Moreno's role theory questions

[Bud Weiss]

Dear Adam and Katherine and others:
I do not for a moment think that limiting Moreno to the quote you have is
anywhere near what he spoke about in regard to role theory or a theory of
the development of personality.  There were psychosomatic roles and role
sets even an examination of the left and right side of the body and the
issues regarding right and left brain were a part of Moreno's exploration
used at times in open sessions as a beginning for a session. Spiritual
roles, the constant issue of God vs the Devil and others aspects of this
duality similar in many ways to Jung's duality.

Moreno enjoyed and Zerka often used Doris Twitchel Allen's regression to
find yourself often getting people back into the womb and beyond. How does
that match with the development of the personality only through the role? It
doesn't,  and neither did Moreno feel that role dyads were the only learning
process.

It is important to note the duality of roles. The prime of this is  If there
is you, there must be the other. Camus' statement "I rebel, therfore We
exist" would be close to Moreno's thought.  Moreno's early magazine for
which writers like Kafka and Martin Buber and others wrote explored deeply
existentialism and beyond.

Do we simply throw that out as well and limit Moreno to some few words from
a particular text?

Moreno had intense discussions about past lives and how they might fit into
a developmental of present behavior and the structure of the personality.
 He was very much into hypnosis as well and even had sessions with
hypnotized protagonists finding their way to extrasensory perceptions. Even
without that, learning to double well allows you to experience things that
are not revealed by the protagonist in words or even in the set with which
you are presented. This comes up a lot in constellations too.

Was Moreno poorly read? I imagine that you are able to find your own way to
such a conclusion. He read in at least 4 languages and I remember a
discussion with him once in which he was encouraging me to learn other
languages and began showing me how easy it was to go into other languages
and had me reading a fair amount on the spot in Romanian.
An analysis of a person only from their writings or after their death with
their having no ability to answeer in and of itself is a dangerous way to
predict what he knew or did not know. Remember Moreno's discussion of
Abraham Brill's psychoanalysis of Abraham Lincoln ( interesting write up of
Brill's presentation from 1931 in Times Magazine here
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,846914,00.html

As Moreno grew, he did not include much of what he learned outside of that
which extended his previous writings though he often pointed the way in
somem of his letters and comments to others. Meanwhile, he encouraged others
to go beyond where he had gone even in his own methodology and it's theory.
Their energies were supported and encouraged by him in this.

Of course there were limitations to Moreno's thought, however, I still find
him to have been the most expansive mind in the field of social psychology
and therapeutic applications ever.  Eric Berne no small person in the field
himself often viewed as a competitor of Moreno's said the following which is
a paraphrase of the actual words which I can't find just now: " All of us in
the field of psychology suffer from the same malady, that is that Moreno
came first in all areas. " Berne was quite serious about that.

In Moreno's autobiography chapter 2 pages 22-23, the following is perhaps
instructive in this discussion: " "Where I look at a child, I wee "Yes,
yes,yes,yes, they don't have to learn to say yes. Being born is yes. You see
spontaneity written all over the child in his act-hunger, as he looks at
thbings, as he listens to things, as he rushes into time, as he moves into
space, as he grabs for objects, as he smiles and cries..."

And finally from wikipedia: Moreno "grew up in
Vienna<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna> at
time of great intellectual creativity and political turmoil. He studied
medicine <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine>,
mathematics<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics>,
and philosophy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy> at the University
of Vienna <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Vienna>,
becoming a Doctor
of Medicine <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Medicine> in 1917. He
had rejected Freudian theory while still a medical student, and became
interested in the potential of group settings for therapeutic
practice.[2]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_L._Moreno#cite_note-lucyozarin-1>

In his autobiography, Dr. Moreno recalls this encounter with Sigmund
Freud<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud> in
1912. "I attended one of Freud’s lectures. He had just finished an analysis
of a telepathic dream. As the students filed out, he singled me out from the
crowd and asked me what I was doing. I responded, 'Well, Dr. Freud, I start
where you leave off. You meet people in the artificial setting of your
office. I meet them on the street and in their homes, in their natural
surroundings. You analyze their dreams. I give them the courage to dream
again. You analyze and tear them apart. I let them act out their conflicting
roles and help them to put the parts back together
again.'"[<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_L._Moreno#cite_note-autobiography-2>
3 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_L._Moreno#cite_note-autobiography-2>]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_L._Moreno#cite_note-autobiography-2>
 "

Be well, Bud


On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 2:48 PM, Adam Blatner <ablatner at verizon.net> wrote:

>  Dear Katherine, (The others on grouptalk may not know that we've met in
> Seattle a month ago and you're a philosophy student as well as a student of
> drama therapy, and one with a broad background. You might want to introduce
> yourself to people. )
>
>
>      further comments interspersed:  -----
> *From:* Katherine Morris <morris.katherine at gmail.com>*  responding to the
> graphic sent **To:* List at grouptalkweb.org*  **Sent:* Sunday, December 20,
> 2009 12:36 PM *Subject:* Re: fun graphic           by Eric Rutberg <
> ericrutberg at yahoo.com> wrote: re role theory
> http://www.psychodramatraining.com/Roles1.htm
>
> KM Is this really what J.L. Moreno said?! That our personalities are
> nothing more than the sum of the various roles we play in life?  If that is
> accurate, I am surprised that someone with a classic education like he had,
> would make such a superficial conclusion.
>
>       AB: That you are surprised is a clue to the admixture in you of both
> unusual brightness and breadth of thought and perhaps the lack of readiness
> to realize that many of your teachers and great people in the many fields
> often do not match your keeness of perception.   Not that you're always
> right, either. But you do notice far more than many.  In other words, attend
> to your surprise.
>
> AB continues:  So  the de-idealization begins. Moreno didn't have that much
> of a classic education; he ready broadly, but was very narcissistic, so
> integrated only that which fit his own schema.
>       Moreno was partly right in that he countered the idividual psychology
> that saw the mind as an interplay of internal desires, identifications, and
> introjected objects (significant others). Freud had a weak sense (it was
> there, but not strong) of the power of the here-and-now interpersonal field,
> group and socio-cultural dynamics. The way I put it, half of who we "really"
> are (if it could be stated, which it really cannot) involves the activities,
> identifications, interactions, effects, processes in those extra-skin
> dimensions.
>       Or we might re-frame it (in Moreno's defense) by expanding the
> appreciation of what it means to be a psychosomatic role. But in truth,
> Moreno's role scheme was just a beginning. The right way to appreciate him
> is as we appreciate Jung or Adler, as a pioneer with lots and lots of good
> ideas, but in no way the definitive, comprehensive, or final sense. Also, I
> find many of Moreno's ideas not at all well-thought out, coordinated, or
> inclusive of others' work. So I give him credit for what he did, and
> recognize that in many ways he was lacking. I certainly don't take his
> writing as authoritative, but rather as a beginning---and sometimes perhaps
> even misleading.
>
> KM     I have not read Moreno's own writing yet, and I suspect that this
> is an over-simplification and distortion of his thought (and if not, I will
> be very surprised that someone with a background in philosophy would adopt
> such a simplistic, behavioristic view of human nature).
>
>         AB: his background is far more superficial than his status would
> suggest. He had brilliant insights, often was ahead of his time, but in my
> Foundations book I critique his writing---it's not really very good at all.
> Gems are buried here and there, but also fool's gold (iron pyrites)
>
>   KM    The claim that personalities are developed merely through taking
> on a bunch of roles even goes against simple observations. For example, we
> all see how babies, humans as well as other kinds of animals, have distinct
> personalities the moment they are born. There are inherent differences in
> the personalities and temperaments of babies (which perhaps influence the
> types of roles that they are drawn toward playing as they age). I could make
> the argument that personalities are further developed beyond what is
> inherent, not according to the roles played, but according to one's
> perceptions and experiences in life, especially since many people feel that
> they have to play roles in life that are not authentic, (i.e. not part of
> their real personality) but are required by society.
>        AB: yes, I agree and write about factors in individuality on a paper
> on my website. Temperament, interests, peculiar quirks, and also abilities,
> relative no-talent spheres, etc.
>         Not really in defending Moreno, though, I find that these elements
> can be added to a lively role theory (my own extension of Moreno's) in the
> following way. The role: A boy, age 6. Add not a social role or its
> definition, but some innate quality: A boy who is very tall or very
> nearsighted or very sensitive to loud sounds.   So in a sense, a character
> or picture can be built up that includes innate non-social-role elements.
> Moreno hadn't thought out his taxonomy very fully, in other words.
>         Similar deepening and broadening and revision of zoological or
> biological taxonomies have happened as technology and knowledge have grown
> in various fields, too.
>
> KM Also, what about people who hide major parts of themselves from the
> world because those parts don't fit into the world, meaning that there are
> no roles associated with those parts; does that mean those parts are not
> thought of as part of those persons personalities because no roles are ever
> played to give expression and further development to those parts?
>
>     AB: your objections remind me of one of the weaknesses of role theory:
> The idea that roles are primarily social. I don't think so. A role is
> anything that can be portrayed, and many sub-types of roles are by no means
> social. They can be very subtle, even spiritual, and as mentioned, also
> intrapsychic. My interest in this or that subject is a role between me and
> my writing tablet or computer keyboard, a role that gets expanded when you
> read my words, and expanded further if you are interested, willing to argue
> and develop those ideas, etc. This is like a role may be hinted at in scene
> one of a play and then deepened and elaborated as the role becomes played
> out with various others in later scenes---one who understands, one who
> distorts, one who fails to see any significance, etc.
>
>   AB: continues, anyway, welcome to grouptalk and let's see what others
> might say, too. I thought it was a nice introduction, though your points
> seem fair as an expansion of the subtlety of role theory.
>
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>
>


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