psychodrama research

[Ann Hale]

Since the mid to late1980-'s when Linnea Carlsen-Sabelli, RN, PHD, TEP wrote her doctoral disertation on Measuring Co-existing Opposites there has been a research instrument available to widen the experience of sociometry to include the ambivalent response. One of the purposes of this research instrument was to fortify the capacity to investigate interpersonal perception (which we count on for each doubling experience) and which is basic to directing choices, group choices of all kinds , etc. The sociometric instrument is one tool which we have available to us to explore interpersonal perception.

What had perplexed people up to this time was the forcing of either choose, or not choose. Moreno encountered the problem but there wasn't a mathematical or computational instrument for getting down to the volumeic aspect of sociometry. He described ambivalence as a rapidly oscillating positive and negative energy. What is especially wonderful now is that sociometric choice is now able to document  at least two distinct (maybe more) recordable processes:  (1) the underlying feelings related to the choice (the pull to choose, the pull not to choose) and (2) the decision whether to chose or remain neutral.  The Sabelli's Diamond of Opposites clarifies areas on a phase space map where there is a positive dominance, a negative dominance, a neutral dominance and a conflictual dominance. Also, exact ambivalence is visible straight up the middle of the "diamond" (a square turned on its point). This process is written about in the ASGPP Journal, and in a chapter in Psychodrama Since Moreno  (Routledge) Holmes, Watson and Karp, editors. see bibliography at www.sociometry.net 

The downside of this is that engaging a group in the long form of the sociometric test, with objective and perceptual data, and the objective and perceptual socioanalysis test takes hours to do properly, including time for people to discuss choices in dyads, and regroup.   Preparation for the procedure also takes time, generation of relative criteria for the group exploration and an understanding of how the data will be viewed and used.  It takes a committed , informed and eager group to go into this and reap the benefits.

What is gained?
(1) Understanding of hierarchy and its impact on choice/choice patterns.
(2) What attributes, characteristices are identified as leading to choice for persons in the various positions: positive star, star of incongruity, mutuals, islates, rejectees, sub-groups, etc.
(3) Realizing the value of all the positions on the sociometric map.
(4) Having an opportunity to reveal perceptions and get clarity on blocks to perception (self and other),
(5) Being able to clarify and complete multiple small encounters which open up the sociometric network.
(6) Reveal to leaders and co-leaders the extent of their sociometric choice process as mirrored in the group, or not.
(7) Tie the data to individual's need for more harmony or more conflict in their relating.

Just because a person is in a training group one cannot assume that there is readiness for sociometric explorations. The group needs skills for handling conflict and the leaders (more than one) need to be agile , compassionate and able to work through unresolved feelings within the group.  annehale at swva.net 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Walter Logeman 
  To: list at grouptalkweb.org 
  Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 5:14 PM
  Subject: Re: psychodrama research


  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

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