Walter Logeman: Journal
PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION
Revised and Enlarged
PAUL E. JOHNSON
Found this while looking for the original Theatre of Spontaneity. The whole book is online. Looks like the author was strongly influenced by Moreno. Link and quote follow.
Continue reading ““Psychology of Religion” by Paul E. Johnson”
This is the second post while doing a close reading of Moreno’s lecture on Tele, “given by the author during his European journey, May- June, 1954.”
Note: I continue to edit these posts, they are a work in progress for now, not really be good blogging practice. If anyone comments or there are track backs, I will not change what I wrote so conversations make sense.
First Post
Transference and Tele (tag).
Quotes from the lecture, some research on Google and my detailed comments follow.
Continue reading “Transference and Tele: Section I, Transference”
In what some might call synchronicity I came across Mesmer’s (W) animal magnetism in two separate contexts today.
Firstly, in “Transference, Countertransference And Tele: Their Relation To Group Research And Group Psychotherapy [Word Doc] in Psychodrama Vol II by J.L. Moreno and then again in:
A podcasted radio program from WNYC on the Placebo effect.
Both these sources tie in with much of what I am writing about in this blog on the science of relationships, and specifically a current project on “parallel process” in supervision. It got me interested again in what Moreno calls tele. It is a word that will be with me, like it or not while I am involved with psychodrama (like the word psychodrama itself). I don’t like the word “tele” much, it seems to confuse everyone including me. The aim of this post(s) is to investigate tele, especially in relationship to, as in the title of Moreno’s lecture, to group research and group psychotherapy. I thought I’d make a summary of Moreno’s 1957 lecture chapter, and make responses.
Note: I continue to edit these posts, they are a work in progress for now, not really be good blogging practice. If anyone comments or there are track backs, I will not change what I wrote so conversations make sense.
I’ll start with quoting the Intro in full, make some comments and do more posts later, a series: Transference and Tele (tag).
A snippet quoting Moreno follows from the Federation of Eastern European Psychodrama Training Organisations! (other interesting stuff too in that little journal.)
I think he would have liked the Creative Commons license I use for this blog and my sketches, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License that allows their unaltered non-profit use.
FEPTO – Federation of Eastern European Psychodrama Training Organisation
Quote follows.
Thinking creātically: a systematic, interdisciplinary approach to creative … By Kenneth G. Johnson
That is the Amazon link to the used books at a huge price.
As part of my link journey on the General Semantic theme I found it on Google and took a snap off the screen with the iphone of some references I wanted.
More details of my process and the book follows.
Continue reading “Thinking creātically – By Kenneth G. Johnson”
I have enjoyed some of the writing and audio from Al Turtle a relationship therapist. I get an RSS feed of his updates and today found a link to his favourite books. Great idea!
I found an ebook of A. E. Van Vogt’s The World of Null-A, non-Aristotelian logic in SF form. I see that this is not a one-off in Al’s list! He is into General Semantics – intrigued I went off on a search trail.
“Each person is participating, is partaking of the whole meaning of the group and also taking part in in it”
David Bohm
I am reading On Dialogue. Not sure where I got that quote from though, had it hovering here in some scraps. It is central to the idea that dialogue is NOT just exchanging information but CREATING something new, that that is common to the participants.
This idea has been central my understanding ever since I first participated in groups in the early eighties. I knew something was happening that was bigger than me yet fully connected. My Psychodrama thesis tries to articulate this ideas. Now it is here well expressed by David Bohm.
Listening is not just about “getting it”, it is also about doing something more. I am thinking of the Imago dialogue as I read the passage below from the first chapter: On Communication, page 3. Imago is about getting it, and the doing the Validation step, which is still not quite what Bohm is getting at. Perhaps the “difference” does not emerge until the response?
Nevertheless, this meaning does not cover all that is signified by communication. For example, consider a dialogue. In such a dialogue, when one person says something, the other person does not in general respond with exactly the same meaning as that seen by the first person. Rather, the meanings are only similar and not identical. Thus, when the second person replies, the first person sees a difference between what he or she meant to say and what the other person understood. On considering this difference, they may then be able to see something new, which is relevant both to their own views and to those of the other person. And so it can go back and forth, with the continual emergence of a new content that is common to both participants. Thus, in a dialogue, each person does not attempt to make common certain ideas or items of information that are already known to him or her. Rather, it may be said that the two people are making something in common, i.e., creating something new together.
But of course such communication can lead to the creation of something new only if people are able freely to listen to each other, without prejudice, and without trying to influence each other…
The full summary, validation & empathy steps seem important not just to exchange information, but to connect. To go beyond prejudice and trying to push an agenda requires the Imago steps.
Validation also leads to the creativity that Bohm is valuing. Validation involves making sense of the other while standing in their shoes, then facing them and saying you makes sense, and what makes sense is… seeing and experiencing how things hang together in their world. Understanding involves knowing how various things interconnect. To see the other persons world like that, and then to let them know how you see it may lead to encounter. Validation is a step towards encounter. Stepping into the other’s shoes and seeing the world differently may lead to new insights in the listener. The suspension of judgment is not to abandon ones judgment or perspective. There is an internal encounter… material for the next response.
Validation operationalises what Bohm is calling creativity – and Moreno calls encounter.
In a recent post I quote the story of how the idea of Encounter found its way from Moreno to Martin Buber. A passage follows by Harville Hendrix where he describes the roots of his idea of Validation in the dialogue process… Martin Buber.
It is no wonder then that with this sort of whakapapa, having trained in both Imago & Psychodrama that I see such connection in the approaches.
A passage from Harville Hendrix “The Evolution of Imago Relationship Therapy” in Imago Relationship Therapy: Perspectives on Theory Follows, showing how he connected with the work of Buber.
I’ve been overdoing my exploration about the “relational paradigm”. I’ve been reading, writing, integrating & putting into practice Imago & Psychodrama ideas about systems and the locus of therapy.
So I thought I’d give myself a break and read a thriller.
Blinded by Stephen White, who I have read before & enjoyed.
I am only a few minutes into it and there are passages that stimulate me right back into my work passion, no rest!
I will quote them here and share my reflections.
When I was a social worker in the early ’80s and a person was waiting in the waiting room to see me, the receptionist would ring me and jokingly say your client system is here to see you.
Social Work has had a strong sense for a long time that the individual is always part of a system. This same systems theory was taught to me as being central to Psychodrama, specifically through an article by Lynette Clayton.
Recently I have read some good material in Imago Relationship Therapy : Perspectives on Theory, particularly by Randall C. Mason, Ph.D. who talks about the Relational Paradigm, and sees it as distinct from systems thinking.
I have been wanting to tie all this together, and Moreno’s contribution is significant. I love the way he sees the origin of our thinking of individual psyche ties in with the body as being the locus of treatment in medicine. What a fallacy it has been to continue to think like that in psychotherapy!
The opening of the Chapter on Sociometry in Psychodrama Volume one follows.
I’ve also added more notes on Sunday, 29 November 2015