Trauma, van der Kolk and psychodrama

[Adam Blatner]

Just some additional thoughts:

    This problem of people getting a bad feeling about psychodrama is perhaps more common 
that most folks want to recognize.

   What if 23% of people practicing psychodrama today treat trauma and do indeed 
re-traumatize, or fail to follow-up, or fail to shore up sealing-over defenses, or do the 
various other buffering maneuvers that Kate Hudgins and her colleagues have worked out?
      What if most of those people haven't paused to even consider that there may be a 
number of refinements to the earlier model of simple abreaction, have never bothered to 
read Kate's book?
       Might it be an even higher percentage? How could we find out?

     Let it be said, though, that one of the reasons for the establishment of the American 
Board of Examiners was the flurry of dismay and the feeling of the need for more 
professionalism in the mid-late 1970s as the news of casualties from encounter groups and 
personal growth workshops were coming in.
       It was an era in which the authority of the patriarchy was fading. (Even women 
directors who acted like male professionals in the 1960s could be patriarchal in this 
sense.) Themes of informed consent, awareness of sexual harrassment and dual 
relationships, expansion of the awareness of trauma and abuse, all were emerging in that 
period and over the next decade.

       Just because something was called therapy, and even if the therapists believed with 
great sincerity in their method and that they meant well, that did not make the treatment 
actually therapeutic. There are scores of examples in the history of medicine in which 
such efforts were (in retrospect) terribly anti-therapeutic! Or at least there were for a 
certain not-insignificant percentage of papers "un-intended consequences" or side effects.

       So the bar was raised as to what constituted positive results.

Second: Of the many kinds of treatment, the treatment of trauma is often far more complex 
than the treatment of many other conditions. There are often other complicating factors, 
subtle addictive patterns, colluding or enabling relationships, threats to other 
relationships, and so forth. A careful assessment is needed, but is often not done.

Third: Psychodrama should be thought of properly as a type of surgery, to be resorted to 
when needed and for clear indications---and the lack of contraindications. There is a 
spectrum of types of therapy that use some, a moderate amount of action methods and 
Morenian principles but still that's not pure or classical psychodrama. It is possible 
that some---perhaps many---patients aren't ready for the classical format.

Then again, there's the problem of follow-up. But perhaps that opens up many other issues.

It would be nice to see if the impression Dr. VdK was given can be counteracted.

Warmly, Adam
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "HV Psychodrama" <hvpi at hvc.rr.com>
To: "ASGPP grouptalknew" <list at grouptalkweb.org>; "Edward Schreiber" 
<edwschreiber at earthlink.net>
Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 8:54 PM
Subject: Re: Trauma, van der Kolk and psychodrama


> Bessel Van Der Kolk was very disturbed by a workshop he saw at our conference when he 
> was the keynote speaker a number of years before. Judy Swallow has spoken to him...I 
> think she sent him Kate Hudgins book. Judy has a somewhat removed connection with him. 
> You might try contacting her..
> Rebecca
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Edward Schreiber" <edwschreiber at earthlink.net>
> To: "ASGPP grouptalknew" <list at grouptalkweb.org>
> Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 8:01 PM
> Subject: Trauma, van der Kolk and psychodrama
>
>
>> Dear Colleagues,
>> I had dinner tonight with a psychologist out here in Western Mass.   She is in private 
>> practice, but worked in a clinic serving  traumatized kids
>> and families for many years.  In any case, she was concerned about a conference she 
>> recently attended in the Hartford, CT area, in which
>> Dr. Van der Kolk as the keynote speaker.  Interestingly enough, he mentioned yoga and 
>> "theater" as helpful in the resolution of trauma. This
>> colleague has known of our method for some time so she raised in  front of 300 people 
>> the question to him, about the work of J.L.  Moreno and
>> psychodrama.  This conference was a few months ago.  Dr. Van der Kolk resolutely 
>> announced psychodrama as counter-indicated for the
>> treatment of trauma, suggesting abreactive nature of the method, as  he experienced it 
>> some time ago, makes the situation worse for  traumatized
>> patients.
>>
>> Does anyone know how to reach him, what we might do to address this  with him?  Does 
>> anyone have a connection with him and why might he
>> be saying this - around the country - about psychodrama?
>>
>> Ed
>>
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>>
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