psychotherapy

[Adam Blatner]

Hi Bud, you make some excellent points, and some I would modify a bit. 
   see below
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bud Weiss 
  To: Adam Blatner 
  Cc: Peter Howie ; grouptalk Listserv 
  Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2010 12:14 PM
  Subject: Re: psychotherapy


  Dear Peter and Adam:

  1. AB: I tend to agree with these first three paragraphs and they illustrate why I think we need to learn more about hypnosis, NLP, and the like. All that you say seems right.  BW A major principal which is not adequately stressed sufficiently if at all in the two methods you mention as well as many others including in psychodrama and has been deconstructed well by the NLP folks is the act of joining using all the various means of communication, auditory, visual, kinesthetic etc with all their components both in the languaging that goes on as well as in the very physical presentation. Milton Erickson was a complete master at this and Bandler and Grinder recognized this as well as in so many of the really highly effective therapists and developers of methods. 
          While a director must learn the position of double well which is the ultimate version of joining taken from the mother child roles, Knowing the particular techniques involved are also essential so as to tune themselves up for what it looks, feels, and sounds like--- guess you got my lead system--that is if you know what I am talking about re NLP-- it is not sufficient to just study or work as a double as they can be far more effective if they learn to use these principals of a persons leading and least used communication areas.   (AB: I think you need to amplify "lead system"-- I think I understand, but not sure. I am sure that many others in grouptalk aren't acquainted with this approach.)

            The methods you mention with which I am familiar work very well with some folks and not at all with others largely I suspect because of the nature of how they are applied and how well the person is trained similar to psychodrama.  
          Incorporating the best of each of the methodologies is what makes the most sense to me.  It's that phrase, "Both and."
  When we begin to get exclusive, we deplete the power of what we are able to accomplish. 

  2. BW  I do not agree with Perls' statement at all.
         AB: The following is an ad hominem argument, as if a person with many flaws was not capable of good insights.
  BW  He was such an elitist  (AB: whatever that means, name calling doesn't help. Am I an elitist? Maybe so about some things, not about others. What if elitism is role-based, like tele?) 
  ... re perls, BW: ; smoking all during his sessions, torturing his patients often even in front of people and  stating that he used falling asleep in sessions as a technique so that the patients would realize that they were boring.  He was old, tired, and becoming less effective as his charisma was wearing off.
            AB: Yes Perls had faults, but I don't agree with certain of these critiques. Smoking was prevalent in the 60s, many psychotherapists did it. I did it, to my later regret. 
             Falling asleep was a way to dramatize the way people could lose connection and immediacy. On the whole he was more attentive than many therapists. Old?  Ageist critique. In some roles, old is better. etc. 
          But Perls---and Moreno---had foibles, but this doesn't affect the question, is the sentence valid: most people don't want to stop being neurotic; they just want to get better at it. 
      What I meant by this is more Adlerian in spirit. Many people continue to cling to basic egocentric and unrealistic motivations and attitudes and spend time exploring how the details of their life can improve but aren't prepared for what might be called (in 12-step lingo) a fearless moral inventory.

  3   BW   And as for Whitaker, I spent a lot of time around him in the 70s. He loved to play people just to see what would happen. Shake up the system similar in a way oddly enough to the thinking of Murray Bowen who was often seen as at the opposite pole to Whitaker.  Bowen would assigned students to go shake things up in their own unconsciously repetitive modes of operating in relationships by going home and attempting to resist being re-digested by their families in the visit. 
          AB: ad hominem, even if partly true, irrelevant to our discussion.


  4. People who are stuck are not stuck by themselves. They never ever function in a vacuum. These judgmental statements come from talking from the standpoint of the individual psyche which is only a myth or a construct and is one of Moreno's great contributions in pointing this out and developing methods to come to terms with this construct.
         AB: I tend to agree with this, but let's examine the next point:

     4a. It is also a mainstay of why work in groups.  Are we all one, or do we function as one being influenced in that function by our notion of ourselves or our diad, family, group, community, etc.
      AB: here I agree but expand the idea of group to several peer group or social-reference-groups (many of whom are not known by name or even face)... but from whom we take our values, ideals, examples, and experience subtle rejection or even indifference as a source of subtle pain. .. 
       In postmodern culture this group dynamic is diluted and largely unconscious, or its feedback mechanisms are subtle, cues missed or dismissed... etc.---see next point: 


    5 BW  Indigenous people have two different interdependent worlds in which we are functional. For them as well, there is no person without a village without their Ancestors, Nature etc. Our notions of individuality come from the heirarchy created eons ago which allows for so much exploitation. 
         AB: I don't think we can effectively return to the tribal and relatively homogenous phase of human relations. Bud's point is well taken insofar as this was truly the functional group, with relatively quick feedback. The line, "it takes a village to raise a child" really applies also to many other functions for adulthood, elderhood, etc. All this is diluted in the modern age and even more so in the postmodern age.
         Nevertheless, part of evolution in culture is the attempt to distill out and re-create in more contemporary forms what has been truly valid or useful in the past, and the question here is which group dynamics that are health-promoting can be re-engaged. The Fritz Perls quote above as I said contrasts with the Adlerian view of "community feeling," a sense of really wanting to participate and be useful as well as enjoy the benefits of communion in groups. I've been thinking about this and am open to a critique, but so far I find this to be the most pointed description of what our healthiest goal should be. 

      6. BW  This is precisely where it is so essential to be able to use the sociometric measurement and action tools to discover the nature of the group within the larger group within the larger and larger groups, planetary system, galaxy, universe, etc in which we are functioning and being functioned. 
        AB: I agree in spirit, but am not yet sure that the methods and tools developed 50 years ago continue to be ideal, any more than medicines used 50 years ago continue to be ideal. What I agree with is the sense that the re-development of methods of fostering adequate degrees of wholesome group functioning, feedback, support, correction, modeling, etc. is part of what we all need to work on. This has major implications for school management, too. 

  7. BW By the way, Peter, did you ever use that warm up I suggested about people physically experimenting to find their own personal dance while hearing some of the finer Didgeridoo playing as the Wugularr people do as part of their achieve Adulthood and completing initiation and be prepared at death to enter into the Ancestral realm?
       AB: Several points here: The development of rituals for certain role transitions and how they can be adapted--or elements adapted---for use in modern and postmodern life; initiation--might there be different inititations for different life phases, such as mid-adulthood or elderhood? And finding your personal song or dance, that's intriguing.

  8. Be well, Bud   AB: Thank you for bringing up a wealth of ideas and possibilities. We may differ on a few details---and I don't assume that I am ultimately right or have any final answers---, but I appreciate the spirit of inquiry, contemplation, re-formulation that you bring to our listserve and our field. Warmly, Adam


  On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 6:53 PM, Adam Blatner <ablatner at verizon.net> wrote:

    Hi Peter, your mention of the short-cut therapies are interesting, because I think in many cases they work, and that requires some consideration: Having been to a workshop or two, I think what we're talking about is the power of hypnosis, suggestion, placebo effect, explanation plus charisma, belief. These can lift people---at least for a while. They can clear the sense of burden, worry, as the mind aligns with the new affirmation or imagery. Note: No introspection or need to take stock of oneself is needed; no step 4, fearless moral inventory. It's a not-particularly-introspective approach. And that's all lots of folks want.
           I've become inclined to think that my cultural sub-group that appreciates psychological-mindedness represents a minority. Most folks find thinking about thinking (meta-cognition) to be laced with shame, guilt, and further shame because it's hard to do without becoming confused. Consciousness seems to be something that is more interesting to change only when one has gotten fairly good at it, and few therapies actually teach the art of introspection as a skill set.
           Part of the problem involves building up a rich supportive meaning-making sub-program, one that explains why you're okay with your many faults, because of the bigger picture---especially if you're on any sort of path towards self-improvement. 
          But I've come to agree with weird ol' Fritz Perls' statement that most people don't want to stop being neurotic; they just want to get better at it. Alas, at least a third of the people on anti-depressant meds I suspect are using the meds in this way.

           Moreno's work involves a bit more edge, a commitment to become more creative. That does shake things up a bit. 

    You mention Kate's bit in Handbook of Psychodrama. Lest readers confuse Kate Bradshaw-Tauvon, the author of that chapter in 1998--- a nice review of Morenian principles---and, say, Kate Kirk, or Kate Hudgins, or others,  I thought I'd make that more explicit. So what is this draft and have you expanded it more? Is it an article or a book? 
            Because as much as I critique both Moreno and those who would idealize him, attributing virtues not in evidence, I also grant him the status of "greatness," which, as I mean it, refers to his having generated a goodly number of ideas that continue to be powerful sources for further contemplation, elaboration, and practical application---aside from all sorts of methods and broader ideas, just this list is fun to think about. I've been contemplating new frontiers for the concept of encounter, for example. 

    Well, thanks for your thoughts... By the way, I'm not sure Moreno was friends with Carl Whitaker or that other fellow. There was a bit of cross influence, but I remember Carl brusquely suggesting to Zerka that she let Moreno go - - this was at a conference in 1985 called "The Evolution of Psychotherapy" in Phoenix, AZ. 

         How can I encourage your digging deeper into what you think about those principles Kate mentions?  Warmly, Adam

          
      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: Peter Howie 
      To: Adam Blatner 
      Cc: grouptalk Listserv 
      Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 7:15 PM
      Subject: Re: [IAGP:PSYCHODRAMA] wherefore Morenian Work?


      Dear Adam, 


      Here I sit supposedly getting ready for our Australian and New Zealand Psychodrama Association executive meeting prior to our conference in Sydney, which unfortunately is now fully booked out and bursting at the seams. With Yaacov Naor running a pre-conference workshop and some sessions, and heaps of other good stuff.


      So with no time on my hands let me craft a few quick responses. 


      I am with the thrust of what you are saying and encouraging us to do. And....


      I also think there is a more powerful argument  or a more powerful process for arguing for these methods. I think I think in this way because I am presented, on a daily basis, with the "answer" in one or other forms of therapy, social discourse, 
      social experiment, social necessity, truth and versions thereof. This last week I ran into two new therapies, both of which cure people of emotional blockages without the need to examine the reasons for those blockages. RAW and EFT. Rekindled Ancient Wisdom and Emotional Freedom Techniques. So I need to know what makes what I do significant or at individuates it from a plethora of other things available. Here are some draft thoughts:


      The techniques are a direct result of the application of certain principles. It is these principles that can better be presented and worked with. This then will lead to a wider application of Morenian thinking to a wider range of applications. What are these principles? Mostly I am thinking about ones like those listed in Kate's book on Psychodrama : 1) The warming up principle 2) Creativity 3) Spontaneity 4) encounter 5) tele 6) co-conscious and co-unconscious 7) role 8) role vs ego 9) role reversal and 10) action (p 30  The Handbook of Psychodrama). putting asied the language and getting with the language from a Morenian perspective I don't believe these are replicated, except in part, in other frameworks and methodologies.


      My solution, intellectually, is to view these principles as part of a meta-process (a process that incorporates or includes other processes). Given this there is no need to compete with other ideas but to incorporate where required or where trained to do so. I use the Whitaker and Lieberman group focal conflict model a bit - does everyone have to. Did Moreno (apart from being friends with them)? The Morenian methodologies, or psychodrama which is often used to include all Morenian thought, have plenty of room to incorporate other ideas and wisdom. But that doesn't necessarily compete with these other ideas. Most ideas are an approximation of reality anyway. (The rest aren't even an approximation :) ). I find that the idea of warming up, in groups, individually, between people, in relationships, in encounter is a very powerful idea. And it, generally, doesn't exclude other ideas. 


      So here is my draft thinking so far on this topic. 


      Cheers and back to the work


      Peter




      On 15/01/2010, at 9:34 AM, Adam Blatner wrote:


        Question: Is this a welcome idea or one that is too radical? 
        Psychodrama as a field may have become overly identified with the method of classical psychodrama as a form of group psychotherapy itself, whereas it really represents a very broad complex of concepts and techniques---e.g., role theory, sociometry, sociodrama, axiodrama, philosophy of creativity, spontaneity development, imagination development, role playing in management training and education, the living newspaper and overlaps with other types of applied theatre, and so forth. Each of these contributions of Moreno can and should be developed further---Moreno was the seminal thinker, but his work as a cultural conserve should not be relied on as representing the "finished product."
        Although classical psychodrama is a natural epitome of synergy of many of many of Moreno's tools---just as Grand Opera is a synergy of song melody writing, orchestration, lyrics, melody, song performance, dance, staging, stage-set design, etc.---yet each of these components can also be used separately, and they retain significant value this way, also.

        With this spirit I want to propose our field move in several directions. First, psychodramatic methods and concepts can be integrated with other types of therapy, rather than continuing the mid-20th century tradition of feeling a need to choose and then remain loyal or constrained to only one "school" of therapy. 

        Second, these concepts and methods transcend the therapeutic concept and need to be applied in many other cultural settings---education, business, government, religion, clubs, general education, personal development, etc. Warmly, ADam Blatner



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