Grandiosity

[James Sacks]

Dear Anath,
Good point. An enjoyable fantasy can motivate you to an intimate 
contact with the object of study (psychodrama) and so we can learn 
from our day dreams. We can take credit as both as teacher and 
student. While i can't go with Saphira's somewhat magical idea that 
imagining will make it so, I do agree that imagining will help us 
make it so.
Jim

>Dear Jim,
>Speking of grandiosity:" What if " inspired by your lovely 
>description of a very successful psychodramatic 
>intervention,and reminded by Saphira of the power of heartfelt 
>visualizations we all join you in this  "grandiosity  exersize" by 
>clearly visualizing the process and the probable outcomes,while 
> adding   the  chief's refrain: "Yes,we can"...
>Also: since you "found "the participants very gifted, and receptive 
>it would've been nice(wise) to role reversre with the beer...
>warmly,
>anath garber
>
>
>
>
>Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 20:49:22 -0500
>To: list at grouptalkweb.org
>From: jmsacks at mindspring.com
>Subject: Grandiosity
>
>
>.ExternalClass blockquote, .ExternalClass dl, .ExternalClass ul, 
>.ExternalClass ol, .ExternalClass li 
>{padding-top:0;padding-bottom:0;}
>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 tae 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?
>
>
>Get free photo software from Windows Live 
><http://www.windowslive.com/online/photos?ocid=PID23393::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:SI_PH_software:082009>Click 
>here.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://grouptalkweb.org/pipermail/list_grouptalkweb.org/attachments/20090807/d3addd18/attachment.html>