client or trainee

Fri Sep 1 05:42:30 CDT 2006

Dear Hamish, 
   Boy, you ask an intriguing and difficult question, but a great one, with several facets:  First, more people in Australia / New Zealand are using psychodrama in non-therapy settings, business, education, etc. This is excellent, and I think it promises to be a great frontier for the field. The contract is unclear, though, on several levels.
    The first question might involve the implied course of training: In some situations, it's just a continuing education program, the completion of which implies no stamp of mastery. Some folks go through trainings and come out no wiser than they went in. The advantage here is that the trainer is not perceived by the world as a gatekeeper, one who theoretically assess whether or not the trainee has fulfilled all the requirements of a certain degree of mastery. 
      In trainer programs where that is implied, you have the problem of the dual role: Some folks not only have "issues" that they work on, but in fact are not capable of delivering the services you advocate (e.g., group work, qualified sociometrist, etc.) to the degree that you would feel comfortable approving of them, recommending them, sending a relative or friend to them for work. In other words, they should not have been allowed to graduate! 

      This is touchy, but I think it is so. Some are simply not bright enough, some just don't really do the work, some are so laced with resistances that they do the work on the surface, but not deep down. (or as the Gestalt therapist Fritz Perls put it: "Many people don't really want to stop being neurotic; they just want to get better at it.")  Some can work through their issues and have enough compensatory strengths that they'll be great at group work. I don't have a belief that one must be free of problems to achieve full competence in the role. But neither do I believe that everyone can reach this level of mastery and that we should be uncritically accepting regarding assessing competence.
        There's a difference between uncritical acceptance of helping someone along in their journey--that Carl Rogers sensibility--which is valid--, and uncritical acceptance of any level of achievement-- which is allowing a nice, seemingly sincere, perhaps somewhat dependent and/or flattering person be certified as an accredited psychodramatist because they've paid their money and attended classes--but not because they've really demonstrated they can "cut the mustard." This is one of the reasons that there are certifying exams. It may be an imperfect system, but it is trying to address this intrinsic need of a professional system to establish and hold people to standards.

 So, back to the problem: In general continuing education as training, the teacher isn't in this assessment for final competence role. 

   Your observation is valid, in that what is taught even when it is not psychodrama for doing therapy is still a matter of developing personal skills in self-awareness, communications and problem-solving, and these in turn, when one gets into the process, will expose all manner of personal blind spots, blocks, inhibitions, and quirks. Issues will come up, unresolved conflicts-- the stuff of deep psychodrama, as you note. 
         Here there's a challenge of sorts:  What is the stated goal of the training?  Some trainings remain more on the skill-acquisition level and there's no contract to dig deep. That should be referred to a colleague who does psychodrama as therapy. The client is expected to be able to be mature enought to dig up his or her own personal resources, financial resources, and personally take on the responsibility of his or her own therapy, get those knots untied. Then back into training. 
               Other trainings are more blurred, and the goal is not just skill-acquisition, some sociodrama and role analysis, but it gets into the borderline of therapy. What to do?

       You began by acknowledging that you're not a TEP. What's interesting there is that at present there is no clear certification process, curriculum, book, etc. that speaks to a "track" for training sociometrists, applied role theory practitioners, those who consult to business and organizations. Who would be in a position of recognized authority to lead the way? There may be a few in the USA who do such work, but they have retired into their professional field and one hears very little of them at the main psychodrama meetings. They may be more prominent in the ANZPA or other areas.
           So there's a cultural lag-- a need to recognize this sub-field, but still the main field of psychodrama is based on the conventional model of psychotherapy-- and training certification is also geared to this, albeit loosely. 

       So, with great authority, I can assure you...
                   that....
                     I'm not sure.   (ha ha)

      Seriously, I think it might involve a fascinating role analysis (overt and covert) of what kinds of training you offer, who comes, what they hope to get out of it, is it the same as what you think you're offering, what kinds of transferences to you as teacher, group leader, facilitator, mother, father, rival sibling, etc. you evoke and play into, and so forth. Without these clarifications, can we make generalizations that will apply?   

        I want to finish with real enthusiasm for the general enterprise of your group, that is, bringing the best of Morenian work into the task of helping all sorts of groups work more effectively! I think this is sociatry, and in the long run these extra-clinical applications may have a far greater impact in the world than all the medical-model-type psychotherapeutic work put together.     warmly, adam

     p.s., Your name, Hamish, I think is related to the Scots name?  But in Yiddish, Hamish means home-like, cozy, like family, and it reminded me of a line in the Broadway musical play in the 1960s, Fiddler on the Roof, and the song, "If I was a Rich Man," and the line has to do with Tevye's imagining being wealthy, and everyone would ask him for advice, "...asking questions that would cross a rabbi's eyes!"   So I flashed on your conundrum with that response--your question is so complex and subtle it crosses my eyes.  ha ha 

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Johanna and Hamish 
  To: list at grouptalkweb.org 
  Sent: Friday, September 01, 2006 3:55 AM
  Subject: RE: client or trainee

  I have been interested in this thread however I am not really qualified to respond to original question.

  Here is my situation:      I am a certified psychodramatist (just) not a TEP.  However I have been training people experientially in group work for ten years.

  Because the people that attend my training workshops are mostly from an organisational setting (i.e. not coming to train as therapists) a central issue in the early training process is the realisation that the training process is experiential and therefore going to involve some personal development.  In fact one of the key challenges in this phase is to create openness (including emotional openness) in the training group as without this effective training cannot really begin.  This openness is often experienced as scary, shocking or unusual to participants who may have been expecting a lecture process or what ever.

  In many ways this is no different to the therapeutic process in groups except that participants signing up for a therapeutic group are probably warming up to a personal process.

  Some participants find that when they become open in this way many things open up for them and some realise that there is quite a lot of personal work to do if they want to pursue the original desire of becoming a group worker/ group facilitator.  Some don't want to go down this road and so take what they have gained and leave.  Others want to pursue the personal process that has opened up for them.  Of cause for other people there is no major issue and they progress through the training process.

  We have a number of trainers running a series of 9 consecutive five day modules.  We find that the personal process is bell shaped with the deepest part of the training journey in the middle and so we have evolved the training process around this natural process.  I use experiential psychodrama in this middle part of the training process.        

  Some participants take some years out in the middle to do personal work and then return to finish training with us.  Of cause some (who where perhaps motivated by the personal element anyway) do not return rather focusing on the therapeutic once this emerges.

  So ethical questions:  Should I do the therapeutic work with people who decide they want to do this in the middle of the training process?  Generally they ask me because they feel comfortable with me.

  If I do:  should I then run any future training programme they might return to?  Or should one of my colleagues do this.

  Thanks

  Hamish

  Hamish Brown

  Director

  Zenergy

  Whole People Co-operating in a Sustainable world

  119 Mt Eden Rd,

  Auckland

  www.zenergyglobal.com 

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  From: list-bounces at grouptalkweb.org [mailto:list-bounces at grouptalkweb.org] On Behalf Of Adam Blatner
  Sent: Wednesday, 30 mmmm 2006 6:12
  To: list at grouptalkweb.org
  Subject: client or trainee

  Hello All, Responding to an excellent professional question: Can a group member join a training group: And responding further to Bud's response (attached after this below):

  Bud's attitude is understandable and somewhat compatible with many directors and perhaps even Moreno's generous spirit, but it is also I think mistaken for the following reasons. Part of this emerged with the difficulties emerging with the encounter group fad of the 1970s:

        There are many people who are clearly mentally ill and just want to get better, have no aspirations to being a therapists.

       Some people, on the other hand, are vibrantly healthy and self-sufficient, and while they have some mild issues that need to be worked on, they basically have the character to train and be therapeutic for others, should they be interested in taking on that task.

         A significant number fall between the two, and their problems are associated more with their interpersonal style. In the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the problems they encounter are noted in the category called personality disorders, also known as "Axis 2" disorders. 

          Many people who have depression, anxiety, and other Axis I diagnoses are also co-morbid, meaning they have more than one problem--not just their anxiety, but also character or personality tendencies that set them up for the defeats that then eventuate in depression and/or anxiety, or other symptoms.  (Another example of co-morbidity is the way people with mild PTSD--perhaps not fulfilling all the criteria for full diagnoses-- and/or addiction problems may also come crashing into more clearly Axis I types of symptom clusters.)

          The second and most important thing that wasn't much recognized before the mid-1960s is the pervasiveness of varying degrees of Axis II tendencies, which can be mild, moderate, or severe, and more, the key here is that these folks don't have primary anxiety--i.e., feeling ego-alien or uncomfortable with their own symptoms; rather they are ego-syntonic with their life style, whether it be passive-aggressive, obsessive-compulsive, hypomanic, hystrionic, borderline, narcissistic, etc. What this means is that they become upset when people get tired of their behaviors, abandon them, divorce them, fire them from their jobs, but they don't see what they did that got people so riled up!  Folks with character problems tend to deny it, minimize it, and so forth. Now we're getting closer to the games people play in wanting to become "therapists."

        It doesn't matter if you buy the diagnostic categories I've mentioned--they're just tools, and I'm not all that attached to them in their specifics. What we're talking about is, in Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis language, the "games people play."

         I will confess that I have some mild characterological tendencies, and I haven't met anyone yet who doesn't have a bit, so we're talking about how much, and whether a person is really committed to cleaning up his or her act. Lots of folks don't really get down.

       Perhaps another factor here is whether much significant therapy can happen in a group--especially a training group. The problem is that there is a dual relationship: On one hand, there is the deal with my problems goal; on the other hand, there's a bit of do you respect me as a therapist, can you? I confess, there are people with patterns of behavior that are intense enough, and lack of insight deep enough, and a kind of resistance to really looking just thick enough, or lack of mental agility, so that while I might find them okay to work with as clients, I would never ever consider them capable of actually helping others. We have to really get clear about this. 

        I am afraid that there is a kind of humanistic egalitarianism-- in California it used to be called "woo woo," that is post-Hippie "whatever" "it's all good" blind to the actual range of issues in people. It would be nice to assume that all can be wonderful, but there is absolutely no evidence that supports this assumption. 

      So back to the problem: I've been in groups, sometimes with people who were in counseling programs, and it was clear to me that they were not only miles from being ready to help others, or even begin to; but were fairly blind to the deficits in their personalities that would be problematical: Some were painfully inhibited, passive, reticent, highly defended; others were "drama queens," seeking emotional catharses and tending to dominate and exhaust the group. And so forth. Experienced group leaders could make a list of their most trying group members. 

       We must also remember that the desire to graduate, to be seen as being good as the group leader, to be a trainer, is a common desire of people whether or not they have the talent, ability, experience, maturity, or other role requirements for the job. To accede to such desires is only one step away from letting any teenager do brain surgery without having to go to medical school, much less residency. 

           So, yes, trainees who have more than the mildest of problems should indeed have as their primary therapist someone who is out of the stream of their own vocational guidance, someone who can confront their manipulations, and someone to whom they don't have to hide those manipulations. They also need someone outside the group to whom they can complain about the group leader. (This observation is a variation on the saying, "No man is a hero to his wife's psychotherapist.")

          So it's not the "rules," that are the problem, but the actual principles that acknowledge the reality that transferential problems will emerge, they are common, and they are made almost impossible to address if the group has any other agenda than the commitment to explore the interactions themselves, with a view to clearing up blocks and blind spots. A secondary hope to be appreciated, admired, respected, to prove competence, to gain final approval for vocational advancement, is a significant dual relationship. Add the financial element: What is the group member paying for, therapy or training? This further muddies the water. 

      Well, sorry, but I want to indicate to the group members that the more conservative practitioners aren't just defending their guild status, but trying to address actual complexities in dual relationships.      I'm open to your thoughts. Warmly, Adam Blatner

    ----- Original Message ----- 

    From: BARNETT WEISS 

    To: connie at souldrama.com ; list at grouptalkweb.org 

    Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 11:52 AM

    Subject: Re: Question

    Of course, I am not a TEP so I can only answer from my perspective having trained many persons in the past in some of the work in many venues.  I really don't see what the problem is in welcoming a person from one of your groups into a training program. If there is to be a distinction drawn about this, I am not at all clear as to why there should be. 

    Psychoanalysis to begin with and many other psychotherapeutic approaches have implicit rules about the relationship of the therapist to the client that exclude such conversions and even those are somewhat murky decisions.  In most of the training programs, you have to go through the therapy yourself to be more completely aware of what your clients are going to be experiencing when you work. So the trainee has to find someone else to do the therapy with them.  

    In the training groups that I have lead, I was doing the therapy for everyone at first and then working with the more advanced students co-directing the psychodrama's of other members of the group as we went along with greater and greater hands off as they built their skills and confidence. I really don't quite see the distinction here. I also made myself vulnerable at times and became a protagonist briefly choosing my director and working with it.  

    I remember a time at Beacon when Zerka asked me to direct her in her own psychodrama as she needed to get some clarity about some things. I was happy to do so while others in the group were quite fearful and actually reacted very intensely when Zerka was working as it brought up a great deal for them. While dealing with the group became quite a challenge, I was quite confident in working with this protagonist since I knew that I had one of the best co-directors ever...Zerka!! 

    In fact, I see everyone's psychodrama as being co-directed by the so called designated Director and the protagonist themselves. If you are not following the direction of the protagonist, in my estimation, you are moving in the wrong direction. Words similar to those from Zerka are emblazoned in my memory. 

    So again, I don't get why a client couldn't become a trainee at any time. 

    Blessings, all, Bud

    Connie Miller <connie at souldrama.com> wrote:

      Dear Adam: 

       Muddy?? This is a swamp!  

      Ultimately it is the decsion of the trainer.  My groups are for "Training in Aciton Methods"  and they also comprise those wanting psychodrama certification.  This in fact stimulates those in training to want to get certification later in psychodrama.  Otherwise I feel like we will never have those certified to do psychodrama increase and  psychodramatists will then become a special and exclusive group and will die.  Also this is why I agree with you about teaching different parts of psychodrama separately to help spread psychodrama.  And of course I would never allow anyone in the group who was not using the group methods in thier own work but only wanted to use the group for therapy.

      I however am studying for the written part of the tep exam where it asks under the ethics part,,, what do you do if someone in your therapy group wants to join your training group?  Technically I guess the right anser is not allowing duel relationships but is this what the all the traianers are actually doing?? Right now, I have only met one.  this is why I am looking for group feedback. 

      Thanks Connie

      -----Original Message-----
      From: Adam Blatner [mailto:adam at blatner.com]
      Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 08:39 AM
      To: list at grouptalkweb.org
      Subject: Re: Question

      Dear Peter, Connie, and group.

             Peter, your open-hearted attitude is commendable, but I wonder if you have considered the potential for less-than-worthy motivations. There are people who want the status of professionalism, but are yet unwilling to take on the full responsibility for self-management that this implies. What I'm referring to is the role of "patient" or "client," in which the therapist has a more non-judgmental attitude of "I'll try to help you at the level that you are functioning." Some of these levels can be quite immature, entitled, un-self-modulated, dependent, passive-aggressive, and so forth. Many people are not willing to live up to the simplest requirements of being responsible enough to pay regularly and in good faith, to show up regularly and on time, of refusing to be civil under the excuse of victimhood or the right to emotional expressiveness, and so forth. 

             To move to a training group is a kind of graduation into a recognition by peers and group leader that one has moved into a full process of taking charge of one's life. Not all issues are resolved--I quite agree with Peter about this-- but there has been a graduation of sorts that is the equivalent of finishing therapy in the sick or dysfunctional role. 

           The problem is tricky, and it is a dual role-- clients wish for unconditional regard, but this term is misleading. It confuses the archetypal maternal unconditionality--I'll draw you forth however you may be, age 1, age 3, age 8, age 80...

                and the archetypal paternal conditionality: You are recognized as being qualified to swim, do brain surgery, take 2nd level geometry, only when you have clearly demonstrated your mastery of the first level or other realistic requirements.

         Alas, the actual requirements for training as a counselor have become hopelessly muddy, and it is quite possible to be excessively immature and still get into a training program somewhere, and even graduate. This is because there are significant financial incentives to accept all comers, to keep people in rather than wash them out, to blur and overlook deficiencies. Arguments that the number of training programs and trainers should be limited evokes counter-accusations of being elitist and guild-like.  Arguments that call on the belief in the innate goodness of people confuse the reality of people being a nexus of hundreds of roles and role components, some of which are more talented, and the ways strengths often compensate for, and not infrequently disguise weaknesses. So significant discrimination is needed.

          In some universities, this graduation - acceptance into a graduate school - problem of transference, dependence, and approval is circumvented by a general policy that there be a period in which graduates must travel elsewhere and perform for supervisors who have not been in the nurturing role, the object of parental transference.  Perhaps later, having demonstrated clear competence and maturity, they may be re-considered for a position in the upper graduate or even lower faculty level.  It's an interesting challenge--perhaps one that requires a hard look at the limits of good feeling, tele, etc.

            I hope I haven't muddied the issues too much. Warmly, Adam

        ----- Original Message ----- 

        From: Peter Howie 

        To: connie at souldrama.com ; list at grouptalkweb.org 

        Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 10:49 PM

        Subject: Re: Question

        Hi Connie,

        It is often a natural step. The psychodrama groups are developmental. The training is developmental. Not all work can be done in a training groups and hence experiential groups are required as well for trainees. Not all development can be done in experiential groups and hence training is available. What does the training do? It expands a persons functioning, their capacity for warming themselves in a spontaneous fashion, their capacity to role reverse with others and creates mental models for the process of doing so. While I run the groups differently the larger purpose is the same - a more spontaneous world.

        Cheers

        Peter Howie
        Brisbane, Australia

        At 12:19 PM 24/08/2006, you wrote:

        I was wondering what other trainers do when  a group member wants to join the psychodrama training group. what are your feelings on them being in both?
        Connie

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