psychodrama research

[Walter Logeman]

Hi All,

Thanks Peter for the suggestion we continue the discussion here.  I'd
like that.  Loved hearing that you sang a little song in response to a
discussion about research!  It is close to my heart too.  I just saw
the movie Australia - they sing all sorts of things into being over
there.

Thanks Adam for your responses.

What I got from both of you is that there is not just one thing called
research, even in the traditional methods, there is a range of
approaches, purposes and motivations.

I'd like to take up some points in one of your paragraphs Adam


> My first association is that the criteria Walter mentions, starting
> with voluntariness and informed consent, is hardly ever fully valid, because
> unless they are quite familiar with the method, people tend to "bite off
> more than they can chew."    The number of people who are truly prepared for
> sociometric explorations seems to me to be very low. Maybe not in New
> Zealand, but elsewhere, no.


Moreno spoke of "Maximum voluntary participation"  - he realised that
there is no absolute here.  In a simolar vein he used the term "near
sociometric".

"The number of people who are truly prepared for sociometric
explorations seems to me to be very low."

If we think, and I am sure most of us do, as a protagonist working for
the group, then there is already a rudimentary consciousness in us of
the sociometric experiment in every Psychodrama.  Moreno says
somewhere that Psychodrama is one form of sociometric experimentation.

The protagonists concern is a question (shared by the group in some
way) and launching into the drama in various scenes tests various
hypothesis.  The sharing at the end reveals the conclusions drawn from
the experiment.

People enter into this sort of sociometric experiment all the time,
but not with consciousness or using that language.  But they learn
"truth"  Psychodrama is a theatre of truth.  There is a form of
knowing that happens here.  There is some system of epistemology that
Moreno was in tune with.  There is a feminist tradition termed
"connected knowing" (google it) which also values something distinct
from the more analytical approaches.

I have a fantasy that by pursuing all this more consciously we could
role reverse with the molecules or the planets and learn more -
literally, after-all we are made of that stuff, nuclear physics by
introspection.  Moreno thought that would happen, but without going
that far, as a social, psychological science there is more scope here.
 The analytical methods often destroy the subject matter before they
examine it, their conclusions about private personal esoteric
experience will be limited.  Sociometry has a future here I think.


Warm wishes,

Walter