Walter Logeman: Journal
Relationships
I’ve just purchased a couple of Dan Wile books, they are in the mail. I’m looking forward to going on one of his workshops. He comes highly recommended, by both Harville Hendrix and John Gottman
From Psychotherapy Net
http://www.psychotherapy.net/interview/dan-wile
Continue reading “Dan Wile Collaborative Couples Therapy – Books & Interview”
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:
Continue reading “Psychodrama Training for Couple Therapists”
The unconscious is a slippery idea by its very nature, if we become gradually more aware of our own dynamics, more conscious then we realise that there was stuff going on unconsciously before. I recall the day, for example, when I realised my mountaineering was associated with escape from social difficulty, originally in the family. Moreno talks of the unconscious all the time, though he belittles the idea occasionally and claims he surpassed it with the notion of warm up.
“The unconscious lives on as a by product of the warming up process.” Who Shall Survive? page liv.
“The antiquated couch was transformed into a multi-dimensional stage, giving space and freedom for spontaneity, freedom for the body and for bodily contact, freedom of movement, action and interaction. Free association was replaced by psychodramatic production and audience participation, by action dynamics and dynamics of the groups and masses.
With these changes in the research and therapeutic operation the framework of psychoanalytic concepts, sexuality, unconscious, transference, resistance and sublimation was replaced by a new, psychodramatic and sociodynamic set of concepts, the spontaneity, the warming up process, the tele, the interaction dynamics and the creativity. These three transformations in vehicle, form and concept, however, transcended but did not eliminate the useful part of the psychoanalytic contribution. The couch is still in the stage – which is like a multiple of couches of many dimensions, vertical, horizontal and depth – sexuality is still in spontaneity, the unconscious is still the warming up process, transference is still in the tele; there is one phenomenon, productivity-creativity, for which psychoanalysis has given us no counterpart.” Who Shall Survive? page 120
In Psychodrama Volume 1 Moreno is quite happy to use the word unconscious again, especially when seen as co created in what he terms “intimate ensembles”:
See the full quote here
Therapy can make the unconscious conscious. In the same way, in couple therapy the repeating patterns the couple enact are revealed. The formerly unconscious becomes conscious. For example, a classic role description used in Imago therapy is the hailstorm and the turtle. The more one partner storms the more the other hides in their shell. Such dynamics are well understood by therapists but the couple may be totally oblivious to this co-created dynamic. To really see it in action and to reverse that cycle both parties need to be present.
I’ve been listening to the Gottmans for hours on the CD as they talk at the 2010 Imago conference. I’m finding it very useful, perhaps their research is somewhat sociometric! I appreciate mostly the language and processes they add to the field:
And lots more…
… more to integrate/translate into psychodrama interactive relationship therapy.
I’m really interested in warm up. Thinking as the Dialogue as a tool for repair is useful. That also makes more of an event than just good communication, its therapy. The dilemma I had re the self help and therapy (see post about Stolp) is reduced.
So to see the Dialogue as repair is a warm up and also leads to the need to create a good warm up to it. … Its all in the warm up.
In my draft handout for the training I have this:
Warm up is a central concept in psychodrama, it means ready, willing and able. It can describe a state, eg they were warmed up to fighting, for example ready, willing and able to fight! Or as something we can create, individually or as a group. For example the director with a few crisp instructions warmed people up to being aware of their physical sensations, and a willingness to name them. The director can play a big part in creating a warm up. As a therapist every move we make helps create what will come next. How then does a the couple prepare to work on their relationship? How can we assist them in their warm up? It is complex in that if they have a constructive warm up we could just go with it, tweak it enhance it. Or if they are full of blame and stonewalling then there are many ways to assist the couple to cut across that warm up and engage and prepare them couple to be more conscious and constructive. It might take a while!
(I began this post a while back and it is related to the last one on warm up)
Here is the section on warm up from my paper: The Group and its Protagonist.
The occasion is that I am thinking about warm up in the context of couple therapy, and warm up to dialogue. Following the quote is translation of this section to apply it to couple therapy.
Tammy Nelson on recovering from affairs
This is the topic of her new book, not yet out? There is a wealth of info here. It is worth listening to a couple of times and making notes, a few of mine follow:
Imago Gottman in dialogue. This Audio begins with the Gottmans explaining their methods, it is followed by a discussion with all four of them.
I’m interested mainly in the relationship between the two modalities, on the way I noted Gottman’s research on emotions and children. He mentions that towards the end of the Gottman talk before the discussion.
I found the book on children:
RAISING AN EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT CHILD: THE HEART OF PARENTING BOOK
Its pretty basic, details follow, but it was nicely put in the audio, so worth a listen.
One fight, one repair
I’ve heard it said that couples only have one fight and they have it for about forty years. Core conflict is another term for it, not sure who first made these observations but they ring true. Its an art to spot what is at the core of persistent difficulties in a relationship. Couples may already have a name for it. Transactional Analysis is another way, where we can see “parent, child, adult ego states†in the transactions. The Karpman triangle also has its roots in TA. Roles, as used in psychodrama is a good way to describe the way people interact. Harville Hendrix and Helen describe one syndrome as the hailstorm and the turtle. That is a role description of complementary roles.
The corollary of the one core scene is that it call for one core repair. Dialogues are not about good communication or a way of life. It is a tool to repair a role system gone wrong.
Harville Hendrix and Helen L Hunt interview
One of the clearest statements about the Imago method. Shows the originators are continuing to sharpen the method and theory.
Amazon
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