A sociatric vision

[Peter Howie]

Dear Adam,

One aspect of the grail legend I like is when the question is put (to  
a young Arthur? - can't quite remember) "Whom do you serve?" which is  
such a good question. In some of the men's movements in Qld this is a  
centrally asked question and is used in rituals and stories. At the  
web site http://www.pathwaysfoundation.com.au/ you can see some of the  
work folks are doing in this area. and some is getting grants and  
others forms of mainstream support.

While they could sure use some psychodramatic/sociodramatic methods  
they do a good job as is. It is one rea I am trying to influence but  
it is more conservative than the main stream world.

Cheers

Peter


On 15/04/2009, at 1:08 AM, Adam Blatner wrote:

> Hi, all. Re the 2nd sentence of Moreno's WSS: Wow, a big  
> order. ... . But no adequate therapy can be prescribed as long as  
> mankind is not a unity in same fashion and as long as its  
> organization remains unknown. (p.3)
>
>          Well, it's worth analyzing this vision: My own focus tends  
> to be on building the infrastructure. The goal in general is okay.  
> One might re-state it in many ways, but I am reminded of a verse  
> from that 1970s song by the Youngboods "Come on people, smile on  
> your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right  
> now."      http://www.rhapsody.com/the-youngbloods/best-of-the-youngbloods/get-together/lyrics.html
>
>            The infrastructure I mentioned involves a development of  
> skills in the general population in the areas of communications,  
> self-awareness, and emotional problem-solving. (   http://www.blatner.com/adam/level2/dramaed.htm 
>  )  I see psychodramatic methods' main applications (with the  
> greatest impact in the long run) in the areas of education and  
> community-building, and maybe even recreation. (e.g. improv classes,  
> personal development classes).
>
>            While psychotherapy has been the center of gravity for  
> the mid-late 20th century, it is quickly pricing itself out of  
> access by most people; and its premise appeals primarily to that  
> small, if not tiny minority who are actually interested in changing  
> their own consciousness. (Most folks wouldn't find the idea  
> appealing, it seems to me, and even those words, "consciousness  
> expansion," would seem foreign and "woo-woo" to most folks I  
> encounter. Is that true about not your friends but your relatives?)
>
>      Applications in addictionology are intriguing in one respect: A  
> certain portion of people with addictions are bright and energetic  
> and if they can get it, as did Bill W., they become forces for good  
> in the world. Humbled by having seduced themselves, they may be more  
> able to see how people are being seduced by inner and outer  
> temptations in a score of different ways.
>
>      (My theory of the rite of passage for young people in the  
> postmodern world is a ritual in which they'd see that the battle  
> against evil doesn't involve one demonic bad guy and one to several  
> superheroes, but something a little closer to the grail legend: The  
> real battle is within, the higher, more nobler self being taught and  
> empowered to recognize and challenge the seductions of a hundred  
> inner demons or personifications of lower-self, who would work to  
> achieve the short-term goals of illusory power, complacency, mental  
> insulation, reliance on the cultural conserve, the safety of status,  
> stability of social arrangements, and so forth. I envision a ritual  
> in which all these ways of keeping people caught up in mild  
> psychopathology ---and they're almost universal, to some degree---  
> would be enacted; the initiate would need to work out in small  
> psychodramas ways of confronting and getting by these seductions or  
> blockages. ... )
>
>     The point here is that people need to stop projecting their  
> shadow complexes outward and trying to fight the evil they see "out  
> there," and begin instead to recognize (a) the dynamic of   
> projection, which is one of the more powerful aforementioned demons;  
> (b) the need to own and then discipline the sources of shadow  
> complex. Many of these are okay needs that tend to get grabby,  
> overshoot the mark because of fear. So, for example, the healthy  
> desire to be effective gets over-extended into the desire for one- 
> upsmanship; superiority, as Adler meant it, can be a healthy sense  
> of mastery or it can transform into the illusory feeling of being  
> better than---often because one has devalued another! And there are  
> scores of other dynamics to be recognized and overcome, such as the  
> many "Games People Play" described by Eric Berne.
>
>      Warmly, Adam
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