roles--some thoughts

Sun Jan 11 09:05:56 CST 2009

Peter, as usual, you elucidly presented your thoughts--and in this case gave us a beautiful description of the meaning of roles.  As I work with trauma survivors, as I train in different therapies, as I read, and discourse with colleagues I recognize the limitations of my understanding of the Self and how the use of role theory as a way to understand is helpful but limited.  

All these ways of learning of course give me effective methods to help my clients and to live a productive life but they still do not fully explain what is going on inside, what is stimulating response.  Of course I always have ideas about it and ongoing study continually helps me expand my ideas, particularly the exciting field of neuropsychiatry with its focus on the functioning of the brain and how the brain is effected by our experiences and how these brain responses drive feeling, thought and behavior.  But it still does not explain it all.  

Perhaps that is why I do not write about what I observe in my sessions with clients and posit what those observations may mean about us humans and about roles in the Morenian sense.  Aside from the fact that writing is a laborious process for me, I also believe that anything I could present is only one piece of the amazing complexity of our beingness, and so I prefer to let my ongoing learning manifest in my clinical work with clients rather than write about it.  However, I do understand the importance of putting to words what I am doing and why, if for no other reason than to keep my left brain's analytical functioning in balance with my more developed right brain's intuitive and sensing function.   So in keeping with the subject of roles, let me say this.  

Observing myself and my clients over the years I see our roles emerging and morphing into subroles all the time in a colorful dance that includes the client's inherent knowing of what is best in the moment and my attunement and resultant response to that knowing.  These roles and subroles include the mother, the colleague, the student, the therapist, etc.  Within all these roles are the relational skills of expressing warmth, caring, empathy, attunement, expressive understanding, etc. 

 I believe aside from the idea of "the role" these skills and others are the discrete pieces of various roles that are important to understand, learn, and express.  As you have pointed out, Peter, roles are behaviorally defined and as such I agree with you that we cannot know all that is happening.  So I do not try so much to identify or name the role  unless I am directing a psychodrama or teaching about role theory.  Instead, 20 plus years of working with clients and doing personal work suggests to me that the relationship between people--not clinical skills or some type of method or therapy or structure or understanding of the intricacies of beingness or even role theory--but the relationship and how it manifests through acts of love and kindness and selflessness and self-care and patience, and productivity, etc. and how consistently it manifests is the single most important key to health and robust wellness in mind, body, and spirit.  Aren't these qualities the lynchpins for living together in peace and safety and  contentment?  And can they not be seen as synonyms, to use your word that I like, for subroles that contain other related qualities supporting and expanding the nature of their energy?  

Thanks for listening and thank you for taking the time and energy to present your broadened view.  Patti

Patti Desert, LCSW-C, CEMDR, CP
Singular Pathways 
208 East Melrose Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21212
Phone:  410.435.3755
Fax:    410.435.0547
www.singular-pathways.com<http://www.singular-pathways.com/>
"from fears and tears to confidence and joy"
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Peter Howie<mailto:peterhowie at macquariehouse.com.au> 
  To: Group talk<mailto:list at grouptalkweb.org> 
  Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 10:16 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<http://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<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<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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