psychodrama research

Tue Dec 23 16:24:53 CST 2008

Hi Adam,

David? (I missed the post you are replying to Adam)

Just a quick note to link to a blog post from a few years ago:
http://psyberspace.walterlogeman.com/?p=880

It is on my mind as I am committed to re-writing the article I wrote
on Moreno & Science 1n 2005.  (link in the blog post).  It is on the
agenda for the next Australia and New Zealand Psychodrama Association
Journal.  It will be shorter and more focussed on Moreno.

The main point that is important here is that Moreno's Sociometry IS a
research method in its own right.   Moreno was a critic of the
application of science as we know it in the physical world to the
world of people.

I just found in Psychodrama vol III where Moreno proposes Psychodrama
as a way to research a variety of modalities.  It may sound strange
but I think this has great potential.  I would like to explore micro
interventions I use in psychotherapy. Validity in such work is
different to the validity in the physical sciences, but as you make
clear in your post (below) Adam the possibility of repeating an
experiment and getting the same results is not a realistic goal.  We
often get something that looks like science but it is flawed when
applied to individuals.

Below I quote Moreno at length, as not everyone may have access, and
it is a complex idea.  p  87, 88 Psychodrama voll III.  Moreno is
writing in response to Cholden.

Warm wishes,

Walter

//
4) SCIENTIFIC VALIDATION OF THERAPEUTIC PROCESSES

CHOLDEN "I wonder about the validity of studying the psychotherapeutic
situation by the 'role playing' method. For no matter how much
psychotherapists and subject are attempting to imitate the therapy
situation, it seems quite impossible that the situation can be
successfully acted out.

For by definition the major drive in the psychotherapeutic situation
would be lacking, namely, the motivation to achieve a therapeutic
goal." The misunderstanding may come to an extent from the abusive use
of the term role "playing." I coined the term but it has gone out of
hand and it is now used without discrimination. The emphasis that
something is played has obvious connotations that it is not sincere
and real. As a matter of fact, the technique of setting up a
therapeutic experiment of the type described is to make it as
"role-real" as possible and as little as possible "role-played". What
are the criteria involved in the "motivation" to achieve a therapeutic
goal? a) It must be a real patient and a real therapist, that is, the
patient must have an actual problem which needs treatment and the
therapist must be a professionally trained person. b) The patient must
have chosen this particular therapist to treat him. They are not
forced upon each other. c) The therapist is compensated in the
customary way for his services. In our culture he is paid in money, in
other cultures it may be a method of charity or honor. If these
criteria are met then there should be a "motivation" emerging to
achieve a therapeutic goal. The only modification from the normal
therapeutic process is the presence of a third person, a professional
therapist himself, who asks questions and interviews both parties
during or after the session. If patient and therapist agree to his
presence (or that of a jury) and if it is made clear to him that it
may be of benefit to the therapeutic session, he may appreciate this
modification as an asset rather than a disadvantage. It is obvious
that this must be carried out in accord with the therapeutic format
and an honest desire of a third party to consolidate it and not to
disrupt it. The "experimenter" is a protective agent and not a cold
judge.
In order to meet with the special character of psychotherapeutic
processes, the difficulty of framing them into an experimental design,
it may be useful to differentiate two kinds of validity, scientific
validation as currently considered unexceptional in the scientific
fraternity, and "existential" validation which looms in all
psychotherapeutic practices and is the cause of many misunderstandings
of what is scientific and what is not. The meaning of existential
validation should be clearly spelled out as making claims of validity
only in situ, in the here and now without any attempt to confirm the
past or to predict the future. It should be classified as more than
art, although when people talk about the art of psychotherapy it is
implied that what takes place has existential validation. Scientific
and existential validation do not exclude one another, they should be
constructed as a continuum.
//

2008/12/23 Adam Blatner <ablatner at verizon.net>:
> My problem with psychodrama research is that it is like exercise  research.
> There are twenty to a hundred components that may be  supportive of health,
> therapeutic. There is also the variable of the maturity and personality of
> the therapist, aside from the technique: and the match between therapist and
> client. I don't know that I believe that any therapy (as a method) is
> necessarily supportable. I think that any therapy can be conducted in a flat
> or even anti-therapeutic fashion, and that most therapies can be practiced
> by brilliant, medium-smart, talented, no-talented, and very mediocre
> practitioners. If this is correct, then it makes research of a method---not
> of the whole process of psychotherapy---but the method--- problematical,
> because it may well not be the method that's the major therapeutic agent.
>   David, I want to promote professionalism, and don't want to undercut a
> modicum of effort---so my concern about saying this is that it colludes with
> those who cop out on the whole endeavor. There are many ways to pursue and
> establish a more seriously intellectual foundation for
> psychodrama---including recognizing that it is not a unitary process.
>    There are many components that I think could be researched, such as the
> value of role reversal with significant others---perhaps not those
> perpetrating major trauma or doing this early in the treatment, but my
> concern is that in mid-treatment or beyond, we may not be asking clients to
> move to a more mature stance and relinquish the victim role.
>   Another component (or group of them) is simply the use of action methods
> to build group cohesion. Again, this must be done with care lest warm-ups
> become merely a technique to substitute for real group process. (Yalom
> points this out.) Anyway, who else do you know out there in our field who is
> wrestling with these kinds of issues. I am not claiming to be correct, but
> rather putting in just enough of my "two cents" to try to find a few others
> in the network who are considering these problems. Warmly, Adam
>
>
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