"inner" roles

Sat Jan 10 09:34:52 CST 2009

Peter, hi! Thanks for thinking more probingly about our models of mind.
    On one hand I want to support your questioning of prepositions such as "in", because the in/out, up/down, and other spatial relations are problematic when it comes to mind, experience, non-matter/time/space dynamics.
    It might even be argued that once played, a role cannot be "eliminated." It may be neglected, turned away from, superseded, refined, re-worked... but in mind, if there are memories, (even the memories of others), then this role has a kind of existence-power, however mild or subtle. So, I'm pretty much in agreement with your points. 
              I do have a few slight quibbles, not really to argue but to expand some of your ideas:

    Whatever "getting rid of" means, while that may be too strong,  nevertheless we can imagine ourselves as letting go of our identification, attachment, dedication, investment, cathexis, whatever word describes the feeling of the need to keep playing a certain role in a certain way. We can diminish a role and replace it perhaps with other behaviors. (My wife and I live this way, our mutual process of refining certain habits of behavior that we feel finished with---or are trying to let go of--- we call it "sadhana" -- a Sanskrit term for spiritual practice, but we apply this to the mundane psychological process of trying to mature just a tiny bit more.) 

     As to "inner" roles. A similar argument may be made for words like ego, self, etc.---the term is "reifying"---treating it as if it's a real thing. (I don't mean to be pedantic, but a word can be helpful as I think this out myself as I compose these new thoughts. Thank you for stimulating my thinking.) On one hand, there are no inner thoughts or roles, because what is inner, anyway, in the realm of mind. The ancient Greeks thought emotion was a movement of feelings from outside... e   motion    

     But there are a number of dynamics that I think are most usefully conceptualized as "inner" in that they can go on in the form of sub-lingual inner dialogue and imagery. We imagine our father's reaction to our behavior, or what our peers would say if they saw us doing this. We imagine their praise or condemnation, we almost hear the dialogue in our mind. Of course we're making it up, but this is the realm of depth psychology. The point is to take what is not disclosed explicitly, even from oneself, and help it come into conscious awareness and disclosure to a trusted other. 

  So I don't agree that roles take an observable form. Some do, some don't. (We must not treat Moreno as an authority whose words must be believed. I think he was right on about some things, partly right and partly vague, mistaken, or to the side on others, and flat wrong on still others, and in order to sustain the value of creativity, it is necessary to support this assumption of at least the possibility of the cultural conserve being inadequate or misleading.)

   Another point you're making is the paradox of dividing or not-dividing in fundamental understanding. My answer draws on a pragmatic criterion: What models are useful. I don't bother much with assuming that our models are ultimately "true," for many philosophical reasons, not the least of which is that we continue to discover new realms of existence. Adler called his approach individual psychology because he wanted to counter Freud's dividing self into ego, id, superego. In-dividual is a word that emphasizes the operations of what I call the choosing self. 

    The multiplicity dimension is a useful workshop, sort of where you take something apart (analyze) it in order to fix it. But also it's a system and works as a whole. So I find it useful to work at both levels. Your correction is good, though: Roy Schafer, the psychoanalyst writing in the mid-1970s wrote about owned and dis-owned thoughts and behaviors. 

    Anyway, I'm delighted that you are wrestling with role theory: I think it can and should continue to be developed for many reasons. I think it offers promise as a major language for teaching applied psychology, "psychological literacy," in the school system, and I hope having a user-friendly language can help this to happen someday. I think our culture needs this as much as it needs to teach people the fundamentals of reading, writing, and 'rithmetic.   I pretty much agree with your basic points, aside from my minor quibbles. Thanks!   Warmly, Adam 

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Peter Howie 
  To: Group talk 
  Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 9:16 PM
  Subject: Change and removing self from self and role theory - longish

  Dear Adam and colleagues,

  I want to address one elements of our discussion and alert you and remind me about one element that I thought Moreno was up to which I heartily support. Your qeury about "is it possible to eliminate"....

  I think that we are mixing metaphors or mental models or philosophical tenets or ideas (all of which I consider synonyms for the same structures) when discussing roles, sub-personalities, ego and other such things. Firstly they are one and all, conjectural ideas of human functioning. However none of them are psychodramatic ideas. Now psychodrama is a broad church, as they say, and accepts and find space for just about any situationally useful idea or conjecture. Moreno was a pretty good polymath in pulling in ideas and philosophy from many quarters and knowing them well enough to work out extensions and applications. One area of Moreno's work I particularly like is the idea of roles. Now roles are not roles as played by an actor who has a large repertoire of roles. So a person does not contain or have within them a large number of "roles" from a Morenian perspective. However this perspective - of have a number of internal roles can be useful and makes sense to many/some people. However the idea of internal roles is yet another conjecture about the functioning of the human psyche, its shape, structure. Even as a metaphor for human functioning it has its problems. 

  Anyway - this takes quite a bit of effort. Phew!

  The idea of role, as I see it, is the functional form a person takes in response to a situation or other person. I think that is JL's definition or close to it. Now that response has an entirely observable form.  And when viewing that entirely observable form we can certainly hypothesise internal goings on, world views and such like from an inductive and abductive reasoning methodology but what we still only have and are left with is the observable form and some hypotheres. That observable form must be only seen in terms of the context and the the system surrounding them and not as an internal only response. When it is seen as an internal response we return to the land of conjecture and supposition and untestable attributions. And often to the narrowing down of a person to a few very small elements. When a person's behaviour can be seen as a role within a system of roles and named in a colourful, creative and recognisable manner then our thinking can open up in a different manner. A person still does not have a "role inside them" but they are seen as part of a system of relationships within which they are responding and this response can be viewed as a role. Thinking this ways means that a person does not need to be divided, it means they are always themselves, fully and completely and are part of a larger world of relationships to which they are constantly responding.

  So far I have not yet got to my point. So my point is this - eliminating part of a person is not any part of role theory. Role theory suggests that a person can expand their roles - that is through being creative a person can find new ways of behaving in response to old or novel situations. As a person does this we can say their role repertoire is expanding - not internally - but their choices of how they respond are increasing. As a person's choices expand then the overdeveloped roles - that is the ones that get over-relied on situationally do not arise so often. So as a person expands their range of responses so their is a diminution of certain less functional roles responses. This does not mean the roles are excised, eliminated or abandoned. It simply means that a person has more choices and ability to exercise choices in how they respond. The reading I have done supports this contention. The reading I have done does not support any notion of getting rid of or eliminating parts of self. An example of a role response that perhaps have diminished usage as we grow but can reoccur easily - whatever role response you are having to me as you read this - how would that shift if your mother or your father walked into the room where you are at present. Many of us find it easy to respond in old ways to our parents, despite years of maturing and getting wisdom.

  There, I've done it. These points require some decent papers which I will produce over the next year or so. I'll respond to the spirituality thread separately.

  Cheers adam and colleagues

  Peter

  Peter Howie B.Sc, TEP
  Managing Director
  The Moreno Collegium for Human Centred Learning, Research and Development
  0411 873 851
  www.morenocollegium.com.au

  On 10/01/2009, at 9:08 AM, Adam Blatner wrote:

    Responding to your comments of January 7    Campbell also notes that perhaps the problem with religions today is that they myths have not caught up with the economic and social realities of the world in which we live. 
           1. I am all for a re-thinking about new myths, and wrote about this on my website : http://www.blatner.com/adam/psyntbk/creatmythmk.htm

       2. RS  Perhaps what we need are new myths.  Oddly enough, some of the new science and new religion is backing up what the Mary Baker Eddy prosletyzed to her masses -- the power of prayer, of "energy" and intention.
          AB: You may be right, and I sort of wish you were, but I am not sure that much good science has indeed backed up the power of prayer. There's lots of not-so-good science going around, too. 

        3. youtube video   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTb2kp9Y4Is   Shows Andrew Cohen and Ken Wilber, two new-age "teachers" responding to an emotional woman who is speaking about her inner conflicts.
        Regina wrote: I forced myself to watch it.  and I had to force myself to watch it. I know that place of what Cynthia dubbed spiritual hunger.  I know that place of resistance.  But we've reframed resistance in our psychodrama world, no?  Haven't we decided perhaps that resistance is just lack of warm up.  and might there be valid reasons for lack of warm up?  Like we, or someone else, is pushing us into a role that we don't want or that we don't have adequate skills or tools to occupy, or we think we don't have adequate skills or tools, but we try to do it anyway because we think we "should" and then - to steal for Ellis - we end up "shoulding all over ourselves." 
             AB: I agree and would add a few other comments: 
         a. Is it possible to eliminate sub-personalities, parts of self that are regressive? I remember Ram Das saying that after 20 years of meditation and spiritual effort (following his psychedelic experiments), he hadn't "cured" a single neurotic complex. But, he conceded, they were "smaller."
              I might have answered that a person can have parts of oneself that are little-kid I don't want to feelings and that doesn't disqualify the more grown-up parts. I think it was Desmond Tutu or someone famous noting that courage doesn't mean you're not afraid; rather, it means that you are afraid and you go ahead anyway.

         b. But what bothered me is the answer-giving behavior. I will confess that these guys---more Andrew Cohen, but a bit of Ken Wilber, too---though I like many aspects of his philosophical work, but not all--- annoy me. Perhaps this helped explain it. (And I admit there may be shadow elements here.) I might have refrain from being so ready with answers, but engaged instead in something that was more psychodramatic, or at least an inquiry. This doesn't fit so neatly into a large class context, but this level of learning perhaps should not be subject to that format.
           For example, I can't speak for this person in the video, but I have found that symptoms of self-hate often relate to a variety of other issues not brought out into the open, and possibly not even consciously related to the things at hand.
          This woman was locating the distress in the dissonance between her dedication to doing good in social action and the parts of her that don't want to do good for others, or even be very grown-up. Perhaps, but unless we deal with a general life review, we can't know if this is really what the issue is. It may be unfinished issues with a lover, guilt and shame over gullibility and sexuality (quite common), lack of clarity in identity and vocational commitment (also very common), lack of general map of faith, and so on---many possibilities.
           So I felt annoyed at what seemed to me to be grossly unsophisticated psychological pseudo-therapy, with glib answers.

         c. The other problem with Cohen, and to some degree Wilber, too, in these videos, is the new age babble. It used to be called psychobabble, but now it's spiritual-babble. Those are statements that are essentially platitudes, cleverly disguised. Many recognized teachers and televangelists and others are quite glib, perhaps quite sincere, it all fits in their mind, an answer to every questions.

     (Am I this way and projecting my annoyance on Cohen? Maybe, but I'll be open to exploration of words, point by point. I don't think he makes himself vulnerable in this way.)

         Cohen and many other new age gurus make sweeping statements that cannot be disproven. They're too vague. As you think, so your life will be. Not really so obvious, because we all think so many internally contradictory things. Make your mind pure?  Who has done this, and where is the evidence that except for building a new-age following, those who are designated by followers and by self as enlightened actually lead more exemplary lives?

           RS: So the political consequences of spirituality - or lack there of - I think are dependent on the tenets or myths or misunderstandings that one subscribes to.  Not just the leaders - though they certainly have incredible power to shape social rhetoric - but the peeps as well...  I personally lost at least $10,000 in a break-up because a majority of people in Ohio felt moved by their spiritual convictions to deny the rights of marriage to unmarried people and denied marriage to same sex couples.  
           AB: This brings up the whole problem of spirituality and religion, and the possibility that many people who pursue a variety of current religious agendas (such as anti-homosexual political policies) are bothering much with any personal spiritual endeavors.

         So, back to trying to clean up email. Warmly, Adam

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