re-visioning sociometry

Thu Apr 17 09:35:44 CDT 2008

Ann,

I think this is so well said, especially since I am becoming highly
interested in Systemic Constellation Work, which works so well with the
telic connections in very deep and amazing ways. I've just joined your Yahoo
list serve and look forward to more connectedness and information.

Thanks for sharing this, and I hope we will hear more on this.

Karen Carnabucci, MSS, LCSW, TEP 
(262) 633-2645 
 <mailto:karenc at wi.rr.com> karenc at wi.rr.com 

Lake House Health & Learning Center 
932 Lake Ave. 
Racine, WI 53403 
 <BLOCKED::http://www.lakehousecenter.com/> www.lakehousecenter.com 

  _____  

From: list-bounces at grouptalkweb.org [mailto:list-bounces at grouptalkweb.org]
On Behalf Of Ann Hale
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 8:37 AM
To: Adam Blatner; list at grouptalkweb.org
Subject: Re: re-visioning sociometry

Adam, I have been writing for some time now (four years) on sociometry as
interpersonal neurobiology, connecting the dots of Daniel J. Siegel's work
(and others) to the process of interpersonal connection.  Many people have
the mistaken idea that sociometry is selection of protagonists and don't go
much further than that.  Protagonist selection, or the expression of choice
is an outcome of that subjective process you mention.  Internal attunement
occurs first, when we experience somatically and become mindful of the pull
toward and pull away; then we decide whether to choose, reject, stay
neutral, declare ourselves conflicted.  Linnea Carlson-Sabelli, PhD, TEP
made the quantification of the data from the sociodynamic test (identifying
the pulls) and the sociometric test (identifying the choices) possible with
her doctoral thesis "Measuring Co-existing Opposites" in 1992.  What we now
have the possibility to show in research and in action is the concretization
of our and a group's choice processes in phase space (both/and) where the
choices are embodied, visable, and meaningful in terms of both where
dominance lies and where nearness and distance to centrality exists within a
group at a given moment.

We also have ways to look at hierarchical structures and the degree of
access people perceive they have to roles that have high value for him/her.
This information clarifies the existence and dynamics of act hunger (or the
degree to which it is sustained or abated)  the degree of  self-regulation
present and available, and the presence of  co-regulation available in a
group (cohesion).  Access to roles is central to skill development,
enlarging ones repertoire for interpersonal relating, spontaneity. 

By paying attention to the degree of connection people experience, and
involving ourselves in actions which decrease interpersonal stress and
resolve rigid and chaotic patterns of interpersonal interaction, we assist
in that transformation process which leads to healing of interpersonal
wounds and fosters integration of those new ways of being. We grow further
belief in ourself and others and trust we are necessary to one another and
have become partners in health.  

Sociometrists attend to the group's belonging and from that people can
emerge and be chosen for all sorts of roles. They can become protagonist,
not because they cried, or manipulated, or watched how someone else got the
role, and mimicked a similar issue but because the group members are attuned
and the expression of desire for the role was felt and responded to "out of
the reverberation" with the protagonist and with the reverberation with
others.

The Sabelli's have written "all relationships are reciprocal" (and
sociometry is what we use to sort out the degrees of that) and Daniel J.
Siegel has written that "we are all neurally linked" .  Moreno knew that,
called it tele, and even allowed for one-sided tele (empathy) which is what
exists until both persons are able to attune (double) and find themselves to
be truly in connection.  Ann Hale annehale at swva,net 

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Adam Blatner <mailto:ablatner at verizon.net>  

To: list at grouptalkweb.org 

Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 8:45 AM

Subject: re-visioning sociometry

Dear Colleagues,

     Building off my thesis that we might re-vision psychodrama as a larger
enterprise, that of multi-dimensional communication; it occurred to me after
giving that talk that sociometry is also a term for several categories or a
larger category that I'll call "Quantifying Subjectivity"--- alas, a bit of
a mouthful, but what else?

          My points include: 1. that sociometry as actually practiced
(e.g., using the spectrogram, the local-gram, choice techniques in selecting
protagonist, etc.) tends most often to address dynamics that do not strictly
measure anything--- so much for the sociometry--- and often do not measure
tele specifically or the patterns of rapport within a group. (It might be
argued that tele is indirectly involved, but that's the point---trying to
make the phenomena fit the theory.)

         2. Rather, they (a) offer ways for people to estimate their own
position or degree of involvement in a given criterion and (b) make this
explicit, thus giving themselves and the group they're in better feedback.
(c) Based on that feedback, they can also re-assess their own position and
the group leader or others can proceed to make other decisions. 

         3. The estimate of one's own position, degrees of caring,
preferences, and so forth speak to themes that may be personal and
impersonal rather than inter-personal. 

                 It might not be called "tele" (in a technical sense) but
people do have gradations of preference for all sorts of non-personal
objects, situations, experiences.

                 Also, animals (even one-celled animals) may be recognized
as having preferences and behaving or reacting to them. Some are
inter-active---i.e., sexual attraction and mating behaviors--- and some are
just preferring this environment, (e.g., cooler, moister) over that
environment (e.g., hotter, dryer)

        4. All sentient beings may be considered to have a kind of
subjectivity, interiority. (Indeed, a number of contemporary philosophers
would attribute this to all particles in existence!)    This experiencing
quality, however simple, unconscious (i.e., non-reflective), nevertheless
partakes of a capacity for some discrimination and preference. So there may
be a continuum of preference, with interpersonal preferences and reciprocity
being discerned as somewhat more complex phenomena in the higher and more
social animals. 

        5. The value of sociometry, it seems to me, involves less the ideal
of outsiders measuring telic dynamics (e.g., sociologists doing research)---
I question the actual value of the many academic papers written in the
1940s-1960s, and among sociologists, they seem to have largely dropped it so
that it is rarely mentioned in textbooks since 1970---; but rather, it is
most valuable in sensitizing people to attend to their own patterns of
preference, and to consider those patterns and dynamics in groups. The word
"sensitization" is appropriate because most folks over-ride, deny, ignore
these experiences, at least consciously. Moreno was correct in noting that
they have a good deal of influence on unconscious individual and social
behavior. Indeed, I've come to the provisional conclusion that sociometry
(in its broadest sense) constitutes a depth psychology no less profound than
the other types---Freudian, Jungian, etc. (It's not a complete psychology,
but it does address very significant and often unconscious dynmamics.)

        Well, that's the unfolding idea, and I thought I'd invite input.  

Adam Blatner, M.D.
   website: www.blatner.com/adam/   

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