A 3 protagonist drama and healing between the genders

[HV Psychodrama]

I don't have the enviable luxury of trained auxiliaries, Kate, so it isn't so much like the prescriptive doubles you work with as much as it is about group members sharing in action in the moment what they might feel if they were the protagonist...and of course, sometimes they end up doing their own work. Hopefully. I am currently working in an in patient environment where the turn over is about seven to ten days...the patients are lucky if they get two psychodrama sessions. Not a lot of time to train folks what it means to double. It is surprising that some of them pick it up instantly. Anything we can do to get them on their feet, involved and expressing things is GOOD. Most will not have a chance to do their own dramas.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Dr Kate Hudgins 
  To: HV Psychodrama 
  Cc: mkarp11444 at aol.com ; list at grouptalkweb.org 
  Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 2:27 PM
  Subject: Re: A 3 protagonist drama and healing between the genders


  I am interested in hearing about others experience with involving other group members and/or working with multiple protagonists.  I have long done double protagonists' drama where there is a clinical reason for it, much like what Marcia so elegantly wrote.  I would also include when the protagonist is narcissistic and always tries to lay claim to the protag role in a group, that having that protag share the stage with another can be really a good intervention at the level of personality disorders.  


  I think the muliple doubling must be much like the TSM specific doubles.  We have the containing double that balances left and right brain, thinking and feeling so that catharsis doesnt take the protagonist out of the here and now and we also have the body double which helps increase awareness of positive healthy body states so that feelings can again be expressed without overwhelming the brain and the defensive structures of the protagonists or group members.  


  Thanks, Kate


  On Dec 1, 2008, at 1:27 PM, HV Psychodrama wrote:


    I also find what I call multiple doubling very effective, for both the group and the protagonist, for the same reasons you  write about, Marcia. It also creates a way for children and young teenagers to get actively involved..they cannot often sit for an entire protagonist centered psychodrama. I have also found it a way to help children learn the words that describe the feelings they are having. Like you, I find that the protagonist often appreciate what they experience as group support.
    Rebecca
    ----- Original Message ----- From: <mkarp11444 at aol.com>
    To: <list at grouptalkweb.org>
    Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 12:42 PM
    Subject: Fw: A 3 protagonist drama and healing between the genders






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    -----Original Message-----
    From: mkarp11444 at aol.com


    Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 17:31:08
    To: Dr Kate Hudgins<drkatetsi at mac.com>
    Subject: Re: A 3 protagonist drama and healing between the genders




    Dear Kate, congratulations on your work in China. It sounds truly innovative and immensely helpful. To train others is a dream. Personally, I feel like I am dancing through it, I am so proud of what has developed in England, Athens(currently a 5 year programme where I go 5 times a year) Geneva with Norbert Apter. We run a FEPTO 5 year traing programme and this is formaly ouir second training group to graduate but we have been at it since the early 1990. I run a 3 year training in Kiev, Ukraine once a year and go to Moscow yearly and have gone many times in the past. I have been to Japan 8 times in the recent years and many other countries where I salute the formidable task they have taken on and theier courage to leqrn paychodrama and then to use it in a variety of settings. Mostly psychotherapeutic but there are some who use it non-clinically, for exame to teach midwives, to do coaching for business men, to work in companies, as teachers and one satudent works in a youth club and shew uses it mainly for socialization skills. The applications of psychodrama are vast, flexible and often focused on curing a sick society as Moreno intended. What I am writing about tonight is your use of three protagonists in one session. I call it multiple protagonists and I wrote about it first in the book "Psychodrama Since Moreno" published by Routledge/Taylor Francis. Co-Editors:P.Holmes, M.Karp and M. Watson, 1994, New York/London, page 45 in the chapter 2, Spontaneity and Creativity: the River of Freedom.  I have been doing multiple protagonist work for over 20 years or more. I have never heard anyone else talk about it except Anne Schutzenberger who consistently does short  action vignettes during the sharing with profound results. The participants in these vignettes often get as much therapeusis as if they have had a whole 3 hour session. Zerka does this too very effectively. In classical psychodrama, one protagonist emerges from the group as a representative voice. The action of that one protagonist can serve as a warm-up for others in the group. At certain moments, individuals become ready to express themselves through the process of watching and participating in someone elses emotions and thoughts. In those momentsn people are like ripew fruit, ready to be picked; their emotions, ideas and thoughts are at the forefront. For me, there have been increasingly clear indications of when it is appropriate for more than one person to participate as protagonist in the same psychodrama. These indications are: 1. When the emotional pulse of the protagonist slows down and thew pulse of the group member speeds up; therefore 2. The act hunger of the group member is greater than that of the chosen protagonist in a given scene. 3. The protagonist is able to share his/her own physical and emotional space with another person. In my experience this is welcomed by the protagonist and they do not feel abandoned by the group or by the director as the viewer might suspect. Quite the contrary, they feel supported by the next protagonist(s) and do not feel so alone with the problem, like in sharing. It is action sharing.4. When it is clear that the protagonist wants to express a particular feeling or thought and can gain strength from hearing it expressed by someone else-it then re-activates the original protagonist; they spark each other off. "Spontaneity is the state of production and is the engine that drives the creative act" Moreno wrote this in 1953 and 1934 in "Who Shall Survive", page 334. All the best, Marcia Karp
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    -----Original Message-----
    From: Dr Kate Hudgins <drkatetsi at mac.com>


    Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 15:40:24
    To: grouptalk Listserv<list at grouptalkweb.org>
    Subject: A 3 protagonist drama and healing between the genders




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  Kate Hudgins, Ph.D., TEP


  Clinical Psychologist
  Director of Training
  Therapeutic Spiral International, LLC
  ww.therapeuticspiral.org
  drkatetsi at mac.com





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