catharsis of integration

[Adam Blatner]

Good conversation by all. 

This from Bud was interesting: I think one of the traps of psychodramatists is to get high on the action part and not on the real resolution in which both specific actions and very specific healing phrases need to be uttered.  Too often, I have seen touted psychodramatists produce tremendous action with huge amounts of tears and sturm and drung without real resolution. The bad guys are punished, the protagonist stands up to the future ones and everyone applauds with some usual back references to Daddy or mom or grandparents who started the whole thing dismissing them after scolding them for having done such a terrible job. For me, there is no resolution until you have in one way or another healed all those you consider having been wounded by.. . 

Adam: I somewhat agree, in that I view catharsis as an emotional expression of different kinds of integration (as discussed in my article in the Journal in 1985 and in my Fondations of Psychodrama). A key concept is I think Moreno's own suggestion that every catharsis of abreaction be followed by a catharsis of integration. In other words, there's a release of emotional energy at re-discovering a part of onesefl that has been disowned, such as the sad or vulnerable or even strong, empowered part. But then the protagonist is faced with yet another challenge: What can be done with those parts. In the protagonist's earlier schema such roles were threatening, shameful, etc.--- so there's work to be done to re-frame those roles or parts so that they can be seen as potentially constructive. 

Another type of integration is what Bud suggested: The integration of the more mature recognition of who the other person was and why they might have been neglectful. The problem is that a person may need to go through weeks, months, or years of working through their own feelings of dis-empowerment and discovery of re-empowerment before they're ready to then ground themselves and consider the "reasons" for other people's disappointing, betraying, or otherwise frustrating or traumatic behavior. 

I agree that there is a kind of maturation evident in the capacity to do this, but many patients and non-patients aren't really ready to understand, forgive, or release. This doesn't mean that that more mature goal should be abandoned, but it might not be necessary to impose it on the protagonists when they're still early in the process, when the integration of the catharsis has at best only begun to be integrated. 

For people who aren't coming from the role of traumatized victim, but rather from a more neutral, healthy role, an interesting further kind of healing happens through expanding the circle of caring and extending the processes of greater consciousness vicariously, of imagining the healing of those whose limited consciousness led them to be hurtful. It's a little touchy, though, because some people who think they're ready to do this may discover that they continue to have more active unfinished vulnerable roles or deeper wounds or more sensitive "scars" than they had realized. 

     In summary, I don't think of psychodrama in its classical sense as a complete therapy that can finish up everything that is started. Rather, it needs to be woven together with other treatment approaches. (As an analogy, surgery by itself isn't curative, but requires pre-care and after-care that may be as demanding of attention, skill, and much more time than the surgery itself.) 

Warmly, Adam
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