differentiations in role theory

Sun Jan 25 22:58:10 CST 2009

Dear Mogens, please call me Adam. (I'm an M.D., so my formal title is "Dr." but among our community that isn't necessary.)

    You say so much, I don't know where to start, so I may write several responses as I have time to think.

   First, what is your home (language of origin) and when did you move to an English-speaking country. It seems to me you express yourself quite well. 
    Second, what is the significance of the phrase "Excuse 42" ? Is that an in-group joke? 

    Third, let's start with the idea of performing. See my paper on performance awareness on www.interactiveimprov.com  

      Life's roles vary with the degree of self-consciousness that is brought to their performance. Indeed, there is no such thing as role---this is a mental frame we put around some complex of behavior, inner drama, etc., in order to work with it better, just as there are no notes to music---note is a written form of our discernment of a tone---usually an imprecise, imperfect tone that often has overtones giving it timbre, and yet comes reasonably close to a certain vibrational frequency that seems like A rather than A-flat, for example. 

         Roles are mixed and dynamic, and often they are played at different levels of intensity.

    Fourth: You seem to assume that roles require outward behavior, and here I disagree. I witness a host of characters in my mind that seem at first like vague voices or elusive thoughts, and not infrequently pose first as images, intuitions, and amorphous feelings of excitement, nostalgia, and frequently not immediately---and sometimes never---classifiable. 
         When they are mentally given attention, I imagine them to be voices and from the words and tone of voice, I can begin to infer their mood, and sometimes part of their origin or association. 

      These inner voices make up the great majority of my experience and motivation. To explore them, I allow them to move from amorphous whatever I said above to voice to becoming an image and sometimes playing these out in a surplus reality conversation with my wife as an audience / witness, or on a psychodrama stage, etc. 

That's all for now. More later. Gotta go. Warmly, Adam
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Madonna Johansen 
  To: Adam Blatner 
  Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 6:45 PM
  Subject: More on sociodramatic v. social roles from OZ

  Good afternoon Mr. Blatner,

  First up, I thank you for your response to my e-mail about roles - sociodramatic and social.  I am regretful of not having responded until now - Excuse 42 is valid. On a second thought  - have I just enacted a fictional role of "profound procrastinator?"  Secondly up, I could have confused you with the Madonna and Mogens. Madonna was the signatory as I am using my wife's computer.  But Mogens in the person corresponding. On the lighter side of life and just for your information - Today is Australia day and this afternoon will be celebrated with a few lamb chops on the barbie followed by a frosty tube or two; no scrimps. 

  On the more serious side again; when consuming your wonderful e-mail,  a bifurcation developed in my hemispheres much like the main character in 'Fiddler on the Roof' with his face turned skywards - on one hand the dialogue on role theory around sociodramatic and social roles - on the other hand,  a discussion on Moreno's pathologically narcissism and choice of words to use in psychodramas or sociodramas.

  However, firstly, the dilemma of roles.  Thank you for your thoughts. I admired you in the role of  'thinking out loud' while writing on the computer - soicodramatic role?  I shall attempt to do likewise - over editing might kill the spontaneity and creativity. 

  Fictional roles could be a useful term when enacting a psychodrama in the Stiegreiftheater!  I was wondering - is it also a useful term when being oneself in life's theatre?  

  My internal life theatre including orchestra is composed of many roles, I do grant that when my internal TV screen rolls on in my daily life, indeed there are fictional roles that may not be observed from the outside.  Likewise, as my personal battle continues, I have roles only visible to the outside world - they may be known as my blind-spots - kind of part of a Johari window, glazed.  

  You suggested to have a group talk and I concur that would be a splendid idea.

  Some questions for the group talk might be: 

  1) I suggest:  For roles to be fictional roles or sociodramatic roles they are observable from the outside - the producer or director of a drama observes a behaviour, notices a sound, a body movement and assigns (names) a sociodramatic - fictional role.  The person's (actor's, protagonist's) role repertoire of coping roles, fragmenting or developing roles is expanded or validated?

  2) You suggested: a) "When you play a real role, yourself, in a psychodrama, doing something you haven't done... until you break out of the "play" you're doing a psychodramatic role---  excuse me, fictional role.
  b) "If you are living in a certain way that might be named, such as downtrodden victim, and it is named, that may be helpful in your recognizing your pattern, just as if you are in a family and become the rule-stater. You're perhaps not the actual parent, but, say, an older sibling in charge of younger siblings, and acting in that role component. "No finger-painting on the wall!"  That's a social role"
  c) "  If you consciously re-play that role in a psychodrama, sociodrama, role playing; or portray it in self-revelatory theatre; or even engage in a process of negotiation with a friend where you're asking, "how can I phrase that better?  What if I say it this way? ...
         You're generating the context of play, of what if, and the statement / role becomes more fictional.

  Question 2a raises a question about surplus reality - which as I understand is a role one has 'not done' but could easily 'have been done' in that moment; I agree it then can be named a fictional role.  Could we say that when we 'play' with roles in the "What-If?" mode, they are fictional roles they are roles we are 'testing' for our change strategy in life to take on in the future?  But when we enact them "As-if" they are really we are, then they are social roles?

  I would welcome a discussion group on the roles - sociodramatic v. social. 

  About Moreno and his language and maybe narcissistic tendencies:

    As you write Moreno was right to note that the great category of pretend and what-if activities deserve a category in role theory! This was brilliant! However, calling such roles "psychodramatic"  was arrogant, because they can be explored without any hint of the conscious process of re-working them in the service of greater creativity---which is what psychodrama does. Your noting, for example, that Cinderella was a psychodramatic role is valid. While psychodrama utilizes the innate potential of pretend, what if, imagination, to foster creativity in life, it doesn't encompass creativity and imagination!

  Psychodramatic - as was suggested is a term that deals with soul/mind and action.  I suggest it is related to the " thinking + feeling = action paradigm".  The debate of internal external is still there.  Observation, interpretation,  enactment and 'truth theatre.' The word is a stage and we are all actors. 

  Therapeutic theatre or chartetic role enactment or living? Our meaning making of naming roles and still be creative but also being able to record in writing what goes on what is happening in a drama. 

  With regard to  Moreno and his writings etc. I had this to say in a paper I am writing to my training institute here in Brisbane:
  When I first sat down to read, “Who shall survive?” I found the language and concepts difficult to grasp - my soliloquy was then “Moreno why did you write like that?”  For me it was déjà vu to my first reading of James Joyce’s “Ulysses”; I gave up both books after the first twenty pages.   I returned successfully to Joyce However, after four years in psychodrama core training, I began to live the language of Moreno’s and I returned to “Who shall survive?” and other writings of Jacob Levi Moreno.  Wow, how he had changed!
  My desire to write was ablaze.  BUT – there was one daemon hindering me.  My written English needed polishing up, so I was told – the end was always outlined but never the means.  I did much to change it, to no avail.  English being my third language, I reversed roles with Moreno and I then understood why he started his own book publishing company.  I also understood, nay, actually felt what pain he must have felt.  He simply penned his message in his books and lucky for the world after him that he did not inherit Socrates’ attitude to writing.  Now that I have taken the time to ‘get with Moreno his books make so much sense to me.  I found my answer rests with meaning making through language in many levels.
  Further in the paper I discuss Moreno's language and bringing it into 21st century and also relating it to family therapy - probably my thesis work. This information is just for you to make some meaning of where I am at with my dramas.

  I am looking forward to hear from you regarding matters of roles.

  Warm regards,

  Mogens Johansen

  On 17/01/2009, at 2:22 AM, Adam Blatner wrote:

    Dear Madonna,
      Hello, and thanks for a most interesting question!
           First of all, please don't put in your subject line something nondescript such as "hello"---I almost deleted it as spam!
              Instead, put in some key words like psychodrama or role or role theory.

      Okay, well, first of all to your question: I don't know of any literature that debates this issue. So let's do it right here-and-now!

    Let's recognize that classification is a process and things don't always fit nicely.
        Second, let's note that Moreno was making it up and that his system should be (in my opinion) thought of as a first draft.
     Third, his terminology reflected his own bias: Moreno was pathologically narcissistic, so he appropriated unto himself and his method a wide range of fictional roles.

      By the way, in thinking out loud about this right now, I realize that what he called psychodramatic roles really would better be called "fictional roles." These are the roles that are played in the make-believe worlds of children, and later in life are to be found in drama, theatre, fiction, and any activity that is clearly boundaried by the context of play, what if, pretend.

           When you play a real role, yourself, in a psychodrama, doing something you haven't done... until you break out of the "play" you're doing a psychodramatic role---  excuse me, fictional role.

          If you are living in a certain way that might be named, such as downtrodden victim, and it is named, that may be helpful in your recognizing your pattern, just as if you are in a family and become the rule-stater. You're perhaps not the actual parent, but, say, an older sibling in charge of younger siblings, and acting in that role component. "No finger-painting on the wall!"  That's a social role.

          If you consciously re-play that role in a psychodrama, sociodrama, role playing; or portray it in self-revelatory theatre; or even engage in a process of negotiation with a friend where you're asking, "how can I phrase that better?  What if I say it this way? ...
        You're generating the context of play, of what if, and the statement / role becomes more fictional.

        Please recognize that my formulation here has not yet been validated by a consensus in the field. To my knowledge, there is not yet much theory that has addressed this very valid question!  So I'm making up right now what seems like a plausible formulation.

    Your question is helping me to face this issue head-on, which is a little tricky because people tend to make Moreno's words into a cultural conserve that should not be questioned. I confess that while I think the man was a genius in 27 (just making up the number) ways, he was also a fool in a number of ways, behaving in ways that unnecessarily lessened his credibility with his colleagues, behaving unethically with students and family, etc. His writings again reflect this multi-role situation. At times he said outrageous things, other times showed penetrating insight, but often his writings were off-the-cuff ideas that showed no evidence of being reflected upon, revised, sharpened, etc.

    In other words, though his writings are a cultural conserve, in the spirit of his own belief system, we should not rely on them, should not treat them with authority. The respect they merit is the respect of thinking about them, considering them, but not accepting anything he says unthinkingly, because Moreno said it. They the cultural conserve is used as it should be, as a spring-board for further creativity.

      I think the name of this category, "psychodramatic roles," is misleading. He was right to note that the great categrory of pretend and what-if activities deserve a category in role theory! This was brilliant! However, calling such roles "psychodramatic"  was arrogant, because they can be explored without any hint of the conscious process of re-working them in the service of greater creativity---which is what psychodrama does. Your noting, for example, that Cinderella was a psychodramatic role is valid.
       In other words, while psychodrama utilizes the innate potential of pretend, what if, imagination, to foster creativity in life, it doesn't encompass creativity and imagination!

     Your email motivates me to write about this further, and your questions may be helpful.

        What do you think about our putting parts of this correspondence on grouptalk and see what others think?

             Warmly, Adam Blatner

    ----- Original Message ----- From: "Madonna Johansen" <the3ms at uq.net.au>
    To: <adam at blatner.com>
    Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 11:20 PM
    Subject: Hello

      Good afternoon Mr Blatner,

      I have searches the net including your many fantastic pages about

      Sociometry and psychodrama. I have a few of your books.

      I was in a predicament the other day. A student asked me to talk about

      the difference between psychodramatic roles and social roles. I

      understand a social role like Moreno defined as Mother policeman and

      so on.  The psychodramatic role could be the 'observing avoider',

      'downtrodden victim'.  I discussed this with a person in my peer group.

      She was of the opinion that a "Cinderella' was the psychodramatic role

      and the 'downtrodden victim' was the social role.

      My logic in my head-space tells me that psychodramatic is combine from

      psyche =soul =mind and drama = action, so psychodramatic would be a

      role that is internal to that person or observable but is social.

      Do you mind directing me to a book or articles which debates these

      roles in a format difference to "Who shall survive?" or some of of Dr

      MAx Clayton's material which I have studied.

      Kind regards,

      Mogens Johansen

      Brisbane Australia.

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