iterations? Yay!

[Adam Blatner]

Dear Cathy, I know it's a little off the main thrust of the content of the communications, but I was delighted with your use of the word iteration.

This concept has not been emphasized enough in not only psychotherapy, but the general modern worldview. It is perhaps an almost- postmodern concept, or at least late modern, requiring the realization of a cybernetic truth: In complex systems, one simply is not adequately accurate on the first or even the fourth go-round. Part of the game is to build in a sense of trust that feedback is safe and going back and forth repeatedly, honing in on a satisfactory response.

In a way, iteration and re-iteration is implicit in Moreno's diagram of the canon of creativity. It might be interpreted thus: Anything that is created then transforms into yet another cultural conserve that invites further warming up to further spontaneity which leads to further creativity, revision, expansion, new generalizations, applications, qualifications of certain limits, and other developments. It's a subtle dialectical process, and the antithesis is often implicit, part of the creative tension felt with any solution: Could we make it even better? Include more people? Make it cheaper? Improve quality? etc.   It's also a part of encounter: Empathy thus becomes an ongoing process of allowing the other to correct your hunches. 

The shift is away from the idea that given enough training the expert will be competent to do it right the first time, without the need for a tiresome reiterative process of feedback and adjustment. The truth is not its opposite, of course; there is no reduction of the sense of responsibility to improve oneself professionally, in judgment, discernment, etc. But there's a relaxation of the standard that "if you really cared you'd know exactly the right things to say or do." 

As for the consensus type of thing you've been suggesting: on Nov 9, 2009 4:42 PM   You wrote: 
  CN:     Might it be helpful for a small group to meet at the conference to develop the beginnings of a "consensus paper" that outlines some key principles for using psychodrama to work with trauma material?  Maybe the group could make a start during an in-person meeting, and then send the document out via this listserv and/or the ASGPP Forum to get additional comments and move toward finalizing the document through a series of iterations.  I think there may also be some interactive websites that allow people to do this sort of thing (writing together and making comments, changes, etc., until consensus is achieved).  When the document is complete, maybe it could  be posted on the ASGPP website, sent to other organizations (including professional associations that work with trauma - can't think of the names right now), and disseminated in other ways.  Maybe it could be the first of a number of papers that we put out to help educate various audiences about what we do, the underlying rationale for why we do it, what we do not do, etc...... Just brainstorming here.....
    AB: Perhaps this event might motivate people to develop a critical mass of inititative and then momentum. I've been calling for various efforts at consensus---say, in the area of definitions--- for over a decade.   Thanks again.   Warmly, Adam
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