use of "psychodrama" in media

[Adam Blatner]

Re: use of "psychodrama" in mediaHi Peter. Say, if and when your book is finished and ready, please make sure you tell us about it so it can go into the www.pdbib.org   international bibliography.

    As for what we can or should do--- I don't think Cynthia's question is at all "nerdy," but rather an accurate appraisal of the ambiguity of the problem. 
              Here's a proper understanding of a word that has become popularized with a different usage, a more general meaning, which then dilutes the original use of the term.

    Actually, Peter's point about debate de-mythologizing the Hitchcock image implies that more than a very few people enjoy de-mythologization, enjoy thinking or making finer distinctions, give a darn. So the question comes up: What settings would such statements make sense?  Letters to the editors of journals? Most aren't written. 

       Second, the term is even sliding away within the fields of psychotherapy, the methods being absorbed into other approaches. Often psychodramatic methods are referred to as Gestalt techniques!!!  Thus does fashion coopt reality. 

      In other contexts it's problematic to approach a school administrator or business human resources manager and speak of psychodrama or even sociodrama, or anything with psycho-    or    -drama   in it because those terms evoke unpleasant associations. Asking for a rational understanding of their origin does little to counter emotion-driven semantics.  So many colleagues have stopped using the term, describing their work as action interventions, experiential methods, role-playing (though for some groups that itself is also too "loaded"), and so forth. 

          So if someone wants to write an essay other than what i put on my website I'll gladly link to it and encourage others to appreciate the "proper" use of the term; it's just that I suspect that few people care about using words properly, or in accordance with their origins.

         Perhaps a letter to the folks at the New York Times (Sunday) Magazine ---William Safire etc.---who write that weekly column about language, idioms, usage --- may help. Would anyone like to try or work with me on it? 

   Warmly, Adam
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Peter Parkinson 
  To: CGayle ; Group Talk 
  Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 1:00 AM
  Subject: Re: use of "psychodrama" in media


  Hi Cynthia
  I had 15 years of promoting psychodrama through my medical surgery in a small town in New Zealand. Our work became highly respected and the word valued in the community. I believe that any opportunity to educate is well worth while. Currently I am working on a book for the general public on the principles of growing out of asthma. It is highly educational and features psychodrama as a central theme.
  I say go for it. Public debate can only de myth the Hitchcock image that he initiated years ago.
  Arohanui
  Peter Parkinson
  Aoteoroa
  New Zealand 


  On 6/10/08 4:14 PM, "CGayle" <cgayle at zipcon.com> wrote:


    I just read an editorial about the election  (I do NOT want to discuss election here), that used the term "psychodrama", stating, "in the psychodrama that is this election,...."

    It is the fourth time I have heard "psychodrama" used in this regard this year.  A couple times on mainstream tv news. "Psychodrama" is increasingly used to describe dramatic intensity....but in a negative vernacular vs a positive one. The ups and downs and back and forth's of this election for which "psychodrama" has been used seems to refer to dramatic intensity that changes often and in surprising ways, like an action thriller, and perhaps refers to the intensity of polarizing...the polar opposite of healing.  At any rate, I have not liked this usage.

    I started to write a brief comment to the columnist of this article...and then I wondered if maybe I was over reacting.  Maybe "psychodrama" is getting a new use in the culture.  Is this a concern?  Does it matter?  Is this an opportinunity for education?  Would that be nerdy? 

    I looked up in dictionary, does psychodrama have other usages?  My dictionary is quite dated (20 years), but there was no other usage in Webster's, 1988...."an extemporized dramatization designed to afford catharsis and social relearning for one or more of the participants from whose life history the plot is abstracted".  

    Close enough to not be proper use of term by journalists.  Although they make up new words and usages every day...the more clever the better.  

    Have others read/heard this usage of "psychodrama"?   And if so, what are your thoughts and reactions?

    Cynthia Gayle
    Seattle

     


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