spontaneity fears
Ann Hale
annehale at swva.net
Mon Aug 21 22:25:17 CDT 2006
We seem to be tracking the same here.
I remember a psychodramatist who was teaching in an elementary school in New Orleans. She offered an after school group for kids who were experiencing some kind of loss or change in their family composition (divorce, sick parent, loss of a sibling or grandparent). Just before the holidays she found out that kids were lying about their parents divorcing so they could get into the group. It was so much fun and all the kids wanted in on it.
Of course by the time people become adults they get too uptight and have forgotten how to have fun.
----- Original Message -----
From: BARNETT WEISS
To: list at grouptalkweb.org
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2006 10:00 PM
Subject: Re: spontaneity fears
Just thinking out loud here.
I know people have spent much time and energy on writing up their brochures and publicity for advertising their groups. Once you have established yourself, the recommendations of others and their supportive statements about their experience with you make all the difference. Then people are literally choosing you rather than any particular method. Of course at a conference where many people may not know you and do not have the time to check you out and where there is no real space for putting in reviews of your work, it is another world.
I think that the emphasis in any publicity needs to be on the spontaneity aspects of the work which J.L. used to use over and over again both in his talking about the work and as a kind of guiding over all principal. It is those aspects of a suppotive safe environment being created in which people can learn to expand their responses to those situations where they have been blocked. Here as well they can learn new ways of handling situations that they have been avoiding which could move them forward in their lives. In our everyday lives, there is no chance to redo what happens, there is no room for finding another way. We do the best we can with what we bring to those situations stressful or joyful as they may be. The work we will be doing together is done in that safe place where what we call mistakes and woundings are recognized as fully human occurences and opportunities for learning from each other. With the support of what we call surplus reality, we can rehearse for life, heal the wounds finding the gift within those wounds, and build the skills we need to achieve the kind of results we have always wanted in real life. To this end, the Spontaneity training methods of J. L. Moreno will be employed to achieve the progess we all seek.
This type of language does avoid the use of the word psychodrama for the time being and it seems to be within the realm of saying what you are going to be about for those in Washington. Over and over, Zerka used to stress starting where the audiance is, even naming the resistance in the group to begin with in a non judgemental way when it is apparent. In all forms of psychotherapy the ability of the therapist to join the client is what allows for the magic to happen. So why not from the very moment of announcing what the workshops are going to be about?
As I say, just thinking out loud here. Be well, Bud
HV Psychodrama <hvpi at hvc.rr.com> wrote:
I generally use the word psychodrama, but I live in a psychodrama friendly area. When we began, we talked about Experiential Therapy, Group Therapy using Action Methods. But always, somewhere in the body of the flier, we mentioned psychodrama. even if it was listed as one of many: family sculpting, sociodrama, psychodrama, sociometry, role playing....
If you do one day workshops, or even evening workshops, you can focus on the topic and then write "utilizing therapeutic methods such as psychodrama, sociodrama, mask making,... I think one can get away with not calling it a psychodrama group, but to not mention that one is doing psychodrama somewhere in the body of the flier feels ingenuous. Truth in advertising, guys...Besides, who wants group members who are that scared of the method. Better to do some one time workshops and build a group that way then to get folks in under false pretenses and then have them unprepared and overwhelmed.
At an interfaith conference I can imagine it would be fine to avid the word drama, but you need to really warm up the group. Have you asked Peter Pitzele how he gets around this issue?
Rebecca
Rebecca
----- Original Message -----
From: CGayle
To: list at grouptalkweb.org
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2006 2:00 PM
Subject: Re: spontaneity fears
What I was more talking about is, getting people in the door. Even w/ "bibliodrama", the "drama" part scares people. My favorite line, from a chaplain I was referred to, to perhaps bring bibliodrama to some venue, is "Oh, role playing give me diarrhea!".
She was terrified at the mere mention of "role playing" (I tried leaving out the "drama" part that time).
Also, at a couple of interfaith conferences, no matter how I work to reframe the language, make inviting and safe, I am lucky to get 4 to 6 people; where 30 may run to a writing workshop. When I talked with folks, although they not so graphic as the chaplain, the fear emerges.
When psychodrama is used for psychotherapy, does one market the psychotherapy (and the method is relayed later)?. In Washington, you legally need to disclose your methods used for therapy when people start therapy. I am thinking, as I use this with spiritual work, that the marketing needs to be tweaked re: how to describe the method Yet, if there is workshop, at a conference or elsewhere, and it is going to be experiential, ethically, people should know that. Maybe just saying, "experiential" is enough. The rest, as you said Bud, is building the trust and increasing telic connections once people are there. Some dancers who do spiritual work sometimes use "movement" vs dancing, another term that scares people.
Though no matter how it's labeled and presented, the fear is there, and people will self-select out if they are too scared. People choose workshops not on the method used (well it might be for us drama and movement junkies), but what need they have that they are drawn to meeting. At what point is the choice for the growth that is desired, and marketed, overridden by the methods used that are too scary?
Again, my question relates more to how one presents and markets, I suppose. Do we relabel and reframe, or put out as it is, for what it is?
Cynthia Gayle
Seattle
----- Original Message -----
From: BARNETT WEISS
To: Adam Blatner ; list at grouptalkweb.org
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2006 5:55 AM
Subject: Re: spontaneity fears
I really think that the context in which improvisation or spontaneity is encouraged is essential. This is why Psychodrama's without sufficient sociometric warm up work with the group is so much less effective. If I cannot create a safe environment in which the ultimate protagonist can feel the sense of group support as a consequence of what you might call synergistic group telic increase ( there's a mouthful ) which takes place during good group warmups, then the action/spontaneity training will be far less effective and in some cases will confirm for those "shy" persons that groups are in fact not a safe place.
For me, all actions sessions are about spontaneity training of one kind or another giving role improvement overall and the experience of the safety of operating in a non judgemental supportive group allows for that at a maximal level; quite different from an individual session where the dyad becomes more of a good parenting session at best. The learning there needs a trial in the more real world of the supportive group and then using future projections, the protagonists can try out the new role learnings in more and more "unsupportive" though still play situations as preparations for the totally unsuported real world experience.
Blessings, Bud
Adam Blatner <adam at blatner.com> wrote:
Cynthia, howdy. Responding to your email below as I clean up old emails...
resistances to psychodrama:
Any thoughts about how to help people to get closer to improvisation, enactment, creativity, spontaneity?
I'd like to hear more about how artists feel about creativity....
Nothing has to be re-labeled, in the have to.. world, but our own creativity regarding different types of audiences, the semantic associations to these words, may lead us to start folks out with more neutral language .
I guess it's a bit like talking about spirituality or sex...
There is a great deal of vulnerability associated with
--self disclosure (what will you judge about me?)
-- unconscious self-disclosure: the more I behave, act, nonverbally, the more I say, the more there is to see and judge that I may not be wanting you to judge
-- because I fear you will misinterpret, you excessively weight the negative, come to conclusions without my permission...
so enactment is a big deal...
And improvisation is also big: You will see how afraid, stiff, shallow, inhibited, I am and judge me and I shall feel ashamed... I'm embarrassed even to bring this up into my consciousness, and resent your stirring me up...
I think folks are more often more this way than the opposite, ready and willing to plunge in..
warmly, adam blatner
----- Original Message -----
From: CGayle To: list at grouptalkweb.org July 12, 2006
How about...the word, "psychodrama", scares people. Even the word, "bibliodrama" scares people. It's the "drama" piece I think. Performance anxiety? Unconsciously knowing one's stuff could emerge? Frozen in cultural conserves?
A broader discussion is that people are also afraid of "creativity", however it is phrased. I have had artists who work w/ spirituality also speak to this. Warm up increases spontaneity in order to decrease anxiety, yet if people are turned off to these terms, they won't come in the door. Does everything have to be relabeled? Or are the methods prone to draw the people who self select for creativity? And if so, then do we relish our "alternative" methods with glee and give up trying to be accepted in broader contexts?
I am very interested in understanding these fears more, and how to deal with. Cynthia Gayle Seattle
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