2nd International Sociodrama Conference, Stockholm-Helsinki

[mkarp11444 at aol.com]

-I was just at the 2nd International Sociodrama Conference entitled The Shadows of Society. There were about 130 of us. It was organised by Swedish Monica Westberg and Kirstein and team. They did a fine job.  We took a ship from Stockholm to Helsinki, Finland. There was cracked ice on the water all the way,  glistening in the sun or in the  moonlight,  as the archipelagos sailed by.  Quite magical to see. Before the conference about 20 of us went to dinner at a wonderful fish restaurant in Stockholm.  Peter Kellermann  was there and for a peace meeting of FEPTO. He just lost his mother in Jerusalem . He was in Stockholm to see us and to see his brother to settle the estate of his mother. He didn't feel like a conference so didn't come on the boat with us but returned Israel the next day.  He told me about a TV show he did on Israeli -Tv working with three generations of Holocaust survivors. It was very touching. He used psychodrama to have the genrations express to each other what has been hidden for years. They were all up for it. He didnt like the stress of putting it together, so he says he  won't do it again for that reason. Even though, it got gooe feedback

IMy roomate on the ship and in Helinki hotel,  where we had two more days of sociodrama with the Finns,  who joined us. 

My rooimate for the duration  was Monica Zuretti from Argentina. The last time we roomed together was in Catollica,  Italy at a conference called Psychodrama:- one Method, Many Styles.  22 years before.  She couldn't dleep. Kept talking. I suggested, get o from our beds,  reverse roles and she go to sleep in my role, and bed,  and I  in hers.  It worked. She went to sleep. But I laid up hours,  worrying !the memory made us laugh. W e had seen each other many times since, but  not been able to spend so much time together as 5 days. It was delightful. She, like me, was trained by the Morenos in Beacon and we always have a lot to catch up on and laugh about. 

We worked together as co-directors for a workshop at the Institute of Group Analysis, London with Freud's oil painting in the 80's. It was with a  big group. Good memory of trust and comraderie in our   co-direction. Our two couintries had been at war just months before.

At the sociodrama conference, it included people  from South Africa, Manuela Maciel  and others from Portugal,;Jorge Burmeister and Natacha Navarro from Granada,;Mauricio Gasseau and son David from Italy; Judith Teszary and Eva Fahlstrom from Sweden; as were many others,  Jutta Furst and Dr. Suzanne and Johannes from Austria, and from all over the world.

 My contribution was a workshop entitled, "Am I Nothing or Am I God? Choose Universality and Responsibility -But at What Price?The Therapy of Reltionships and Moreno's Moral  Philosophy including time, space, reality, surplus reality, cosmos and the concept of the Godhead. " We worked between sociodrama and psychodrama . From one to the other. Exciting. 


 Marie Bergman, from Stockholm, a psychodramatist,  sang wonderful, free and powerful songs to us and showed us physically, and emotionally,  how to release our voices.

 During the conference from March 6-8  We heard sociodramtic statements from various people.  Statetments  like:

 "If we don't live like brothers and sisters, we will die like idiots. " D. Tutu

 Moreno's statement, "The true subject of sociodrama is the group."

 " In reconciliation work we don't ask the reason why."


 " There has to be emotional appraisal and cognitive recognition of each situation."

 "Imagination is a dream-like 
statement,thinking without structure and allowing yourself to dream." 

" Conflict management is an outdated term. Conflict can't be managed. It can be transformed,  therefore Conflict Transformation is a better title for the work.."
 " The spontaneity level is a good way to get through the resistance or block." 

 There were workshops and plenaries including the following:

 Sociatry and the Art of Reconciliation,   

How Do We Create Enemies? 

Sociopsychodrama: The Social Matrix and Role Theory;  Dynamic Theater - the Drama of Life and Community;   

Sociodrama of the Aged and Process of Growing Older; 

  Cross Cultural Ewncounter : The Use of Sociodrama in Employment Centers;

 Restorative Dialogues and Sociodrama;   

Social Dreaming Marix;   

 The Sociodrama of Friendship; 

Moreno's Theories and Conflict Resolution: The Third Place and many more interesting workshops.

 It was a great conference. Ero, Jarmo  sand others organised the Helsinki part of the conference. We had Playback Theater from the Finnish Playback Group conducted  by Paiivi Ketonen. Jeanne Berger was the only American participant and presented a sociodrama workshop which  included the Triangle of the Victim, Perpetrator and Onlooker. She then went on to Romania to do a workshop.

 The next morning, after the conference, about 20 of us went to the Grande Hotel in Stockholm.  On it's sunny  Veranda, we had coffee and drinks.  It is an elegant, old- world environment. With reverent tones by a hotel employee from Copenhagen, with only a few at a time,  we were shown the suites of the Nobel Prize winners, who reside at the Hotel each year when the prizes are given out at the. Stokholm City Hall. They used to be given at the Grande Hotel.                     Former winners'
 photos decorate the walls and halls  of the suites.  Some winners get one million dollars to continue their work in  research or  their special projects. The Nobel Peace Prize is given in Oslo. Both are given in December each year. It was a nice way to end a sociodrama experience, to honor those who have given to the community and to society, in one way or another. 

 I wish you all could have been there.  Marcia Karp
------Original Message------
From: Adam Blatner
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ReplyTo: Adam Blatner
Sent: 17 Mar 2009 21:21
Subject: kellermann's website

Howdy: I just Googled Peter Felix Kellermann's website and discovered that he has some papers posted there on various topics, some of them about his holocaust studies, and some on psychodrama. Good free stuff for your students.!  (He has a most impressive bibliography of his writings!) 
        Warmly, 
Adam Blatner, M.D.
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