Saving the world and the paradox of urgency

[Edward Schreiber]

Actually it was a call to action in the present I was suggesting we  
consider!


On Aug 9, 2009, at 8:13 PM, thana ag wrote:

> Hi Regina,
>  I so agree with you that it we recognize our input at therapists:  
> to the social being of the society: to remember that any input on   
> personal level contributes  concretely to the big picture,and worth  
> more that all the "calls for action"  in the future...
> In Judaism (kaballah), to save  one soul is  to save the whole world.
> Anath
>
> From: sewell.2 at osu.edu
> To: List at grouptalkweb.org
> Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2009 11:44:03 -0400
> Subject: Saving the world and the paradox of urgency
> CC: ablatner at verizon.net
>
> Adam,
>
> Oddly, given my background as a sociologist, I totally believe that  
> therapy is (or can be) a form of social action.  If the therapist/ 
> counselor/person on the other end listening empathetically and  
> possibly offering reality checks, connects the individual's  
> condition to the social context, it is totally social action.  When  
> I answered the rape crisis line and told caller after caller who  
> had been raped or was struggling with the fact that a girlfriend or  
> child had been raped that what happened wasn't his or her fault..   
> that he or she didn't make it happen...   and while there are  
> things that might be good to do differently (like not drink a  
> bottle of vodka) that the perpetrator is ultimately responsible for  
> their own behavior and choices..  This was huge and is huge....
>
> And while our tools don't really "get people to write letters, talk  
> to their congress people, or protest" they do build community and  
> help people shape their own identities.  Turns out that people  
> participate in social movements based on identity and on community  
> membership.
>
> It's also important to conceede that our solutions will be the next  
> problem (the simplified version of Marx's dialectic)..  in real  
> terms - prohibition actually did reduce drinking AND also opened a  
> wonderful opportunity for ne'er do wells to make a fortune.  The  
> car was origionally thought of as a solution to pollution...   all  
> those horses had to poop and the poop was a problem.  Cars don't  
> poop visisble shit....   so it took folks awhile to figure it out....
>
> I think one of the more important things we can do is help people  
> calm down.  Running on urgent, "they sky is falling, the sky is  
> falling" leads to really dumb solutions (cash for clunkers...   
> great pollitically but really....   dumb idea in a lot of ways per  
> a number of economists/ hand outs w/out boundaries to the financial  
> industry who them rewarded the very people who got us into trouble  
> in the first place with bonuses and / or spent a fortune on that  
> "retreat like" weekend on the tax payers dime).  The trick is to  
> help ground people so that they can make informed decisions and  
> practical life changes, so that they can explore concepts addressed  
> in "Your money or your life" (I don't like the book as a scholar -  
> lots of unfounded generalizations, but the points - at the  
> essential core - are sound.)  We can help people move past their  
> fear and guilt, their shame and their anger using sociodrama and  
> psychodrama.  We can help people imagineer...   visualize what  
> could be.  This is a very sound principal in the martial arts.  You  
> don't hit the board, you visualize yourself hitting through the  
> board and the board snaps easily.  If you hit the board, you can  
> break your hand.  Same w/ baseball...   look toward where you want  
> the balll to go.  If you look to right field, it will go there.
>
> Peace,
> regina sewell, ph.d.
>
>
> <<Okay, let's see. The world is in trouble in thousands of  
> different ways at many levels. What can "sociatry" do? Which  
> methods are useful with groups beyond the sick role? (i.e., beyond  
> psychotherapy).
>       1. Starting small: Consider the feminist notion that the  
> personal is political and reverse it. In the 1970s the institution  
> of the happy nuclear family was questioned. Might it for some be a  
> prison?  Questioning social arrangements is one example. Could  
> therapy include social action? Groups whose task is to change more  
> than the consciousness of its own members generate new types of  
> group dynamics, concerning as how best to accomplish its chosen tasks.
>
>      2. Recognize that sociometry and psychodramatic methods  
> constitute at most only 23.2% of the many different kinds of skills  
> and knowledge involved in social action. Things like composing an  
> effective letter, lobbying, etc. --- there are hundreds or  
> thousands of such components that transcend any particular  
> discipline--- including the skill bases of rhetoric, advertising,  
> spin-doctoring, propaganda, all the elements of politics, lobbying,  
> newsletter editing, community organizing, etc. etc.
>
>      3. In a larger sense, much of politics throughout history  
> (including some military efforts) have been rationalized as  
> promoting what was for the time viewed as an improvement on the  
> previous system. For example, feudalism, as prone to tyrrany as at  
> was, was nevertheless believed to be an improvement of some degree  
> of order and predictability, better than what had been happening in  
> the earlier "dark ages" in which people felt far too vulnerable to  
> robbers, invaders, and pure barbarism.  In other words:
>
>    4. The problem with sociatry is the problem with fascism: The  
> doctor-patient model of the 1940s (relating to the -iatros Greek  
> root meaning physician) involved a wise knower-how-to-diagnose and  
> treat and a submissive patient. This does not apply well to large  
> social groupings. It is not at all clear that anyone knows how to  
> fix it all and can garner adequate consensus for "I'll just tell  
> you what to do and then you take this medicine and follow my  
> 'orders.' type of management.
>          I'm just noting that the word may be misleading. The  
> spirit Moreno advocated is something I share: Let's apply what  
> we're learning in psychology, sociology, and every other field to  
> efforts in every institution---political, educational, economic,  
> clubs, recreation, medicine, etc. I saw his idea as an  
> interdisciplinary vision during an era in which fields were more  
> compartmentalized. Ed's advocacy of social action has merit, but  
> awaiting specifics, I'm not sure that our field has more to offer  
> than other fields. It certainly has some to offer, though!
>
>    5. I'm continuing to do adult education classes and weaving in  
> principles from role theory, the idea of externalization and  
> personification of defenses (i.e., imagining that they can be  
> played, given voice, imagined to be little seductive con-men,  
> little Bernie Madoffs or whoever). , and other Morenian ideas along  
> with the contributions of others--- all part of the aforementioned  
> idea of "psychological literacy" or promoting the continued  
> integration of the insights of psychology in life.
>            (In a larger sense, I think sociatry refers in large  
> part to this cultural trend towards bringing psychology into the  
> mainstream of culture rather than its having operated at the  
> periphery as a semi-irrelevant procedure for folks at the margins  
> of society)
>
>   6. Writing, publishing, presenting at other conferences, and  
> talking about how psychodramatic and sociometric methods might have  
> applications beyond its own field... I think these are small but  
> not meaningless efforts. A measure of humility is okay.
>
>    7. Continuing efforts (and modeling) in integrating good ideas  
> from other fields will also help to break down perceptions of  
> psychodrama as somewhat insular.
>
>    Those are a few things perhaps that can advance the idea of our  
> field's relevance to social activism.
>             The targets include not only global warming (as Ed  
> noted), but thousands of other worthy causes.
>
>         Some of these, interestingly, are complex: The question  
> regarding health care for me, for example, is to what degree I  
> support the present kluged-together bill or exert myself for the  
> cause of a single-payer system (as supported by the Physicians for  
> a National Health Plan)?  It could be argued that in the present  
> climate, a compromise is necessary and that single-payer has zero  
> chance. On the other hand, the present bill is so fraught with  
> compromises that it will be unsatisfactory in many ways, the  
> problem will "heat up" further, and more radical surgery will be  
> frustrated because "we already tried socialized medicine"  (when in  
> fact we only put our toe in the water, so to speak).   So political  
> decision-making is a problem in weighing which tactic to use in the  
> interim.
> regina sewell, Ph.D.
>
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