psychodrama's mission

[Adam Blatner]

Dear Peter, responding to your comments on 10/20:

1. PH At a recent (in the last 12 months) local practitioners and ANZPA members met for a 
strategic planning session. One out-there outcome was that a psychodramatist would be 
considered in the same professional vein as say a lawyer, an accountant and such like. 
i.e. Going to see a psychodramatist had to do with getting professional advice and service 
regarding injecting spontaneity, creativity into an organisation (family) and thinking 
through the relationship (sociometry) aspects and the roles that were overdeveloped, 
underdeveloped etc in people and the group. Freeing up log-jams would be one aspect. I am 
still thinking through this aspect.

   AB: Ah, fascinating, your noting the essentially inter-disciplinary nature of these 
methods and concepts. It's not just psychotherapy, and so when people define psychodrama 
as a form of psychotherapy, I also feel that is mildly misleading, as my vision in some 
ways aligns with yours. I see these approaches being adapted to other contexts also.

   PH While not everyone might need a therapist - everyone needs an accountant - because 
the number/tax/law stuff is too darn hard,  a counsellor is useful at certain times in 
ones life, a psychodramatist is also useful at certain times in ones life both for 
individuals, groups, organisations, communities.
   AB: And in community, the use of these methods for education, spiritual development, 
personal growth, etc.  Some approaches might be spontaneity-training for fun and general 
skill-building, like sports. Some approaches might be mind-expanding, role expansion, for 
empathy---an art form. And so forth.

 PH I think I am coming to the conclusion that the word Moreno cooked up "Psychodrama" is 
the best thing going for psychodrama. It is like no other thing - and Moreno was keen on 
creating words that had no real precursors. And it would be better, in my opinion, that it 
not be compared to counselling, psychology, therapy and the like. While these things are 
safe and knowable when referring people to them as ways of understanding psychodrama, they 
are also limited and narrowly defined in themselves and create a certain warm up in 
listeners. By comparing psychodrama to these other things we actually build up the other 
things not psychodrama which then becomes a sub section of psychology or counselling or 
therapy when psychodrama is anything but!
    AB: Intriguing: mixed response. First, there's just too much association of PD with 
therapy, and it can't be undone. (Maybe.) Yet your point is well taken, that it can be 
used in therapy but also beyond it. I make a similar point in several writings.
     One possibility: Psychodrama becomes a shorthand word for all of Morenian approaches, 
but it allows for the possibility of not doing formal psychodrama or enactment in a given 
situation. Possibly just a role analysis, or sociometric exploration---and modifying that 
form of sociometry as Liz White writes about in an excellent article in the BPA journal.

      Or---dare I say it?---take the word "psychodrama" out and allow action approaches or 
a more neutral term to be used, one which doesn't suggest histrionic drama or psychotic 
psycho ... (alas, there are such associations)
         Yes, this dilutes Morenean approaches a bit, but may also make the material / 
skills/ techniques / etc. more palatable. As it is, people tend to feel intimidated and 
inclined to reject psychodrama because it is thought of as a whole package, intense, 
cathartic, a pseudo-therapy. Yes, many in our country are just anti-therapeutic in 
general, but also many therapists find psychodrama more weird and threatening than many 
other approaches.  So it's really a political consideration, as to what language will 
offer Moreno's work the widest actual audience, what will be most effective. Sticking to 
the language as a purist might work, holding on to language as well as principle; but it 
might also be self-defeating.
    So I don't have a final conclusion.

PH Cheers for now I need to go and consult my local Psychodramatist about a lack of 
spontaneity in my company.

        ab Ah, yes, let me know what s/he said, and whether talking or interventions by 
you might be advanced or hindered if you throw in the word "psycho-drama" ?

      warmly, Adam Blatner