client or trainee

Mon Sep 11 04:42:01 CDT 2006

Hullo Peter P, Peter H, Grace, Adam, Ann, Connie and others.

Adam and Ann thanks very much for your reply to my mail about group work
training and the ethical issues about the place of the therapeutic within
this.  Adam I loved your description of my name.  I value the feedback re
ethics and managing issues.

I liked your enquiry about the place of therapy in life and the potential to
frame psychodrama as a deep education Peter Howie and Grace and that is
largely what this email is about.

As the thread has unfolded I have noticed that are two definite transitions
most of my participants seems to go through -

By in large it might go like this:

In the first group/experience the participants may expect that I will stand
in front and teach; and struggle with the relational and experience oriented
manner of learning.  In this first workshop I do not do anything associated
with the past (except cognitively) I tend to use role training working with
specific moments - the deepest process is in the relationships in the group.

In the second five day workshop participants will sometimes warm up to and
request deeper work to happen we may have 1 or 2 psychodramas.  The main
content is still not therapeutically oriented and these psychodramas often
provide a very good psycho educational experience for everyone who can
suddenly see how family of origin dynamics play out in present life groups
(social understanding). 

The first major transition is into the third workshop where we recommend
participants do some personal development prior to attending the fourth
stage which is a 4 day residential. We offer experiential psychodrama and
participants either do 2 weekends or a 4 day thing.  We proved choice so
that if participants site some personal development they have done in the
past or elect to go elsewhere to do this they can.  However it is a
transition from a training focus to a personal focus and participants notice
this.

This may also lead to a second major transition process in which some
participants (who probably would not have completed our training programme
in the past when we did not have an experiential psychodrama component)
become aware of the opportunity to attend to deep personal issues.

These participants tend to do this work in a mixture of 1 to 1 work
(sometimes with me) and experiential psychodrama (generally with me) over 2
or 3 years.  They generally then go back into the group work training
programmes (with someone else in almost all cases) and end up with a Diploma
in Facilitation.

I am not really worried about being sued - we do not really sue each other
much in New Zealand.  I am interested about peoples reflections / challenges
regarding boundary issues and also the education or therapy issue.   

What I have noticed though Peter H, is that when participants enter the 1 to
1 process (or lots of experiential psychodrama over a longish period)  it
seems to be important to recognise that this is a quite different sort of
work than training or education, and that boundaries become very important I
am very mindful of having dual relationships as little as possible (given
the already history) during this process and I do not think it would be
effective if it was framed as a kind of education in my mind.  There is
something deeply sacred about recognising and honoring the healing journey
and I am wondering if it is the boundaries that go with this recognition
rather than or as well as the transference stuff.  Kind of like the village
shaman being mysterious and normal at the same time. 

I personally like that this healing journey can be a part of a larger
educational journey, and agree with Peter P about the necessary ability to
be very clear about what relationship I am having here at the moment.

Sorry this is a bit long

Warmly

Hamish

Hamish Brown

Director

Zenergy

Whole People Co-operating in a Sustainable world

119 Mt Eden Rd,

Auckland

www.zenergyglobal.com 

  _____  

From: list-bounces at grouptalkweb.org [mailto:list-bounces at grouptalkweb.org]
On Behalf Of Peter Parkinson
Sent: Monday, 11 mmmm 2006 7:22
To: list at grouptalkweb.org; grace at graceworks.co.nz
Subject: RE: client or trainee

I practiced psychodrama for 15 years in a community of 800 people. About 500
of these were utilizing psychodrama for their development. As a result my
boundaries and that of my staff had to be both clear and powerful. It was
inevitable I would share the role of Director, doctor, colleague, committee
member, fellow sportsperson etc. with one individual. There was no way of
escaping this scenario, in fact it was the norm rather than the exception.
Every psycho-dramatist goes through the progression of client/group member,
auxiliary, trainee and then colleague. Professionalism and personal
development is about clarity of boundaries, and I believe that is not good
enough to be saying "my boundaries are not very good' and thereby justifying
evading the issue. Life is for living fully, and therapy does not end at the
consulting room door. Boundaries and fine tuning them is our work, let's get
on with it. A person s not a "trainee" or a ''client', they, like all of us,
at times, assume these roles, the role of client lasts about an hour, then
its time for a change of role on both sides.

At times I would be in the main street of this country town and someone
would assume, erroneously, that I was in the role of their doctor and ask me
about a lab result. At that particular moment I was embedded in the role of
the window shopper, and I would respond that they would not want me to be
thinking of them as a disease or an illness every time that I saw them. To
this comment I usually got a laugh of awareness and a spontaneous agreement
to see me or a staff member about the requirement IN THE SURGERY. And not on
he street. 

Cheers

Peter Parkinson from New Zealand

  _____  

From: list-bounces at grouptalkweb.org [mailto:list-bounces at grouptalkweb.org]
On Behalf Of Carole Oliver
Sent: Monday, 11 September 2006 6:35 a.m.
To: grace at graceworks.co.nz; list at grouptalkweb.org
Subject: Re: client or trainee

grace, I agree that the psychodrama community is small and we know many
people, first as clients and then maybe in a psychodrama/training group. The
roles can get murky. I think it requires a therapist who can be very strong
with boundaries. I am a pretty friendly accessible therapist and so I find
it harder to keep very strong boundaries between training, supervision,
group[p member, client.

It is difficult to sort it all out. As for me, I wont see a person in
individual and be their trainer. If they are in my group which is a
therapy/psychodrama group, they can log hours but if they are indivual
clients, I wont do just a training group or supervision group with them.
Does that make sense?

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

From: Grace <mailto:2grace at actrix.co.nz>  

To: list at grouptalkweb.org 

Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2006 3:14 PM

Subject: RE: client or trainee

Kia ora Peter,

Yes, I like your view of your work as education or adult education (we
sometimes refer to what we do as psycho-education), although I do believe it
is deep learning that we facilitate in the group of people we work with
people, so I have a new descriptor to use.  Thank you!

I have also been pondering on the reality of dual relationships especially
living in a small country where the degrees of separation are few.  It's
pretty difficult here in Aotearoa/NZ to meet people in either work or social
situations who don't have an acquaintance in common.  I think Moreno gives
us a great tool in Role Theory, enabling us to become conscious, to identify
and warm up deliberately to the roles necessary to respond adequately in
situations where dual relationships such as Client / Trainee exist.  One
such role might be something like a 'responsible professional' who is able
to bring a wealth of technical and ethical expertise into practice when
making decisions, when in doubt consulting with supervisors and networks.  I
really like that this approach engages the professional in the 'deep
learning process' also,  giving us the opportunity to continue growing our
ability to be creative and spontaneous rather than referring to entrenched
and conserved rules that squash vitality and imply that there an end to what
is really an infinite process.   This is NOT the easy road however!  And we
won't always get it right- can we live with that? 

Cheers

Grace

  _____  

From: list-bounces at grouptalkweb.org [mailto:list-bounces at grouptalkweb.org]
On Behalf Of Peter Howie
Sent: Tuesday, 5 September 2006 2:10 p.m.
To: Adam Blatner; list at grouptalkweb.org
Subject: Re: client or trainee

Dear Adam,

Sorry Adam but I can't help myself. 

"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. "

I came across this quote as I was perusing some early ANZPA thesis. 

"I have always tried to show that my approach was meant as much more than a
psychotherapeutic method--my ideas have emphasized that creativity and
spontaneity affect the very roots of vitality and spiritual development, and
thus affect our involvements in every sphere of our lives. Furthermore, I
have always wanted to have people attend to the processes of health, as well
as to the problems of illness; thus I am glad that Dr Blatenr has noted the
applications of psychodrama in the home, school and world of business" J L
Moreno, M.D., 1973 in Forward to "Acting In" by Adam Blatner.

Part of our discussion involves, at an underlying level, how the conserves
of the psychotherapeutic communities/world (Psychology, Psychoiatry,
Counselling etc) have dominated some of this discussion. It may not be so
much about the dilemmas that arise from boundary issues with
clients/patients/trainees but more about how this work is conceptualised.
Personally and professionally I think viewing most of our work as that of
education or adult education works for me. Deep learning is deep therapy.
Still working on this idea.

Cheers

Peter Howie
Brisbanew, Australia

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