psychodrama research

[Ann Hale]

Walter,
Regarding sociometric choice process in the psychodrama group, Donna Little and I came up with a tracking device which looks at the choice of a person for a role, the criterion on which they were chosen for the role (precise wording), who else would have liked to have been chocen for the role, and what he/she would need to do in order to be chosen for roles like that.  The little form we use can be framed from the choices made , or looked at from the standpoint of the roles you would have like to have had.

Many people out your way purchased our book Sociometric Process of Action Events and I think Peter Howie bought the remainders back in 2005.  The forms are included in that book near the back. We also track access to roles, and have the group look at dynamics related to roles of all kinds.

One way we use the diamond of opposites for processing the director role is to examine the director's perception of group members potential choices for him/her after having directed a psychodrama (pull to choose this director after having seen him/her in the role, or pull not to)  THEN have group members fill out a diamond of their actual best guess whether or not they might choose this director sometime in the future.
When we have done this,  we find almost always the director perceives far more rejection of themselves in the role than is the case.  Knowing this, it is helpful for trainers to skew the processing in such a way that the director's get support for things they did well, and take in the positives which are available, then move on to the learning curve.

There is so much room for more and creative ways to look at our processes as psychodramatists without getting too didactic.  It is fun to have too group members engage in a short dialogue which goes something like this:

"No, you are more likely to be chosen for this that I..."
No way, you are more likely... "  Reasons have to be given until it becomes ridiculus and they fall on the floor laughing.
  ----- 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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