Psyberspace

GM Resource This is the statement that appears with my listing in the GM directory. Here is the psychodrama statement in full:

Psychodrama is an active method that enlivens and promotes learning and health. It combines practice, enactment and role development. When used as psychotherapy the relationships and the individual’s way of being are immediately available. In community and organisational settings people can explore together relationships, social structures and challenges to anticipate, plan and co-produce effective courses of action.

Psychodrama includes all of the theories, action methods and techniques that derive from the work of Dr Jacob L Moreno (1889-1974). Training in these methods is achieved through an integration of theory and practice by a process of supervised experiential learning.

Those who complete this training will have been assessed and certificated by The Australian and New Zealand Psychodrama Association as either a role trainer, sociometrist, sociodramatist or psychodramatist.

The role trainer focuses on the development of specific aspects of the functioning of another person. A role trainer is experienced in role analysis and therefore assesses which roles are present or absent in a person’s repertoire. A role trainer is skilled in mobilising the spontaneity of the group and the individual to produce new responses. New responses become the basis of new roles. Role training, when skilfully done, assists in providing new behavioural options as well as a new experience of self.

A psychodramatist is a director who is concerned with group and individual psychotherapy, group process, and individual personality change. The emphasis is on personal development and thus there is a focus on developing adequate purposes and goals for living. An assessment is made with the client of their functioning and work in action is done to heal and repair their way of being in the world and so bring about more adequate responses to themselves and to others.

Source:
Auckland Training Centre for Psychodrama.

The Couch This page is the first page i ever saw on the www. Perhaps 1994?

The highlight is finding this: nzepc – new zealand electronic poetry centre There is a range of poetry there, some audio files – I downloaded some mp3s by Fairburn. The site’s layout and design is supurb. This image is one of a series that rotates somehow as one clicks on the site:

NZEPC – A.R.D (Rex) Fairburn

New Zealand literature in the 1940s and 1950s

I browsed second-hand bookshops during lunchtime today and looked at the NZ literary shelves. Picked up Denis Glover’s collection of ARD Fairburn at Smith’s. Followed up tonight with a bit of surfing and found this rather nice site, with some beautiful black and white photos (RAK Mason above) and interesting articles – such as the one this links to which places the book I bought today in context:

The 1930s saw the emergence in New Zealand of a new breed of writers, whose work usually embodied a reaction against established ideas and conventions. Often these writers were influenced by recent trends in literature overseas, notably modernism; and by social and political events such as the Depression. A growing, if narrow, sense of nationalism was expressed, focussing on the dilemma of Pakeha who still looked to England as ‘Home’, but increasingly identified with New Zealand through ties of kinship and daily experience. Some major literary figures of the thirties, including short story writer Frank Sargeson, poets Allen Curnow, A.R.D. Fairburn, Denis Glover and R.A.K. Mason, and Glover’s printer associate Bob Lowry, remained active in the 1940s and 50s.

International Society for Mental Health Online – CCSG: Myths and Realities of Online Clinical Work Very well done. Michael Fenichel again and also John Suler are on the team. See also this Cast Study Group.

International Society for Mental Health Online – ISMHO/PSI Suggested Principles for the Online Provision of Mental Health Services An important and useful document. A later version? Easier to navigate, but may not be authorised by International Society for Mental Health Online.

I notice Michael Fenichel, see previous post, is involved with this. I checked out his home page and found it useful: Fenichel’s Current Topics in Psychology – Online Therapy This article by him looks good. Online Psychotherapy: Technical Difficulties, Formulations and Processes.

This is good article by Michael Fenichel, Ph.D.

Many counselors and psychotherapists, including those who meet with clients online, rely on close analysis of interpersonal dynamics between therapist and client, using the ‘here and now’ of that particular session. Surely this now happens, not only through the use of chat rooms replete with emoticons, but also through the familiar e-mail letter exchange, which (particularly with groups) may become part of a continuing subject ‘thread’ focused on specific issues. Many deeply meaningful and powerful relationships can be formed and/or maintained via the written letter. It may be ‘asynchronous’ communication, but it still is experienced as ‘here’.

A list of References but unfortunatly not with hyperlinkds to online items. There is an NZ one:

Christensen, H., & Griffiths, K. (2000). The Internet and mental health literacy. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 34, 975-979.

and a recent one book that sounds good:

Colon, Y., & Friedman, B. (2003). Conducting group therapy online. In S. Goss & K. Anthony (Eds.), Technology in counselling and psychotherapy: A practitioner’s guide (pp. 59-74). Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. amazon

www.onlinecounsellors.co.uk

Here is another useful list of references: The Psychology Of The Internet: Recommended Books