Fwd: Sociatry

[Edward Schreiber]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Edward Schreiber <edwschreiber at earthlink.net>
> Date: August 19, 2007 5:51:35 AM EDT
> To: "Adam Blatner" <adam at blatner.com>
> Subject: Re: Sociatry
>
> When ignorance isn't bliss....
>
> Tell me please how information related to a global catastrophe does  
> not relate to sociatry or Moreno.  Adam Blatner's perspective in  
> which he wrote
> "grouptalk being taken over by political testimonials"  is a both  
> reductionistic, in my view an interesting slight of hand, and  
> certainly not the issue.
>
> Moreno was most concerned with the whole of humankind and if global  
> climate change will (and is) impacting humankind, I feel both  
> personally and professionally responsible to address what humankind  
> is facing.  Although my trip to China was great, I was deeply  
> troubled by it.  While we were there and right during the  
> conference, the Chinese news both print and TV reported that 80  
> million (yes, 80 million) people in southern China and including  
> parts of India were either made homeless or impacted with the loss  
> of life or property due to flooding.  What was good about the  
> Chinese news service, what impressed me, was that the information  
> from the Chinese also said that this was "due to the impact of  
> global climate change".  In our work on at the conference we  
> integrated sociatry as we have come to understand it. We invited  
> people to take the stage as a group and to look at humanity, and  
> ourselves, and one another and to address what we face individually  
> and collectively with one another.
>
> This is not, as Adam suggests, "politics pure and simple"  How can  
> we be living in this world, practicing a method that demands of us  
> that a therapeutic procedure must have no less than the whole of  
> humankind as a perspective, and not address the fact that we have  
> altered the climate  and the impact will be an increasing  
> devastation for humanity?  The only reason to not face this is that  
> it is too much, too big, too our of our hands, too difficult of a  
> challenge. As I wrote to a colleague yesterday, it's kind of what  
> (in my own surplus reality imagination) I would be faced with if I  
> were a psychodramatist in Nazi Germany being asked to not point to  
> the human reality.  Perhaps it is just too much to consider.  
> Perhaps as Americans our bliss can keep our silence for a while  
> longer.  Not me.  As a Jewish gay man I am already on the fringe of  
> things.  My perspective is already colored with a multi- 
> generational history that places me in a role of risking comfort.
>
> I am eager for a dialogue with anyone anywhere interested in coming  
> to terms with all this. What we can do to address this problem  
> humanity faces.  My friend and colleague Derrick Jensen reminds me  
> that it's not only humanity but all life that is now impacted.   
> During and after WW2 Moreno addressed the war in his writing and  
> his work, he brought sociometry to the settlement camps for  
> refugees.  We know this history.  Silence about reality is a bit  
> strange, at least for me, although silence (and silencing) is one  
> way people throughout history have been organized.
>
> I don't have answers, except for one.  The Globe article "When  
> ignorance isn't bliss"  ends with this statement:  "America  
> apparently needs a more direct hit than even Katrina to wake up to  
> the catastrophe of ignorance."  I do not in any way suggest we are  
> ignorant, that is not the point. But like Moreno, we facing, right  
> here, right now, every day - a psychodrmatic shock.  How do we  
> address 80 million people made homeless 2 weeks ago?  Do we care  
> enough to step out of our comfort as Americans? After all we are  
> just 5 percent of the world's population but we contribute 25  
> percent of the global problem in the world's climate change  
> impacting the 80 million in southern China and parts of Asia.
>
> The only solution I have found for now is to further and study  
> Moreno's writings about sociatry and the forces of society that  
> shape our world, impact our day to day lives, influence our  
> thinking and mold our sociometry. This, his writing about these  
> forces, are the guiding principles that brings me to the posture of  
> a sociatrist. If we really do want to "come out" in society more  
> fully how can we realize Moreno's vision of sociatry more fully?  
> These are questions I ask myself daily. I have only initial  
> adjustments I am making to include a consideration for all of  
> humankind in my own desire for bliss.   The point I am in agreement  
> with, with Adam, is his call for what actual programs are being  
> conducted that draw on Moreno's methods and reporting them.  We  
> however know of one important one already.
>
> The ASGPP made a very brave move last year at the Annual Meeting to  
> have Amy Goodman as the keynote speaker.  I was deeply moved
> by what she said to us, but I was even more moved with the  
> integrity of our organization, to not rest in the ignorance of  
> bliss, and to have our work placed where it must be:  in the world  
> and with all of humanity, not our offices alone.
>
> Ed Schreiber, TEP
> Outed as a sociatrist.
>
>
>

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