Dangers of "Therapy"

[Connie Miller]

On my way home from Indonesia----I read this and Bill I agree. With any therapy it is the therapist that has to be healthy for they will be the ones misusing the therapy. if any therapist has not done their own work and theray can be dangerous. We heal because of who we are and not what we do! Blessings Connie
Connie Miller TEP, LPC. NCC 
http://www.souldrama.com/ 
The International Institute of Souldrama 
620 Shore Rd 
Spring Lake Heights 
NJ 07762 USA 

1-800-821-9919 

-----Original Message-----
From: Adam Blatner [mailto:ablatner at verizon.net]
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 01:43 PM
To: 'William H. Wysong', list at grouptalkweb.org
Subject: Dangers of "Therapy"

well said. I'll think more on this. 
 Preliminary thoughts. I sometimes think of psychodrama as sort of like brain surgery. Complex of many techniques, for which the pre-care and after-care may be as important as the surgery itself. Many other components: 
 anesthesia, neuro-anatomy, the nature of the problem (some are far simpler than others even in brain surgery!), keeping the field sterile and free from infection, developing the right kinds of instruments (sometimes microsurgical), etc.

 I think for many people who are relatively healthy, many procedures are less dangerous because the protagonist has many more components for resilience, including a healthy set of achievements, a modest burden of guilts and shames, a social network, etc.
 For some people who are more fragile, some of these elements are reversed. There may be a distinct lack of positive achievements, a heavy almost overwhelming burden of guilt and shame (often fairly justified, such as a history of addiction, petty or major crime, disrupted relationships and betrayals of others, etc.), a pathogenic (enabling) or missing social network, etc. All these factors need to be taken into consideration... 
 So a psychodrama for relatively healthy people may go well, but one person in the group is far more fragile and the same procedures precipitate relapse into depression, addiction, panic, etc.

 Then there are group junkies, chronic hysterical personality disorders, chronic emotion-heightening victims, folks who play the "look what you made me do" game, hypomanic or subtly psychotic people who seem okay at first, and others who show up--- I figure one every few groups or workshops that are open to non-selected populations, including at our conferences... 

 None of which contradict your points, Bill, just builds on them. But the question of what makes a procedure dangerous or relatively safe is important! Warmly, Adam
----- Original Message ----- 
From:William H. Wysong
To:list at grouptalkweb.org
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 11:29 AM
Subject: Danger and Robocounseling


Hi Regina and Grouptalk:
Regina you wrote, "I am worried that it [psychodrama] is dangerous." I believe any modality is dangerous when the therapist is unskilled, uncaring, discounting, or inattentive. I have experienced dangerous situations in Freudian psychotherapy, person centered therapy, behavior therapy, Play Therapy, Gestalt, TA, NLP, EMDR, and other modalities.
Psychodrama especially gets bad press because some onlookers think that they can do psychodrama in their practice with no training; try it out on a client; the client gets into deep feelings; and the therapists don't know how to handle it. (They weren't taught that in college.) Then they tell others how bad psychodrama is for clients.
Also many therapists believe they are put together well but have not worked on their issues, no matter whether they have an undergraduate, graduate, doctorate, or some other professional degree. When seeing a psychodrama they tap into those unresolved emotions that should have been resolved in college; they too speak ill of psychodrama. In most college programs there is no mechanism for students to work on their issues. Our deep, meaningful work did not happened in college but in our personal psychodramas. 
Of course we have to fight against people’s fear of just the name and the image it conjures. Some people say psychodrama is dangerous and have never seen one or, if they have seen a psychodrama, don’t really know the protagonist’s experience and resulting life outcome.
Psychodrama is the most powerful therapy I've ever known. It can be stunning or terrifying for an observer who has unresolved issues. Perhaps you, like me, experienced that. While watching my first psychodrama, the universality factor allowed me to experience my own emotions. And that was followed by the wonder of sharing when we, the group members, told how we identified with the psychodrama and discovered we were not alone.
What might have looked dangerous in the psychodrama wasn't and the protagonist purged a lot of debilitating emotions and beliefs. I was invested in the group and the protagonist because of a good warm-up, inclusive sociometry, a good director, meaningful action, and the completeness of sharing. (We've heard all of that many times.) 
Sharing can alleviate stunning or terrifying or any other emotional aspects of a psychodrama. Unfortunately, many don’t share because they don’t understand the purpose and importance of sharing, how to do it, and/or are not given permission or the time to share. As a director I try to give complete information and encourage people to share anything they experienced, even if it seems to have no relationship to the psychodrama.
To spread the word, teach others, and alleviate fear about psychodrama, contact growth-oriented collectives and the professors at local colleges with counseling, psychology, and social work classes and volunteer to do an action demonstration in the classroom (or meeting). Psychodrama fits exceptionally well with group counseling classes. If you are interested in how I handle this, please send me a note at iqwysong at gmail.com.
Onward…..Bill Wysong
P. S. About Robocounseling—It’s just another thing that hurts psychodrama. 



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