defending psychodrama

[drjb at mindspring.com]

Yikes Kaya-- I have been  scheduled to do a short course for the  6th Brief Therapy Conference on December 7, 2006 in Anaheim. It is organized by the Milton Erickson Foundation, the organizers for The Evolution of Psychotherapy Conference with a similar format and with many of the same presenters as the Evolution Conference. I hope it will be a kinder and gentler place than when you attended. My workshop is called Couples Enacting a Lasting Solution with Psychodrama. It runs for 90 minutes on the first day of the conference.

Thanks for your interesting  and honest reporting of the 2005 conference. This conference meets every five years. I attended the 2000 Evolution of Psychotherapy conference with Zerka. She was one of the master faculty and she represented us beautifully--a lecture on tele, a 3 hour workshop with a drama, a wonderful 1 hour demonstration drama using the photo technique and a conversation hour plus a dialog with Salvadore Minuchin on family therapy and a commentary on Paul Wachawitz's lecture, What If? I was privileged to be her companion and so to be invited to all of the faculty meals and functions. It was a wonderful sampling of all of the therapies and their founders. There was also some infighting-- EMDR was the scapegoat that year and some of the older faculty was quite rude and unkind to Shapiro (especially Meichenbaum).

The good news is that you can read Zerkas  lecture in her new book, The Quintessential Zerka, pp.289-301 and she does quote van der Kolk. Also you can obtain tapes of Zerka's work by contacting the Milton Erickson Foundation, 3606 North 24th Street, PhoenixAZ, 85016-6500    Phone 602 956-6196 www.erickson-foundation.org. 

Jeffrey Zeig invited Zerka to the 2005 Evolution Conference but she was not physically up to it. He was not willing to take a substitute for that conference because  the master category is for the originators of the theories.

Wasn't it exciting to have Moreno cited among the few in the Beyond Freud article in Newsweek this year? Psychodrama kicks still.

Please wish me well in Anaheim and wish us all well as we continue to teach this modality in all of the ways we do. Jeanne


-----Original Message-----
>From: k.kade at att.net
>Sent: Jul 28, 2006 2:39 PM
>To: list at grouptalkweb.org
>Subject: defending psychodrama
>
>Hello I want to tell a little story of mine that still echoes inside me.... I went to the Evolution of Psychotherapy conference last December.  I think attendance was over 6,000 people and it was overwhelming... All the top names...it was like being at Woodstock or what I would imagine Woodstock to be.... Who do you choose to see etc.   I went and saw Van Der Kolk (Spelling is not my forte)  I really enjoyed his presentation and enjoyed the research that he was discovering.... All those mathematical and statistical formulas that was supporting his findings that the body needed to be included etc.  All these things that we can use to support us.  Then he showed us a video tape of working with teenagers who have experienced a big trauma..rape etc.  and he is using theatre and they re-create the stories and present them.... He has a director etc. etc. etc.  So I am very curious about this as he's a big name and he's doing theatre as a way to heal these issues that he is one of the int
>ernational recognized known experts  on. So I went up to him and asked him why he did not call it psychodrama, what he thought of psychodrama etc.  His answer to me was that he attended a psychodrama conference and had three incidents that he was turned off by it.  One of those incidents had something to do with people coming out dressed in black robes with masks and that he felt that there was no safety involved.  
>
>Now this conference was heavily ladden with the CBT people.  The opening session was done by ohhh that guy that Robin Williams played... Patch Adams  Really interesting man who has done a lot and for me I think I learned alot from him.  However he showed us pictures from some of the stuff he has done and really I left that feeling traumatized..... I wont describe the pictures so I don't traumatize any of who... Then Cloe Madanes and Anthony Robbins did a live presentation working with a couple...Now it may not be my style of working but it looked to me like the couple got something..... Later the next day I met the couple and they said they were very happy they had done it and they felt that it had done something for them.  I asked them if it felt like it was going to stick and they said they thought so but how would they kknow until it had stuck.... Well that couple and Cloe got a lot of hard time.  Madaanes and Robbins poster was actually defaced and written all over..... People 
>were coming up to the couple saying how sorry they were for the stuff that was said etc. etc. etc....   Lastly I went and saw Meichenbaum and Van Der Kolk have an interactive discussion and I was horrified at the discussion.  I was shocked at the condescending and rude way in which Meichenbaum treated Van Der Kolk... I was astounded.  I have the recording just because I could not believe that one professional would treat another in that way.  
>
>I know this is long and thank-you for hanging in there with me.  I do not hear people saying they will never attend this again even though all this kind of stuff happened..... I do not think there was any more safety at this conference than what we provide at ours....We are professionals when we attend conferences.  What I wonder is why does Psychodrama seem like it is the scapegoat in our professional arena?  Why do the "stars" of our profession get given a lee way that we are not?  If we approach it from this star idea and we maybe the rejectee star how do we sociometrically change that?  Does mathematical numerical equations that support us will that change this "role" that we are in?  Questions that I am pondering as I forge a path into the Alaskan Frontier....Trying to avoid accepting the position that seems to be assigned to this beautiful, powerful method/way of life.  Kaya

Warmly, Jeanne