Grandiosity

[James Sacks]

Surely you have all heard about the  meeting that President Obama 
conducted in the White over beer with Sgt. James Crowley, Prof. Henry 
Louis Gates Jr. and Vice-President Biden. Maybe some of you had the 
fantasy of how you would have handled it as a group therapist. I sure 
did. Actually, from the little we know, I think that Obama did quite 
well both in initiating and conducting it, considering that he 
probably never heard of psychodrama or Moreno. It's only a pity that 
the media emphasized that neither man apologized to the other. The 
last thing one would want would be for either party to humiliate 
themselves by an apology.

So here's my plan: I find out how much time I have. Then I insist 
that the recording they are undoubtedly making, be open to historians 
only after 50 years or until after we are all dead. This is as much 
confidentiality as my fantasy will accept without seeming too 
unrealistic to enjoy.

I inform the group that I have no experience in politics but that I 
am a clinical psychologist with experience in intra-group conflict. I 
ask if they are willing to play along. They are. Next I conduct a 
memory-based warm-up in which each person tells us something they are 
reminded of by the person speaking just before them in a go-around 
and to include how they felt at the time the event occurred. All of 
this is totally unrelated to their current conflict. Obama and Biden 
would take part in this, also. The beer is left available on the 
table but not refilled.

Next I introduce the idea of role playing. I ask Biden to state his 
name. "Joe Biden" he says. Then I ask him to take the role of 
President Obama and ask again, "What your name?" If he says, "Barak 
Obama", I  reply, "That's it. You've got the idea." If he says "Joe 
Biden" again, I answer , "No, you are pretending to Barak Obama so 
what is  your name now?" He says, "Barak Obama". The purpose of this 
seeming absurdity is to convey the idea that taking the role of 
another person is idiotically simple. How well one does it may vary 
but to do it at all, is simple. I then go further, for example, 
asking asking Gates in the role of Crowley, what he did for a living 
and he says, "I am a Police Sergeant".

As soon as possible I fade out of the interviewer role but retain the 
role of director. I continue on a light, even humorous level deal 
with minor unthreatening matters with and Obama and Biden and keep 
the spotlight off Gates and Crowley but after Gates and Crowley do 
get involved, I slowly steer attention to the afternoon of the arrest 
but avoiding any role reversal.  The two men are both given the 
opportunity to show their own versions of what happened and how they 
felt at each moment. This description or at least the naming of the 
emotions is greatly facilitated by the empathic doubling of Obama and 
Biden. They turn out to be very talented. This self-presentation is 
kept short since it is only to serve as a frame for the role reversal 
to follow.

I remind Gates and Crowley that, when they are taking each other's 
roles, the real person being depicted is actually present watching. 
In any scene involving both protagonists, Obama or Biden, also 
talented auxiliary egos, take the counter-role so that the person 
represented is free to observe just how he is being portrayed. The 
task of Gates taking the role of Crowley or Crowley taking the role 
of Gates is not to reflect the other person's unconscious but the 
other person's conscious experience. The person being modeled is to 
be the final expert on his own experience. In this fantasy, all the 
performers go deeply, very quickly.

When the role reversals are finished, I ask the "real" person 
watching, in what way the person taking their role was accurate and 
in what way their performance should have been somewhat different. (I 
avoid asking anything that might elicit overall evaluation of the 
other's portrayal.) We take cognizance of the accurate role playing. 
Then, as the "real" person tells the how the actor could have 
improved his performance, I ask the "real" person to return to the 
scene and show to us what it was really like for him. Here I call on 
Obama and Biden to act as doubles again. They are brilliant. Then I 
return to the role reversal and give the player another chance to get 
it right. When the real person is satisfied with how he is depicted, 
I do the same procedure again for the other protagonist giving equal 
time to both versions.  After the role reversals are  finished there 
is no need for de-roleing since when we return to  the table with the 
beer everyone is himself again. I ask how it felt to be portrayed by 
their "rival" in such a way. Is there if there anything to be learned 
from this exercise and, if so, what, etc. This may seem like a large 
order for a single session but that's what fantasies are for. In one 
version, the two men are in tears and hug each other at the end.

Next, I solve the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, the Middle East 
dispute, the issue about a nuclear Iran, and maybe even the 
Sunni/Shi'ite discord. Why not? If Moreno could play God, why can I 
not play psychodramatist for the world using his methods?
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