applied sociometry?

[Peter Howie]

Yeah, go for it with your family. A million different ways and times  
to do it. Experiment. They'll think you are mad the first few times,  
though.

And here is a link to the stories origins: http://www.snopes.com/glurge/allgood.asp 
  I couldn't help finding out whether it was an urban myth or real.  
Turns out it is real enough.

Cheers for now

Peter


On 21/02/2010, at 11:09 AM, thana ag wrote:

> Thanks,Adam for sharing your mehatainesteh's correspondence.
> While I have done this with just about any training group,or any  
> therapy group I  ran-I have never done it with my family.This  
> strikes me as strange.
> anath
> From: ablatner at verizon.net
> To: list at grouptalkweb.org
> Subject: applied sociometry?
> Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:49:23 -0600
>
> Dear Colleagues,
> The following was sent to me by my "makhitayniste" (makh-i-tain-u- 
> stuh)— a Yiddish word for a kinship relationship between the parents  
> of one of an adult married couple and the parents of the other adult  
> married couple—in this case, my son-in-law’s mother— a good word; we  
> could use it in our vocabulary—there’s no English equivalent.  
> Anyway, she’s caretaking her dying husband, a good religious woman,  
> and not infrequently sends me sappy or sentimental things that I  
> kinda smile at. She’s a dear, and I allow those gestures to touch my  
> heart. The following, though, I’m passing along because it’s so  
> sociometric—I have no other word for it.
> My fantasy is that Dr. Moreno would jump up and down and say, "Yes!  
> This is really what I have been getting at!"
> Applied Sociometry: Too Busy for a Friend?
> One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other  
> students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between  
> each name. Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they  
> could say about each of their classmates and write it down... It  
> took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment,  
> and as the students left the room, each one handed in the papers.
> That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a  
> separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said  
> about that individual. On Monday she gave each student his or her  
> list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. "Really?" she heard  
> whispered. "I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!" and, "I  
> didn't know others liked me so much," were most of the comments.
> No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if  
> they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't  
> matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were  
> happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved  
> on.
> Several years later, one of the students was killed in Viet Nam and  
> his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had  
> never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He looked so  
> handsome, so mature.
> The church was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved  
> him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last one to  
> bless the coffin. As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted  
> as pallbearer came up to her. "Were you Mark's math teacher?" he  
> asked. She nodded, "yes." Then he said, "Mark talked about you a lot"
> After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates went together to  
> a luncheon. Mark's mother and father were there, obviously waiting  
> to speak with his teacher. "We want to show you something," his  
> father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket "They found this on  
> Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it." Opening  
> the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper  
> that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The  
> teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which  
> she had listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates had  
> said about him.
> "Thank you so much for doing that," Mark's mother said. "As you can  
> see, Mark treasured it." All of Mark's former classmates started to  
> gather around. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, 'I still  
> have my list. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home." Chuck's  
> wife said, "Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album." "I have  
> mine too," Marilyn said. "It's in my diary." Then Vicki, another  
> classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and  
> showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. "I carry this with  
> me at all times," Vicki said and without batting an eyelash, she  
> continued, "I think we all saved our lists."
> That's when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for  
> Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.
> (AB: this next part is sentimental, some of the stuff I generally  
> don’t prefer to get in my email. The ol’ send it along spiel. But in  
> the context of thinking about sociometry, and of Eric Berne’s theory  
> of the need for strokes, of giving strokes, and my theory that 73.2%  
> of people live in a state of relative stroke deficiency, getting  
> less than 61% of the strokes they need for optimal vitality—I see  
> strokes as a kind of psychic vitamin— well... )
> The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that  
> life will end one day. And we don't know when that one day will be.  
> So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are  
> special and important. Tell them, before it is too late. And One Way  
> To Accomplish This Is: Forward this message on... If you do not send  
> it, you will have, once again passed up the wonderful opportunity to  
> do something nice and beautiful.
> If you've received this, it is because someone cares for you and it  
> means there is probably at least someone for whom you care. If  
> you're 'too busy' to take those few minutes right now to forward  
> this message on, would this be the VERY first time you didn't do  
> that little thing that would make a difference in your relationships?
> The more people that you send this to, the better you'll be at  
> reaching out to those you care about. Remember, you reap what you  
> sow. What you put into the lives of others comes back into your own.  
> May Your Day Be Blessed As Special As You Are
> Adam Blatner, M.D.
>    website: www.blatner.com/adam/
>
> Hotmail: Powerful Free email with security by Microsoft. Get it now.  
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