sociatry81907

[Adam Blatner]

This got bounced back...trying again:
    Rebecca Walters notes:   Marion Chase, the mama of dance therapy, had an interesting 
and successful way of working with deeply disturbed people. She began moving with the 
client exactly as s/he moved, and only after she had done this for a while did she begin 
to expand her own movement, incrementally, to make it larger or to move it in a different 
direction. She began by joining, and making small changes so the client would move along 
with her, rather than rejecting her movements. She helped them expand their movement 
repertoire.
         adam: Wow, I didn't know this! Doubling in action!

 RW  I think there is a parallel to what you are saying, here, Adam. In addition, I would 
like to know, specifically, what people are doing with action methods to address 
environmental, political, social, economic, etc. concerns....Herb Propper has been 
recently writing to Grouptalk about taking action methods into the Muslim culture of 
Bangladesh. I know Susan Aaron has been working with Six Nations folks up in Canada.  Mary 
Bellafatto has used action methods to help with reconciliation on Africa. Who else?    Is 
there anyone out there out there working outside the psychotherapuetic model, using action 
methods to address socio/political/environmental issues here in the US or abroad?
         ablatner: Yes, to ask that and to remind folks that:
   1. The International Association of Group Psychotherapy and Group Processes, with whom 
the ASGPP has recently affiliated, has changed its name, adding the last three words 
(although it will still be just the IAGP as an acronym); and with this change, it is 
saying that it wants to include applications in business, social development, education, 
and others who work with groups.
   2. My recent forays into the field of theatre in education reveal that there are many 
there who are exploring not just ordinary learning using drama, but also exploring lively 
social issues, trying out Theatre of the Oppressed approaches (which draw unconsciously, I 
claim, on Moreno's action sociometry and role playing techniques, though Boal disavows
 this suggestion), and other approaches. Some of these as I mentioned are included in my 
latest anthology.
        Staci Block's work with teens, ditto for Mario Cossa and colleagues, and on and 
on...
   3. Please let's not forget our drama therapy colleagues, many of whom, again, apply 
their methods beyond the clinical context.  (Rebecca was responding to my previous email 
in which I emphasized...
      Really, we're talking about consciousness raising, and including  ecology as part of 
our circle of concern. The next question is, how can we best do this?
      My approach is to help people strengthen their capacity to address issues, to foster 
responsibility by increasing their
ability to respond. I hope to do this by broadening their role repertoire through 
including action, sociodramatic techniques, as part of learning. Most folks don't know how 
to role reverse, for example; there's a knack to extending the imagination this way.
      I hope to promote the use of role theory as a user-friendly language for psychology. 
The world needs to know how to integrate the best insights of  psychology and this is more 
difficult if there's too much weird jargon. Other goals are noted on my website biography. 
All these are aimed at strengthening the infrastructure.
      Approaching it from another angle: I think people tend to avoid thinking about that 
which they cannot think about. Sretching more   than a little bit is experienced as 
overloading. This is true in sports physiology and psychology, too. In psychology, 
Vygotsky talks about learning at what he calls the Zone of Proximal Development. I call it 
the  edge. Folks don't learn beyond that zone or edge-region. We can gradually expand that 
region. (This also relates to the principle of warming-up, but taken to a broader 
perspective.) We can strengthen the "infra-structure" of skills, knowledge, and attitude.
     That's where I see many of Moreno's contributions having a common denominator.
Emphasizing the urgency of the problem, though, may be counter-productive. Faced with the 
threat of what is experienced by the limbic system as threat, shame, guilt, punishment, 
the mind shuts down.
      So I focus on tiny steps, what can be done. This also partakes of (of all people) 
B.F. Skinner's principles of operant
conditioning as part of learning theory: Break it down into small steps, relatively easy 
achievements; and reinforce each step.
      What do you think? Warmly, Adam