like dialogue, or the 5 instruments so the eros can emerge.

I’m reflecting on the relationship between letting it happen and making it happen.

The inevitable can be helped along.

We are agents in the healing of the universe. i.e. in its progress. Towards eros.

We can make it worse or better. If this is a dead end it will proceed towards the omega point in some other way. The universe does not care, but it won’t stop its evolution, its development, its progress. These words are teleological.

We make history but under conditions of our choosing.

Surfing. We can but catch a wave or miss it.

Anyway, if we assume that a group or a couple is “A microcosm of the universe trying to repair itself.” then we are assistants to that process.

Thats what Marxists are too.

Strange that the right who advocate market forces somehow believe in the benign power of the market. Leave alone. Marxists might trust the market too if it was alive in a society that was free of the distortions of the capitalists. It would tend towards each to his needs. Just like in couple therapy – in my room I have to be a strong dictatorship of the eros forces. We fight the cultural conserves (part of the current cultural forces) of blame – attack and control.

See more search the Tag – theory of change https://psyberspace.walterlogeman.com/tag/theory-of-change/

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The Survival Dance that gets in the way of the Encounter

We flee or fight to avoid pain.  In psychodrama  we call those ways of being the coping roles.  The path to the progressive, being fully alive, is to be with the vulnerability of the pain and attend to it.  This can’t really be done alone, yet no-one can do it for you.

This is a universal idea and present in many modalities.

*

The title of this post comes from Hedy Schleifer’s ECcT – Encounter Centred Couple Therapy. On her website she says:

“I want them to leave knowing that the “survival dance’ that they have been dancing for such a long time is “not’ who they are in their essence.”

Continue reading “The Survival Dance that gets in the way of the Encounter”

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Astonishing matrimonial psychodramas

The concept of medial understanding was the forerunner of what I call today co-conscious and co-unconscious states. Such a technique of reciprocal comprehension and “interpersonal memory” seemed to make possible astonishing matrimonial psychodramas, husband and wife reaching back into their first encounter and reliving, often with astonishing detail, all their moments of love and suffering, their silent tragedies and their moments of great decision
(Moreno, 1923).

Just how to produce such dramas remains somewhat obscure to me. Will experiment – and research!

The quote above is from this article by JL “Interpersonal Therapy and Co-Unconscious States, A Progress Report in Psychodramatic Theory” originally from: Group Psychotherapy, 14 (3-4), 234-241 (Sept-Dec., 1961) See PDF below.

PDF
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Couple and family therapy – Interpsyche

Here is a quote from Moreno that has major implications for how we conduct psychodrama in groups or with individuals when they want to work on significant relationships and the other party is not present.  Can we trust their representation?

Can a person in a couple relationship role reverse with their partner?

In a group can someone do a drama involving an intimate other who is not there?

These are questions I will be exploring in action with colleagues. in a workshop at the AANZPA  conference in Brisbane in January.

 

Marriage and family therapy for instance, has to be so conducted that the “interpsyche” of the entire group is re-enacted so that all their tele-relations, their co-conscious and co-unconscious states are brought to life. Co-conscious and co-unconscious states are by definition such states which the partners have experienced and produced jointly and which can therefore be only jointly reproduced or re-enacted. A co-conscious or a co-unconscious state can not be the property of one individual only. It is always a common property and cannot be reproduced but by a combined effort. If a re-enactment of such co-conscious or co-unconscious state is desired or necessary, that re-enactment has to take place with the help of all partners involved in the episode. The logical method of such re-enactment a deux is psychodrama. However great a genius of perception one partner of the ensemble might have, he or she can not produce that episode alone because they have in common their co-conscious and co-unconscious states which are the matrix from which they drew their inspiration and knowledge.

Psychodrama Volume 1, 4th edition, page vii

 

In short…

Couple and family therapy has to be so conducted that the “interpsyche” of the entire group is re-enacted so that all their tele-relations, their co-conscious and co-unconscious states are brought to life. Thus the interpsyche involves states which the partners produced jointly and which can therefore be only jointly reproduced, by a combined effort.  The logical method to re-enact an episode in the life of a couple is psychodrama.  However great a genius of perception one partner may be, he or she can not produce that episode alone because they have in common their co-conscious and co-unconscious states which are the matrix from which they draw their inspiration and knowledge.

 

The logical method of such re-enactment a deux is psychodrama.

 

Later — Friday, 22 December, 2017

Just noticed this quote fro Marshall Rosenberg:

 

It may be most difficult to empathize with those we are closest to.

Moreno was not alone in noticing this phenomena

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Who we are

This is my summary of what Moreno means by the social atom.  In psychotherapy that “atom” or pattern is the client.  When two of these “patterns” connect in love, then a lifelong process can follow. Maybe it is true love at first sight? Unlikely, love is blind. One possibility is to move from blind love to deep mature connection.  The other possibility is hell. A third is lifeless boredom.

Continue reading “Who we are”

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What is Psychodrama?

Psychodrama is a form of therapy.  Jacob Levi Moreno founded the the early forms of the philosophy and practice in Vienna early in the last century. On page one of his seminal book: “Who Shall Survive?” he wrote about a therapeutic procedure.

Clearly a therapeutic procedure that has as its objective the whole of humankind stands out as a special case of psychotherapy.  Psychodrama is a special case…
Continue reading “What is Psychodrama?”

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Psychodrama Workshops 2018

I’m delighted to have plans and dates for a bunch of psychodrama events next year.  I hope you will find something of interest!

Psychodrama Weekends with Walter Logeman – Christchurch

Fri, 13 – Sun, 15 April
Fri, 31 August – Sun, 2 September

Experience psychodrama for your personal development!

Download flyer and enrolment details

 

Writing Retreat Mt Lyford – for Psychodrama Trainees

Fri, 25 – Sun 27 May

Writing is an essential part of psychodrama training.

Download flyer     Enrol: http://psychodrama.org.nz/citp-2018c

 

Working With Couples – Professional Development – Christchurch

Christchurch Fri, 6 – Sun, 8 July 2018

This workshop will enrich your work with couples.  Also a good way to get started.

Download Flyer    Enrol: http://psychodrama.org.nz/citp-2018e

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Psychodrama Weekend with Walter Logeman

Just announced a Psychodrama Weekend.  I have conducted many psychodrama weekends and I’m pleased to have warmed up to something new for this one.

As I become more steeped in the relational paradigm everything becomes more relational. While not a workshop specifically for couples this one is “couple friendly”.  I’m conscious how important this is, not just in the flyer but in the actual way I will conduct the group. The relationship is the “third entity”. The relationship can be the protagonist.  And if one partner is the protagonist then there is a specific focus on the other partner as auxiliary.
A small change? Not really.  This is a small expression of a major phenomenon. “Personal Development” is the word we use for these types of workshops. Moreno may never have called them that, he used the word encounter and was always focussing on the relationships more than “the self”.
Any relationship could be the protagonist. Is that what love stories are?  Movies about a couple?  Maybe.  Maybe it is not such a new genre? Love relationships are not any relationship though and there is a qualitative difference between an intimate loving committed relationship and all the rest.  Parent child is another form of relationship that stands out as quite distinct.
As a psychodrama director I am learning new skills.  How to direct a relational drama, where both people are present as themselves.  That is an exploration that I’m right into at the moment.
On NZAP here.
On Meetup here.
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