INTERPSYCHE – Relationship Therapy for Couples

Two notes from a search on “marriage” on my Moreno texts. There is a new clarity I’m getting about the principles of working with couples psychodramatically. Thes two snippets reinforce that. Interpsyche is very close to the notion of an imago in IRT.

INTERPSYCHE … Marriage and family therapy for instance, has to be so conducted that the “…” of the entire group is re-enacted so that all their tele-relations, their co-conscious and co-unconscious states are brought to life. Psychodrama v. 1 p. vii Introduction to 3rd edition

RESISTANCE TO DRAMATIZE … The two partners are on the stage, for instance, but refuse to enact any of the crucial situations which they have disclosed during the interviews. The director tries to get them started by shifting their attention rapidly from one plot to another. This may put their minds at comparative ease and make them willing to work. If this brings no result, he will suggest that they can pick any subject at random, or anything which they would like to tell one another at the moment. If this also is without effect, the director may suggest that they project upon the stage any of the more pleasant situations in which they may have found themselves in the past (when they were first in love), or any situation which would express how they would have wished their marriage to develop (perhaps having a baby or a large family), or a situation in the future which would express any change they might like to have in their life-situation. If these do not bring any results, there still remains the choice of symbolic situations and symbolic roles for which they may have affinity or which might be constructed for them. If all this does not have the effect of an actual start, the director does not plead or insist too strongly, but sends the subjects back to their seats. Psychodrama v. 1 pp. 338-339

Jung: Reciprocal Influence

Stumbled on this scrap: Jung wrote that

For two personalities to meet is like two different chemical substances: if there is any combination at all, both are transformed. In any effective psychological treatment the doctor is bound to influence the patient; but this influence can only take place if the patient has a reciprocal influence on the doctor. You can exert no influence if you are not susceptible to influence.

(C.G. Jung, CW, vol. 16, para. 163)

This is close to describing Moreno’s tele with the emphasis on reciprocity, ie a flow both ways.

Later:
Friday, 18 November, 2016

This is the relational paradigm in Jung, but as in so many psychotherapies it is thought of primarily in the therapeutic relationship. The obvious leap is to see that this reciprocity is present among people, in families, groups. The more significant the relationship the greater the power of transformation.

That there is a therapeutic quality in tele differentiates psychodrama from “individual therapy”.

More on this from Zerka.

See especially this post. It has the link to the section of Psychodrama Vol 1 that is relevant to this discussion.

Progress and Pitfalls in Sociometric Theory

I’ve tagged this “psychodrama-lib” I think we have this journal in the Christchurch Psychodrama Library, and it looks like a good article. I am particularly interested in the idea that there is a different reality in the group, “underlying, intangible, invisible,unofficial structure but one which is more alive, real and dynamic than the other.” to quote from the first page, all they will give me on the Net!!

JSTOR: Sociometry, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Aug., 1947), pp. 268-272:

# Progress and Pitfalls in Sociometric Theory # J. L. Moreno # Sociometry, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Aug., 1947), pp. 268-272 (article consists of 5 pages) # Published by: American Sociological Association # Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2785077

Transference and Tele: Section I, Roles

This is the fourth post while doing a close reading of Moreno’s lecture on Tele, “given by the author during his European journey, May- June, 1954.”

First Post – Intro
Second Post – Transference
Third Post – Tele
Transference and Tele (tag) This will produce a list of all of the posts in this series.

Quotes from the lecture, some book & Google research and my detailed comments follow.

Continue reading “Transference and Tele: Section I, Roles”