roles 4 research

[Adam Blatner]

I couldn't parse your opening line: April 15, 2009 9:07 PM

Peter H 2 Jenny: I think you are correct in the there being a general  
absence of roles required to support evidence based research for  
psychodrama.
        AB: unclear. Several interpretations. Misnomer calling them  
roles.

People who want to do research
  -- who know how to do research
    -- who have access to groups of people
      -- who have an unclear idea
  -- who have a clear idea about what questions to ask
      -- who know how to focus that question, break it down, form it  
into something workable

People affiliated with any kind of support system that will
     -- pay for materials
    -- help with grants
       -- help pay salaries while person takes time to do this (e.g.,  
some---a declining number---of academic institutions)
    -- or provide graduate students who help
        -- or sabbaticals (for mainly fairly senior people with tenure)
                (though few if any psychodrama people in USA and ?  
elsewhere have any academic role
     not counting adjunct---i.e. come in and give a class now and  
then)   (and not even many of those)

  etc.

           so people with the desire, plus various circumstances...

The questions need to be quite narrow, because
       people in fact need fairly individualized treatment regimens  
based on careful, multi-dimensional diagnosis.
Some need more family therapy for a while
      Others basically individual therapy

  An interesting approach is to ally with non-psychodrama  
professionals who will keep some notes, and end up collaborating with  
the primary author, regarding the value of a psychodrama weekend  
workshop once every three or four months as an adjunctive experience.

      Hm?   warmly, Adam





Partly
> this is a systemic issue in Australia and probably NZ as well (not
> sure re: USA and Europe) because much research is done through
> Universities and University contexts and at present the Universities
> do not have people in them that are keen to research this area. And if
> there were then they would need to determine the types of questions
> and the types of methodologies to answer the questions. And group
> therapy is hard to research - not from the point of view of efficacy
> as there is plenty to show it and other methodologies produce good
> results but from the point of view of the "group" part of it being the
> therapeutic response in clients. i.e. is it any 'better' than the
> easier, sometimes cheaper, often more available methods.
>
> The other aspect, and some have noted this earlier, is that there are
> a number of roles required to interact with Government agencies,
> research agencies and grant bodies and those roles are quite
> specialised and can be hard to come by. These are the roles that value
> the world view of those same agencies rather than being sceptical or
> dismissive of their world view. These roles are similar in some ways
> to the types of entrepreneurial roles required to set up in private
> practice. I have some of those entrepreneurial roles but not all
> unfortunately. I have few of the roles required to open doors for the
> work many of us do here though I am working to acquire more. And these
> roles are often not supported by members of groups like we have here.
> Sort of along the lines of "Well we know its true!" type of response.
>
> I and my partner Diz, ran some leadership programs over a period of a
> decade. Built into the original design was a realistic evaluation
> process. It was fought against in the initial design by the other
> consultants but we got it there. In subsequent iterations of the
> programs we kept it - a minor miracle in itself. It consisted of
> individual pre-interviews with participants and their supervisors and
> a follow-up interview was done 3 months after the 12 month programs
> had concluded. This was a lot of work and we got paid a lot of money
> to do it. There was never, any time in the 50 or so programs (around
> 1000 people) we ran, when any of the agencies requested or paid any
> attention to our results. Only one person showed interest when we
> tried to let them know and he was effected. And at the same time a
> small fortune (in the many $100,000's) was spent having separate
> consultancies conduct research on the outcomes. Some of which we were
> shown and some of which we had to beg to see. The most rigourous long
> term research done by one internal group was trumped after 18 months
> by and external consultant because they were more "objective". To me
> this indicates a reluctance to get real with what we know, what we
> don't know and the amount of faith operating in our lives around areas
> of reasonable ignorance.
>
> On a more personal note I really love the rise of evidence based
> research and medicine as there are an awful lot of dodgy things being
> promoted by well intentioned doctors, therapists and community
> developers. Getting the research done poses many dilemmas, of course.
> And maybe there are things I do that I am committed to and love that
> do no more than make me feel good and add little or nothing to clients
> or perhaps even make their life harder. Not a pleasant thought. The
> ANZPA Exec is keen to support, foster, engender research but we are
> like many other Execs are a part time, volunteer mob.
>
> On a CBT note, have you read the crossover journal from the American
> ASGPPPPPP mob for a few years ago comparing and contracting CBT and
> psychodrama? It was a special bigger edition from memory. I've seen a
> few articles but don't have a copy. Of course for the right $ it is
> available. If I was current in my Uni fees I could get a copy through
> the library.
>
> Cheers form this side of the Tasman Sea
>
> Peter in Brisbane
>