family sculpture in psychodrama---a report

[Adam Blatner]

Thanks Bud, 
    A few comments: Satir to my study and research informally never acknowledged the source of her use of action methods. Even less her colleagues Don Jackson---who never used this approach. She began to use family sculpture after working for a while at Esalen, perhaps influenced by some of the others who were around in the late 1960s---Fritz Perls and his followers, Will Schutz, and I was told that Hannah Weiner went out there around that time.
        Family sculpture was first suggested by Seabourne in 1963 our Group Psychotherapy journal, an article on action sociometry. Bunny Duhl wrote about this method and traced some of its origins to others coming from psychodrama in the late 1960s, gradually introducing it into some family therapy circles. 

    While I will concede that people in a certain position will pick up on a variety of cues---and the research on the mirror neuron system and other elements of social intelligence is supporting the power of these to influence intuition, I'm still reluctant to buy the metaphysical hypothesis of a "knowing field." I would accept a "sort-of-knowing, or intiuitive-speculative field"--- we get that sense in high-tele contexts and it's a common phenomenon for doubles. (i.e., the how did you know that? I never told anyone! kind of response to a guess by a double). But sometimes we're mistaken, and I want to weave in also a bit of that humility that we might be mistaken. That's why I don't like the concept of interpretation. What if an interpretation is 73% right but the person feels that it's also 27% off, how do you correct your therapist? 

       I appreciate your mentioning parallel efforts in, say, Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, .. and I welcome hearing about them---especially the "archeytpal sentences... 
    Bunny Duhl has written a book about family sculpture in I think the 1990s? -- From the Inside out or some such title. --- though she's not a psychodramatist

    Warmly, ADam
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bud Weiss 
  To: Adam Blatner 
  Cc: list at grouptalkweb.org ; iagp-psychodrama at yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 12:13 AM
  Subject: Re: family sculpture in psychodrama---a report


  Dear Adam: 
  This is absolutely beautiful and I would congratulate Chris if I could. 


  AND PLEASE GET A GOOD BOOK ABOUT FAMILY CONSTELLATIONS LIKE ONE OF JOHN PAYNES from www.johnlpayne.com  so that you can grasp the full potential of this work.  


  It is a kind of  cut to the chase. It begins with a form of family sculpture though a family may not even be involved at first, just a couple or a work place, or any field in which two or more people became involved.  Once created, ordinary strangers, chosen by the protagonist to represent them begin to absorb and utilize under the guidance of a fine facilitator what the constellation developers have called the Knowing field that surrounds those called into the action in the roles set for them simply through their placement. That field comes fully into existence when a sense of safety is arranged in a group for action. Really fine doubles and auxiliaries come to know this.  Given the proper support and sense of empowerment, nearly anyone can achieve it even as a total stranger to the protagonist who has not even reversed roles.  In fact in most constellation work, at the beginning, the protagonist is sitting on the sidelines watching his/her stand in go through it all first and very little of the "story'' is encouraged to be spoken prior to the action or for that matter afterwards. 


  As I think you know, Virgina Satire was of the prime movers in family therapy as well as one of those who fully acknowledged Moreno's contributions along with her colleague Don Jackson. It is she who to my knowledge began creating Family sculptures out of her familiarity with Moreno's work. She was doing it with the family members themselves in family sessions.  As anyone who knows of her work would imagine, it was so powerful and most of her students learned this and rarely attributed it to Psychodrama. 


  There are many variations of this sculpturing process and perhaps someone has written a comprehensive paper about the many forms including Boal's form which is more revolutionary and called by another name. Still, it is, in all its forms, the process of some protagonist locating in space in relation to him/her self and each of those sculpted a scene that can then come to life. 


  There are clearly architypical sentences that can be used for all of these  or for any action format once the warmup is complete. That is what the best of all forms will achieve. Constellation work has created hundreds of these potentially healing sentences.  The proper use of them goes so far beyond the simple words involved and in my mind, whether folks become trained in Constellation work or not, having those sentences and others you may create available to you in your work with clients will lead to some of the most healing sessions in any action technology process. 


  Be well, best from Bud


  On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 9:40 AM, Adam Blatner <ablatner at verizon.net> wrote:

    Dear Colleagues, if you are interested, you can find on my website a paper written by a patient that I edited slightly and posted, describing her experience in a group that used family sculpture. It was for her a very meaningful session.  http://www.blatner.com/adam/pdntbk/famsculptpdmenngr.html    
       Warmly, Adam Blatner

    Grouptalk mailing list
    List at grouptalkweb.org
    http://grouptalkweb.org/mailman/listinfo/list_grouptalkweb.org





  -- 
  "The perfect man breathes as if he is not breathing" - Lao-Tzu (circa 4th century BC)
  Breathing is the foundation of life, and good breathing is the foundation of good health. Improve your health by improving your breathing with the BIBH Buteyko Method. 
  Call or write me for details or appointments.
  Barnett J. Weiss, MA, LCSW ,
  7410 Ridge Blvd 2D;Brooklyn, NY 11209
  ButeykoNYC at gmail.com 
  Tel: 800-871-9012 code 93462
  Fax only: 718-680-4919
  Web site : www.ButeykoNYC.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://grouptalkweb.org/pipermail/list_grouptalkweb.org/attachments/20090908/0a1e4bf0/attachment.html>