Walter Logeman: Journal
I like the related posts feature in this blog. Just noticed one that had this passage. Fits well indeed with the previous post:
… 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.
(me quoting myself)
Leadership in a Networked World http://peggyholman.com/leadership-in-a-networked-world/
NVC Non-Violent Communication, how to identify needs in self and others and how to speak without shaming, blaming and criticising is one of the four or five disciplines that I’d like everyone in the world to know how to do.
Language is important, but as Moreno said:
The analysis of language, useful as it is in itself. does not lead to any change in behavior. It has to be followed up by methods of action learning which train the pupil to think and act below and beyond the boundaries of language.
That’s why I think there are four or five disciplines, but none of them sufficient alone.
Winnicott famously said “there is no such thing as a baby.” (reference?) meaning of course there is always a baby and someone. Jacob Moreno’s notion of a social and cultural atom (reference?) is similar and more startling. There is a minimum set of roles (interactions) that need to be present for survival. In other words there is no such thing as a mother either, there is always a mother and a father (absent or not). The reference to role systems and dynamics is important here. We are not talking about people but relationships and ways of relating. People who don’t do anything are dead. Primacy of the relationship is not an uncommon idea in psychotherapy, even when the word ‘object’ is used in some schools of therapy, it is the ‘object relations’ that are important. For all that it is a big mind-shift to go from the every-day world of things and entities into the psychological world of dynamics.
The physical body, physical reality, so easily belies psychologically potent reality. Psychodrama has the power to reveal all the subtle bodies usually invisible, the use of the term surplus reality facilitates this. But even in psychodrama the mind-shift can be hard to make. Imagine a group of people, with their bodies invisible, see them as three dimensional movie programs of archetypal dramas, developmental processes and graphical depictions of experience of ecstasy & trauma in the cellular memory. The current state of warm-up is the movie that is playing right now. At any moment other movies could grab the screen, all the programs are networked. The body does not betray the soul, but it can fool us into thinking there is no soul. No wonder we have the idea of the eternal soul, it is collective, unconscious and interconnected back to the big bang.
The implications for psychotherapy are well known but difficult to fully implement. One potent central idea, is that the therapeutic relationship is the source of healing. Even that one, well established idea, standard in most definitions of psychotherapy, is always under threat by talk of dependency, measurable evidence, behaviour, genes, chemicals, brains. And of course the demand for reports and videos introduce more elements into the relationship. The third eye kills the dyad and creates a group. This may not be a bad thing if it were consciously embraced. If we said there is no such thing as a dyad, however it often advocated that the third presence should be ignored. “After a while we forget there is a video camera in the room.” Denial of surplus reality. In the face of all these onslaughts psychotherapy has survived, and the healing power of relationship is constantly experienced and valued.
Social atom repair is the essence of therapy. In therapy all too often people warm-up to working on the relationship with the mother, and then later the father. As a psychodramatist I work, even in one-to-one settings with the idea of repairing the social atom. Whatever the medical mental health diagnosis people come with, it is, at the the core ,relationship difficulties. DSM style diagnosis are always blind to the psychological as they are totally fooled by and perpetuates the idea individual people. Those difficulties are present in the parental dyad in some form. An investigation of the role system in the parental dyad often sheds light on the current relationships. The most successful work I have done is where the “parents” enacted by the client, come to relationship psychotherapy. The client then, in the regressed state of the child, experiences their renewed parents. A new social and cultural atom is available to them.
This is similar to the TA idea or “re-parenting the parent”, but taken to a relational level.
Couple therapy, working directly with a relationship follows from the fundamental idea of a dynamic psyche. Yet therapists often talk of individual work as needed for a healthy relationship. Harville Hendrix’s Imago therapy, and Moreno and psychodrama before it, as well as all forms of family therapy with a systemic approach are more in tune with the psychological reality. Making the ‘imago’, the unconscious images operating in the relationship, the unit of therapy is a major breakthrough in psychotherapy. Hendrix’s phrase “The purpose of marriage is to heal childhood wounds.” (reference?) is profound. If we, in the psychotherapy field, embraced this we would use the healing potential in the couple relationship rather than the therapeutic relationship for psychological repair far more than we do.
Individuals are a myth. What is significant is ‘surplus’ to the physical entities, it is imaginal, relational and systemic.
❋
There is a continuum with two extremes.
| Its all in the dialogue between the couple Education is the main focus. |
____________________________________ | Its all in the safety of the relationship with the therapist. The therapeutic relationship with each partner and the relationship is the main focus. |
Of course it is both, I doubt anyone holds the extreme positions. However it is an interesting question as to when one of these aspects needs to be to the fore.
This discussion with Rick & Sherry Stolp addresses this question very well, among other things.
__________________________________________________
Later : Saturday, 6 October, 2012
I have further clarified that there are some criteria that indicate readiness for dialogue. The ability to move from adversarial positions is required for a dialogue. We do not want to foster something that is dialogical in form but adversarial in essence. As dialogues involve mirroring, the psychodrama principle that doubling comes before mirroring comes into play.
The therapist may be needed to double the couple for some time. Longer work is indicated for them to get to the dialogue stage.
__________________________________________________
Later: Sunday, October 17, 2010
About 20 minutes into the audio they talk about research based on ideas of “Duncan & Miller” on outcome research. http://www.talkingcure.com.
They now have separate websites:
Scott D Miller
http://www.scottdmiller.com
http://www.centerforclinicalexcellence.com
Barry Duncan
http://www.heartandsoulofchange.com
http://www.whatsrightwithyou.com
I’ve made another post on Outcome research here.
My recent post: Can we Survive? is a draft for an item in a psychodrama publication. In that post I link Wisdom Councils and – Creative Insight Councils to the Sociometric methods of J.L. Moreno. The main idea is that there is a lager community and the small group resonates with the larger group in isomoprhic harmony, and can thus give back compelling insights and wisdom.
In this post I want to add a related idea.
From Dynamic Facilitation and the Wisdom Council theory I have got it clear that a small group can achieve something in addition to personal therapy for its members, and assist an organisation or community in developing its life, and in its decision making.
Jim Rough calls it “option creating”, I am not yet sure exactly what he means by this but it is not just a list of possibilities or wild ideas from a brainstorming session. The breakthrough in a group happens when there is an insight into a real option – something the whole group would like to see happen.
Such breakthroughs are possible over the longer time frame of a group, of diverse members, meeting for several days and sharing at a deep level. Traditional meetings can’t achieve this depth.
For a group to be of use to a larger community there needs to be a thorough warm-up before the event as to the purpose and context. While in psychodrama we are aware of the importance of the frame, I have not experienced a group in that tradition that has the focus of leading to outcomes for the whole community. In our organisations we tend to make decision in meetings, and while there is plenty of interaction and depth work, it is not specifically an clearly focussed on future actions. There may be specialist sub-committees, or work groups, but they tend to be by the people with special positions an ongoing positions within the organisation.
Imagine randomly selected diverse small group – from an organisation or community – doing depth work groups with the task of one or two of the following topics:
What is our strategic plan?
What is our vision?
Principles for the Constitution.
Who should be a member?
The group would present its findings to all members of the community or larger organisation and its governing in one a4 document, and 20 minute audio file at a special hui for the occasion.
Peggy Holman Founder of Open Space
via Self-Portrait – Peggy Holman.
What is an underlying question that gives form to your work or interest in this field?
“How do we seed, grow, and evolve enlightened communities and inspired organizations?”
War and climate change crisis are on my mind. I am cynical and despairing most of the time with respect to these issues, but I want to share thoughts that give me some hope! Maybe they will inspire you and us as a community.
How a small group can impact a large community!
Small groups, well facilitated have a level of insights to truth that is quite unlike what is common in community meetings or in parliaments and so on. Whatever mode of facilitation is used in a group, however the group is seated, whatever methods are used, small groups can access human depth. Often this is for personal development or training. There is always an important step that happens before a group meets. The group’s statement of purpose and scope is created. Who can attend the group. What its bounds of privacy are. What are the expected outcomes? This aspect of group design is vital!
The importance of the broad frame, and how innovative we can be in its creation came home to me through my interested in Wisdom Councils. These were developed by Jim Rough, who uses a method called Dynamic Facilitation. The purpose and frame of these groups is radically different from groups I am used to. The inner working of the group is familiar, but its context is profoundly different. He adds or emphasises some important dimensions that may not have been developed in the Morenian sphere of influence.
1. Microcosm and macrocosm
1. A group can be designed to be a microcosm of a larger community. Random selection from the larger group may be one way to achieve this. Note this is not representation, people are in small groups in their own right, authentically themselves. A small group, working for a longer time, in depth is working for the whole community. Not because the community has chosen them, or even know about them, but because of the principle of isomorphism between the part and the whole.
The small group carries the diversity of the whole within it. Resolutions in the small group are likely to be acceptable to the whole.
2. Purpose related to larger organisation.
The purpose of the group may be to present wisdom or insights to the larger community. The group may have a topic, in the pure Wisdom Council the topics arise from the group, when the group has a specific topic “Creative Insight Council” or CIC is used. Just how to relate the group to the larger community is part of the design of the group, and it would be clear in the purpose statement.
3. Planning the group in its context
Preparation of the larger community and its connection to the group is part of the design. Jim Rough has advocated that a Wisdom council be enshrined in the constitution, as a voice for “We the People”, and they can also be on a much smaller scale. A group could be formed by randomly selecting 12 willing participants from an organisation of 200 people. The group could have a specific topic for example: “How to best use available assets.” How to promote such an event, fund it, and host it is all part of the preparation and plan.
4. Presentation of the findings.
This needs to be clear from the start, so that privacy concerns are addressed and not breached. What is the plan for publication of groups breakthrough statements, if there are any? Follow up meetings where the group presents its insights? Web presence, during and after the event, is there a blog? Who can post? Twitter? Media involvement? Video, podcasts and movies?
Through my sociometric * eye it occurs to me that the whole of Jim’s work fits within the sociometric frame work. I am exited to think that all these matters are highly sociometric, and the Wisdom Council and CIC approach could well be a way in which the original sociometry as a form of scientific social investigation of working with society at large can be furthered. The ability to do create such a group for a larger whole needs to be part of a sociometrists ability.
The key understanding I have from this reflection on the relationship between Wisdom Councils and the groups we are used to in psychodramatic circles is that we can consciously identify the larger organisation as a group that is being served by a small intensive microcosm of itself. It is a group within a group. The small group’s work is to the larger community, as is the work of a protagonist in the small group. Isomorphy within systems is leveraged to work at great depth with groups that would otherwise have no voice.
Members of a wisdom council work authentically on their own concerns, they are not representatives, they need only present their own thoughts and feelings and act only in accordance with the dictates of their own heart. Systemic resonance between wholes and parts are already part of the sociometric systemic understandings we have and heightening that awareness and finding ways to make use of that would be a great step. Fits well with the theme of “Who Shall Survive?”
I am interested in how you see this as a form of sociometric work. Have you had experiences that bear on these ideas? How might we take this further in the community and in our own organisation?
Notes
*
From the ANZPA Training and Standards Manual:
Sociometrist
A sociometrist intervenes in social systems and organisations from a basis of research data provided by informal or formal sociometric surveys of groups. The interventions are usually directly related to organisational structure. The sociometrist makes use of abilities in research, negotiation, consultation and strategic planning, to relate to group structures in clinical, educational, community, industrial, commercial, political, economic, religious and international affairs. The purpose is to facilitate group task effectiveness and membership satisfaction.
Related Links:
Moreno’s “Who Shall Survive?”
Sociometry on Wikipedia
Wisdom Councils
Dynamic Facilitation
Diana Jones’ Sociometry page
Anne Hale’s Sociometry site
This was very good to see. 2003, already a bit dated, a bit “American”, but it brings out some of the potential inherent in the Dynamic Facilitation process. Worth downloading the crappy Real player to watch if you are interested in Wisdom Councils.
The importance of this process does not shine through as strongly as I envisage it. It important to notice that a group that meets for a weekend is a microcosm of a larger community, and they bring back their “breakthrough” to the community, and notice how well it goes down. They were able to mirror the community concerns accurately.
Where else can you see this?
Society’s Breakthrough! – Audio & Video:
1) Democracy in America — VIDEO (22 min)—In November 2003 three people from the Rogue Valley in Oregon heard Jim give a radio interview on their local NPR radio show, The Jefferson Exchange. After contacting Jim, they decided to meet one another and to try an experiment with the Wisdom Council. Joseph McCormick, a former conservative Republican politician, filmed the event and created this 22 minute documentary, Democracy in America, which is available as a streaming video.
http://www.generalsemantics.org/misc/akml/akmls/rushkoff.mp3
I liked his talk. (Right click the link to download button) He goes into the state of the world with some enthusiasm & intelligence. He misses the Marxism that applies so thoroughly to what he is discussing, which is a pity, but he also amplifies it, sees the same stuff from another fresh angle.
