morenian potentials

[Adam Blatner]

Following up on Regina's comments on Peter Howie's question: > What are the products or 
services or things that 'psychodrama' (here used as a generic term for all the Institutes 
and practitioners worldwide) offers that might be equivalent to the iPod?

    Regina answers: ...  I'm thinking of this in terms of a social movement...  How do we 
"sell" aliveness and benefits of creativity to a culture that has undergone 
McDonaldization and Dysnification to the point that creativity comes in a box at a store 
rather than in an empty space?
       AB: We do NOT try to sell psychodrama per se. We sell play, action involvements, 
psychological explorations, role theory as a way to talk about psychology in a 
user-friendly fashion, drama as a way to bring all this together, psychodrama or 
sociodrama as a particular format---one among many--- that can illustrate this. We sell 
spontaneity training just for fun. At present there are scores -- perhaps hundreds--- of 
theatre artists teaching improvisation to business people. We could do that, too, and 
maybe even better.

   RS:   And, outside of a spiritual context, how do we "sell" the transformational 
potential of achieving role distance in a culture so embedded in the roles that they play 
that they don't even see their roles?
     AB: It's important not to be overwhelmed or intimidated by the prevalence of folly 
and superficiality. Simply witness with enthusiasm to your tools.
       I especially like the analogy to the salesmen (most were men, then) of electric 
power tools for carpenters and others in the later 1940s. There was an immense expansion 
and penetration of the market during that and the following decade--and since--, making 
do-it-yourself far more possible. I think of Morenian methods as a complex of tools that 
can similarly be applied in many different ways. Think not of the widespread ignorance, 
but rather that this is a great market for new tools!

     RS  At some level, we are trying to loosely trying to transform what Goffman dubbed 
"Frameworks" which can at the most simplistic level can be viewed as paradigms or world 
views, which nestle one inside another (ie there are cultural frameworks (or 
understandings and beliefs about the world) and within those cultural frameworks rest 
sub-cultural frameworks and within those rest smaller subsets of group frameworks and 
finally, within those rest our individual frameworks ... so in some cultures dogs = pets, 
in others, dogs = a source of food and in either an individual framework of a person who 
had a traumatic dog bite might be dogs = dangerous and ferocious).  Social movements do 
this through use of rhetoric by linking the frameworks of their movement to the frameworks 
of something that's already revered or desired in the culture.  . . . etc.

    AB:  Sure, there are all kinds of ways of selling: There's the on the street 
salesperson, there are those who use the new tool and witness to its value---i.e., 
word-of-mouth. There are not only advertisements, but also articles in the trade journals. 
There are many different types of spreading the word.
     I sometimes write about the more general philosophy of Morenian work not only in 
psychotherapy, but in other arenas. What is education about, and education for 
adults---how is that different? Can psychodrama be a spiritual practice?  And so forth...

  RS  Outside of the self-help junkies and in creative enclaves of 
actors/writers/performers where talking about one's therapy/therapist visit has cultural 
capital, most folks still don't talk about the fact that they are seeing a counselor, 
doing counseling, or going to workshops to deal with issues, perhaps because the larger 
cultural framework is very clear that we should be able to handle our problems on our own. 
So, what is the "hook" for psychodrama?  What pre-existing cultural model that people 
gladly talk about can we use to mobilize the masses?
         AB: I maintain that we are in an era in which psychology is gradually spreading, 
mainly in business, education, etc., similar to the way the values of literacy were 
spreading in the mid- and later 19th century. Before that, many people believed that "book 
learning" wasn't really that necessary, but times change. What was once the province of 
the elite became the domain of everyone. I see our culture as being at a similar point, 
where the valuing of psychology is today only, maybe, at around 10 or 20%, but it's going 
up. Just witness to the value of the tools, talk about the basic concepts, the paradigm is 
shifting.

      Of course, it wouldn't hurt if people could do a bit more than work in their own 
job, whether that be at an agency or in a private practice:
    a. Writing up stuff for the journal:
    b. promoting the national conference
    c  presenting at other conferences, at regional meetings, for the general lay public
    d. helping to promote others, organize locally,
    e. collaborate with folks in related fields, teachers, lawyers, business men, etc.
    f. combine foreign travel with professional conferences. Help develop the 
international psychodrama community. Encourage their traveling here.
    g. read just a tiny bit more.
    h. outreach just a little bit, network.
               etc.

        I know folks get busy, and in the present squeeze of the middle class 
(economically), it becomes more difficult to do any of the things I listed, but, hey, 
Regina asked "how" and so those are some of my suggestions.

     Warmly, adam
         What do you think?