Long term viability of the ASGPP and the psychodrama community

[Kim Cox]

Following up on my classmate Sandy's e-mail, I want to share with you that I
was also at the Networker conference and have been meaning to share with you
an experience I had there.

I enjoyed an all-day session on Virginia Satir, watching and discussing a
video of her doing a workshop with therapists. By the end of the day I was
attempting to share with the BIG group in the room that a lot of what
Virginia was doing in the video was very similar to Moreno's work. I was
also curious about what the presenter thought. The presenter, Steve Andreas,
negated everything I said and indicated his "wariness" when it comes to
psychodrama. One or two people in the audience agreed with him, and no one
else spoke up, so I kept talking. (I could feel Virginia's and
J.L.'sspirits supporting me!)  His main argument was that auxiliary
work in
psychodrama is too dangerous and the wrong non-verbals can "really mess
someone up." When I pressed him about the auxiliaries in Virginia's video,
he said, "Oh they are just caricatures, that's different." Hmmm...a bit
oxymoronic if you ask me.

Anyway, by the time I talked to Mr. Andreas after the day was over, I came
to discover that he had only seen psychodrama once and that it was a very
long time ago.

What a "danger" it is for people in the mental health field to talk as if
they are knowledgable about psychodrama when they really are not, and then
this is passed on to a large group of people!

I know Rich Simon, the head of the Networker, and continue to keep on him to
bring more expressive therapy stuff into his conferences, as the Networker
is no longer family-therapy-only oriented.

But I also want to encourage expressive therapists, including all of you, to
consider sending in a proposal for the Networker conference. It's in March
every year at the same hotel in Washington, DC, and as Sandy said, attracts
a huge crowd (including a lot of young people).

:-) Kim

I'm wondering if also other psychology/therapy communities could benefit.  I
> recently attended the national Psychotherapy Networker conference in DC with
> nearly 4000 people.  While a good portion of the therapists there mainly do
> "talk therapy," so many of the people I talked to got so excited and sounded
> so interested about psychodrama (and other action-based or expressive
> therapies) and had never gotten around to or found it convenient to get
> training.  Not to mention the playback workshop I went to where 30
> therapists with zero psychodrama/playback/etc. experience left extremely
> motivated to do more.
>
> All it took for me was one random affordable workshop in psychodrama to
> lead me to an interest in the field itself.  Couldn't it do the same for
> others?
>
> :)
>
> Sandy Blackman
>
>
> P.S.  Thanks all for making my first conference so great!  I will
> definitely be coming back for more :)
>
>
>
>
>
>
-- 
"Real is better than perfect." - Dorothy Satten

"Do one thing every day that scares you." - Eleanor Roosevelt

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