Walter Logeman: Journal
I continue to hold an hypothesis that the behaviour of particles is a microcosm of human relationships. Not just as a metaphor, but that something of the “tele” involved is the same in both levels.
Listening to this podcast from Nights on RNZ confirms and extends this hypothesis. But hypothesis aside – it is ASTOUNDING stuff!
Synchronistically I just had this one arrive from the BBC IOT, have not listened yet.
I had my first Second Life Experience today. It was OK!
I have written it up in a private space.
I am excited to learn about Augstus Boal and Metaxis
Blog post quote follows
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)
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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.
- Participants are informed, ready, willing and able to participate.
- Participants in the group are “researchers”, and the leader is also a participant.
- Participation is done in action. Learning is experiential, it is learning by doing.
- 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)
- 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)
- 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
12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882
Phronesis (Greek: φρόνησις) in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is the virtue of moral thought, usually translated “practical wisdom”, sometimes as “prudence”.
I imagine the word Praxis is in there somewhere, action and reflection. But it is not because of that idea I am blogging this. It is because of two references in the Wikipedia article to books that refute the use of physical sciences in the social world.
Phronesis is the capability to consider the mode of action in order to deliver change, especially to enhance the quality of life. …
Gaining phronesis requires maturation, in Aristotle’s thought:
“ Whereas young people become accomplished in geometry and mathematics, and wise within these limits, prudent young people do not seem to be found. The reason is that prudence is concerned with particulars as well as universals, and particulars become known from experience, but a young person lacks experience, since some length of time is needed to produce it (Nichomachean Ethics 1142 a). ”
Learning from experience is in there, but that is different from learning empirically, there is something else going on. The type of knowing that one gets from internal (moral?) investigation is qualitatevley different from observation of the world.
Here are the two books. I’ll add the Amazon links.
Bent Flyvbjerg, in his book Making Social Science Matter, has argued that instead of trying to emulate the natural sciences, the social sciences should be practiced as phronesis. Phronetic social science [1] focuses on four value-rational questions: (1) Where are we going? (2) Who gains and who loses, by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What should we do about it?
In After Virtue Alasdair MacIntyre makes a similar call for a phronetic social science, combined with weighty criticism of attempts by social scientists to emulate natural science. He points out that for every prediction made by a social scientific theory there are usually counter-examples. These derive from the unpredictability of human beings, and the fact that one unpredictable human being can have a world-changing impact.
Amazon Making Social Science Matter
Amazon After Virtue
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
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, searchAction 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”.
I am interested to get hold of the article by Philip Carter
And one by J Guntz
I just made a new Category for my blog. Pscienc. There are heaps of posts back in the past that will need to be categorised.
Psychology and science as a unified field.
I wonder if anyone else has used the name? Plenty, but none that use it in this way. Political science, and there is a band.
Here is the first post I’ll add Murray Gell-Mann
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Here are some pscientific questions:
What can we learn about binary stars by doing intentional dialogues with a life-partner?
Should we use the term gravity or will Eros do?
Is there such a thing as psychic energy? Libido? In psychology is energy a metaphor? What if it were a metaphor in physics as well?
Was Jung right to think the law of thermo-dynamics applies to psychic energy?
What can Moreno’s “social atom” for the smallest social unit needed for survival teach us about the structure of the atom in physics? And vice versa.
Is a social dyad like a quantum phenomena in that once observed the phenomena is transformed?
Does isomorphy, i.e self-similarity, work all the way from the big-bang to a synapse in our brain?
Ideas, stories and metaphors impact on on the world. They are real in their consequences. Therefore God is real.
Proof in maths is different from proof in physics. How do you prove you love someone? What if we applied standards of proof from one context in another? We already do: The theorem is true because it is elegant.
More?
Assertive Outreach: A Strengths Approach to Policy and Practice by Peter Ryan and Steve Morgan
This book gives a comprehensive, evidence-based account of assertive outreach from a strengths perspective. It emphasizes developing a collaborative approach to working with the service user, which stresses the achievement of the service users own aspirations, and building upon the service users own strengths and resources. The book provides a comprehensive, authoritative approach to the subject, that combines an overview of the policy and practice issues. It makes use of extensive case study material to illustrate individual and team circumstances.
My last post pointed to the Author, Steve Morgan’s website. The blurb above sounds excellent, and it seems there is a strong focus on practice-based evidence and I am now more curious about the “strenghts” approach which I have seen introduced top down with not much success.
Practice Based Evidence – Welcome:
Contemporary mental health services are challenged to address ‘evidence based practice’, but is this at the expense of ‘practice based evidence’?
At first glance there is a very welcome movement here for an approach that can avoid scientism in psychotherapy. I am enthusiastic that this will blend well with the sort of sociometric exploration that Moreno developed. Using the words practice-based evidence there is a swag of good stuff that comes up in Google.
Dolores Brien is one of my favourite bloggers. This post is typical of why. In the recent post on various scientists etc I was attracted to science on the one hand and repelled on the other. Got something clear: I am repelled by the brights. Good to see Freeman Dyson is not among them, I’d like his blog too – does he have one? His daugter does – she uses flickr! Some athiests are more spiritual than religious people – dyson is one & maybe Dolores too.
Although Dyson is not a religious believer and as a distinguished scientist is eminently qualified to be a “bright” should he choose to do so, he tells us that he himself sees religion as a “precious and ancient part of our human heritage.” Dennett, on the contrary, “sees it as a load of superfluous mental baggage which we should be glad to discard.” What is missing from Dennett, as Dyson sees it, is the recognition that science is only one way of understanding. “Science,” Dyson writes, “is a particular bunch of tools that have been conspicuously successful for understanding and manipulating the material universe. Religion is another bunch of tools, giving us hints of a mental or spiritual universe that transcends the material universe.” If you use, as Dennett does, only the scientific tools, you will never understand religion. “We can all agree that religion is a natural phenomenon, but nature may include many more things than we can grasp with the methods of science.”