resistances to psychodrama?

[Adam Blatner]

Alas, I risk contradicting the great innovator, but I think there are many, many resistances or at least plausible reasons for being wary when thinking about psychodrama. One of the most common sources for misunderstanding is the tendency to attribute hypothesized motivation to one's antagonists. Most of the time these are not at all what they would say as their own reasons, and it is presumptuous if not foolishly arrogant to think that your own hypotheses are more true than their "rationalizations."
       I describe a goodly number of resistances in a chapter on this topic in my Foundations of Psychodrama. 

     Secondly, Eric asks, Is this  (referring to resistance against psychodrama?) a problem of Aristotele? 
           Adam: no.
     EL: Is it depersonalization?   adam: no, that's quite a different dynamic.

EL I wanted to quote i.b.morenan2's quote of Moreno at the ASGPP forum: Resistance Against Psychodrama: "When Psychoanalysis began to become a social force, the resistance against it was explained as due to the resentment against a theory which ascribes sexual motives to even the loftiest aspirations.   Adam: There were also many many other reasons why thoughtful and courageous people from the 1910s through the present have found psychoanalysis problematical in many ways.
       Moreno goes on: The resistance against psychodrama has different reasons. It is the greatest threat to the individual ego yet arisen. Private problems are acted out in public, private psychological properties, 
experiences of the most intimate kind which have always been considered as the last anchorage of individual identity, are urged to be relinquished to the group. The individual is urged to face the truth that these experiences are not really "his," but public psychological property. This loss of all that individuality purported to be cannot be given up without a fight. The individual is told to sacrifice his splendid isolation, but he is not certain whether psychodrama will be able to replace his investment." - Dr. J.L. Moreno
         Adam Blatner: When did he write this? It was probably in the mid-20th century. Before the Jerry Springer show, and reality television. At any rate, there is some truth, in that such a degree of self-disclosure goes against many social norms. The loss of individuality--- that concept is very unclear, at any rate. 


    Warmly, Adam
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