Role theory 6 June

[Adam Blatner]

Hi Jenny, getting ready to go out for errands, so this may be in two parts.

JW. My strongly stubborn tendency to try and understand things over-riding a more peaceful 
existence! Not a question this time but more of a reflection.   ab: good, I appreciate a 
probing mind.

JW From our conversations so far I am thinking that a sociologist might be talking about a 
different construct than a clinical psychologist when  he/she talks about roles.
    AB: Sociology tends to attempt more description. I find that okay but not particularly 
useful or interesting.
            Not just clinical, but applied---that's the point---any people worker---  
manager, teacher, parent, spouse, etc.  how to work creatively with psychology in real 
life, and sure, also therapy
      Point I like to make is that role is a particularly useful verbal and conceptual 
tool for this...

 JW My understanding about roles initially come from studying a particular line of the 
role construct.  My understanding (and I'm happy to be corrected) is that Moreno 
influenced the thinking of Kelly...
         (AB: I'm not sure that this influence might not have been quite minor... )

JW ...and that  Beck was strongly influenced by Kelly's role theory when he started 
writing about schema and schema modes (even using the term role if I recall correctly in 
his early writing).
         AB: again, we may be wrongly over-weighting the degrees of influence here... much 
less the continuity of ideas...

JW Beck writes that "modes are conceived of as a structural and operational units of 
personality that serve to adapt an individual to changing circumstances. The modes consist 
of a composite of cognitive, affective, motivational and behavioural systems (Beck 1996). 
This to me this sounded a lot like the roles described by Moreno.
         AB: agree, not a bad definition, but I'm wary about the usefulness of 
definitions...

JW   So I started off thinking of roles as similar to schema modes.    AB   some 
similarities, but let's see how far this takes us.

JW  Reading your books and from our e-mail conversations Adam I understand "role" - as you 
use the term - is much wider. And you have challenged me to notice how much we really 
don't know even as we define and label.
           I'm now thinking that the where the term "role" is clearest to me is when a 
person or group of people is actually on the stage - at that point many different 
perspectives and different takes on reality clearly and unarguably become roles - linking 
in with the drama origins of psychodrama.
         AB: it is clearer because on stage the action is stopped, framed, as it were, and 
it is clear that any facet can be worked with in surplus reality. What if the role were 
played more strongly or weakly? Or played by someone who was older, younger, or a 
different gender? And so forth.
         But just because it is a little clearer on stage doesn't mean that we can't bring 
the virtual stage to everyday life. Just saying something like "let's take that over" 
creates a small mini-drama, a bit of tentativeness to an action, frames it, to say again, 
as a kind of play or as-if. This is the key: All life is open to being approached with 
this set of "how might this scene be played even more effectively?"
      This practical application of role thus requires a willingness of people to think of 
events as potentially improve-able, rather than the old way where folks generally thought, 
well that's just the way I am, or that's just the way I do things.

    Is this helpful? Gotta go. More later. Warmly, Adam


Haven't commented or thought about the following yet: JW:
 The roles can be intrapsychic, interpersonal, cultural etc
> but once fully and richly bought to life on the stage the term role fits
> very well.
>
> I'm still less sure about how useful the term "role" is off the stage
> unless it is defined in some way (even loosely in the manner of "it is
> useful to think of a role in this context as" ... sort of way). Without
> any definition to accompany it the term "role" it seems likely to
> contribute to confusion. Personally it has confused me greatly. In
> trying to write about roles (I have fairly recently completed a social
> and cultural atom paper as part of training) I have found myself tied in
> knots, misunderstanding my trainers and being misunderstood by them in
> spite of strong relationships and good intent. Once we got beneath the
> icons (borrowing Adam's metaphor about the computer icons on the screen)
> I found I was talking a completely different language about this construct.
>
> Anyway - my greetings to you and others on group talk - thanks for
> reading and responding if you feel moved to do so.
>
> Warm regards
> Jenny
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Adam Blatner wrote:
>> back home from visiting kids...
>>     Comments on  REGINA SEWELL <mailto:sewell.2 at osu.edu>  and her
>> remarks to  Jenny Wilson <mailto:jenny at blennerhassett.gen.nz> on, May
>> 20, 2009 re role theory.
>>     RS  My framework (as a sociologist) is that roles are social
>> constructions.
>>              AB: I would say as a slight modifier that the term role has
>> evolved from the realm of theatre to a more general social concept of
>> function. It has gone beyond social, so that people now talk about, say,
>> the role of the gas methane in the atmosphere in the ecology of global
>> warming.
>>
>>     RS  They are based on social interaction with others and become part
>> of the conserve.
>>  AB: I think sociologists are far too narrow. The term is useful also to
>> speak of somato-psychic and intrapsychic dynamics, also.
>>
>>       RS  Some aspects of roles are somewhat universal, in that most of
>> us agree on the role expectations.  For example, the role of mother,
>> most of us expect mothers to be nurturing, to be loving, to listen, to
>> be good role models.
>>         AB: Actually, though, in a sense the opposite is true when it
>> comes to the negotiations regarding ongoing issues: I mean that while
>> society marks out very general boundaries: No killing your kids.
>> (Reminding me of the sitcom Roseanne's line to her husband, "If you come
>> home after work and the kids are still alive, I've done my job.")
>>           But how much should a "good" parent demand of a child? How
>> much frustration and challenge is appropriate? At what point does good
>> parenting slip into spoiling or pampering. So this role is very much in
>> a state of cultural and sub-group negotiations, though most of it goes
>> not only unspoken, but unconscious.
>>
>>      RS  And, at least in the U.S., the courts use this in their
>> determination of penalties...  in that women are more severely punished
>> for violating the expectations of motherhood than they are for the
>> actual "deed" they have committed.
>>       AB: However, 98.3% of role expectations have nothing to do with
>> actual laws. Most common example: Have you lived up sufficiently to your
>> own expectations? Those expectations are role definitions!  A successful
>> person...    A person who lives up to her potential would...   A truly
>> enlightened person would...
>>
>>    RS   As far as evolution...  here you are talking about genetics.
>> Robert Lipton, a cellular biologist has proposed the notion that
>> although DNA is important, outcome is shaped by environment.  That is,
>> the environment in which a cell lives determines how the DNA responds.
>> I have also been listening to Daniel J. Siegel's "Neurobiology of We"
>> which focuses on attachment and relationships (this is essentially the
>> environment) and it turns out that DNA, genetics, has no impact on
>> attachment...  and attachment has an incredible impact on one's life
>> narrative.  One's understanding of roles is based on one's narrative,
>> one's story, one's understanding of roles and expectations about how one
>> should be and how others should be.  And, significantly, one's life
>> narrative is highly (incredibly highly) correlated with one's parent's
>> narrative.  This suggest not evolutionary but learned social behavior.
>>             AB: While I substantially agree, the attribution of
>> personality traits to degrees of attachment (a recent theme in these
>> interchanges) is problematical. Many psychotherapists learned about
>> theories of psychology and psychotherapy that hardly take temperament
>> (or genetic predispositions) into account.
>>
>> Peace out, regina sewell, ph.d.   responding to Jenny's statement
>> previously,   <<If we accept that human functioning is guided by/
>> arranged somehow into roles (maybe this statement will be the first
>> point of discussion/challenge) then I would assume some evolutionary
>> advantage to having us wired this way (I guess this statement too could
>> be debated!) Can you comment about roles from an evolutionary
>> perspective ? to put the question more bluntly:  How did we end up wired
>> this way?>>
>>


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.339 / Virus Database: 270.12.54/2158 - Release Date: 06/06/09 05:53:00