Sociometry of the Ancestors/Elders
BARNETT WEISS
budweiss at verizon.net
Sun Apr 20 00:34:06 CDT 2008
Dear People:
I have not had a chance to read all of the posts regarding the ancestor issue and am impressed with how many responses there have been to this topic. In fact, I think there have been more responses individual and repeated to this topic than any other we have touched upon over the nearly 3 years I have been on this list.
No coincidence there as Ancestral worship is where we all come from.
There are many names ( I mention a few below) who contributed heavily to this work and who did not necessarily remain publicly or institutionally affiliated with the movement for one reason or another. However, these persons made great contributions to the sustaining of the work and its transmission to many others.
I suggest that a list of names be proposed from the recommendations of all and then everyone in ASGPP have an opportunity to use this list and check off those they know and have known as well as ranking them in terms of their importance to the person identifying them as someone they knew. Then a weighted sociometric chain can be erected from these returned check lists and if necessary, some would be left out due to so few knowing of them. HOwever, I submit that if you are really to do this thing, a book be published on the internet that lists them all alphabetically with some short history provided for each one with a sociometric ranking based on the number of ranked votes they got from those who send in their check lists. Of course this list can continue to be added to over time with some criteria for doing so not necessarily their demise. Nice to be recognized as an elder prior to that next realm.
My 2 cents. Bud Weiss
Here are a few names of those I had the privilege of coming to know and work with during my past 40 years since my beginnings in 1968. all of these exceptional leaders developed so much inside as well as outside of the psychodrama movement that has benefited thousands if not hundreds of thousands or millions over the years:
Dr. Helen Jennings: One of the great pioneers in the field of Sociometry whose teachings and books and articles were of the highest order especially in the work with students in classrooms which has so sadly been neglected in favor of the more sexy action sessions of psychodrama. It is also much more difficult at first to introduce sociometry into the classroom and in my estimation so essential if we are ever to have the kind of impact possible from the legacy left to us by Dr. Moreno and Zerka. Those who had the opportunity to work with and learn from Helen were indeed blessed.
Dr. Mary Northway: One of the great sociometrists whose work with target sociograms made great headway in the practical usefulness of this field.
Dr. Doris Twitchell Allen: Again, one of the most creative and active evangelists for the action technologies. She was often in league with Virginia Satir. Her crib scene is one of the most effective warmups I have ever seen or participated in and was in fact, the first one that I experienced back in 1968 under Zerka's direction during which Carl Hollander actually re-experienced some of the actual trauma of his birth and confirmed the details with a phone call to his mother.
Virginia Satir: There is a saying about her which comes close to adequately eliciting her magic: "Yes Santa Claus, there is a Virginia Satir." She was also along with Don Jackson, one of those who wrote adequately about Moreno's impact on the field of family therapy.
Dr. Joe Hart: One of the most creative and effective action technologists ever and one of the worlds leading sociometrists prior to his death in 2003. His life was honored during the 2004 ASGPP meetings.
Walter Klavoon, deceased: One of the long standing directors of the Moreno Institute in New York City whose work in industry was exemplary both in race relations as well as in overall sensitivity training for managers and others. He was a pioneer in this area.
Dr. Byron Eicher: A Vietnam Green Beret and National qualifier for those wishing to join Mensa. A Youngian and one of the most brilliant and effective action technologists of any in the history of the psychodrama movement. He brought in more monies for persons from his area in the midwest to learn psychodrama from the Moreno's than probably anyone before or after his direct involvement with the Morenos. Because of his effectiveness as an organizer and shaker and mover in the mental health field in addition to his obvious talents and mastery of psychodrama, Byron was being considered by the Morenos as the person to take the reins of the movement when they were going to retire from active leadership back in the late 60s early 70s. Byron is still alive and creating wonders of many kinds on a large scale in St. Louis, Mo.
Dr. Ron Robbins an innovator of the first order who is known internationally both as one of the premier Bioenergetic trainers and therapists as well as having developed his own form published in his book Rhythmic Integration along with his revolutionary one session 90 minute treatment for panic attacks which is slowly being examined by the APA. http://www.panicproject.com Ron was the first person to actually take over the running of the training at Beacon when Dr. Moreno and Zerka first considered retiring from active leadership there. He also completed a large collection of interview between himself and Dr. Moreno which I think mat be archived in the Library of Congress.
With consultation from Bonnie Weiss, I will provide several more whose names may not be familiar to everyone and whose contributions and the networks which they created have supported us all often unknown to many in our ranks.
Be well, Blessings, Bud Weiss
HV Psychodrama <hvpi at hvc.rr.com> wrote: Dear Connie,
I don't think the two ideas are exclusive of one another..why can't we do both? Honor where we came from, and explore where we are going. Right now there is energy around honoring the people who led us to where we are, partially because of all the deaths we have experienced the last few years. Those of us who have been part of the ASGPP for 20, 30 years or more are losing beloved trainers and psychodramatic family members. Younger members have expresses curiosity about who these 'names' are and the influence they have had on what we do today. Let's not discourage people who have energy for this. I think our elders want to be remembered for exactly what you say you'd like to be remembered for, for their work to help in healing and transforming. But once they are gone, who will remember if we don't?
Why not form another subcommittee who takes a look at how we can expand action methods . Connie, Adam, do you want to spearhead that? Put it out over grouptalk and see if there are some folks who are energized around that.
Rebecca
----- Original Message -----
From: Connie Miller
To: list at grouptalkweb.org
Cc: iagp-psychodrama at yahoogroups.com ; abepsychodrama at yahoo.com
Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2008 1:48 PM
Subject: How do You want to be remembered?
I agree with you Ann in that we do not have to make ourselves a distinct body...Anzpa had a great way to honor their ancestors.
The more we make ourselves separate from others the more we will become isolated as a unit.
Adam gave his keynote speech "Re-envisioning Psychodrama" recently at our conference. He spoke about expanding psychodrama in many different ways. I was not at our conference but at the ACA conference in Hawaii presenting Souldrama and career development where there were 3500 attendees. Again, it looked like I was the only psychodramatist promoting psychodrama and I asked myself, how come?
Many of you are speaking of forming a committee to honor our ancestors and I am concerned that unless we expand the Moreno's knowledge of psychodrama and action methods, there will be few of us left to honor our ancestors. Many of us have worked hard over the years to develop our own creative methods to expand psychodrama and action methods for the purpose of seeing others heal. Perhaps the energy that goes into a committee to honor our ancestors could be best used instead in forming a committee "Expanding Psychodrama and Action Method" so that we can all bring our new methods,, our ancestors methods and Morenos idea to other organizations.
I am fully respectful of honoring our ancestors and I am fast becoming one, however if I were to be honored, it would be to have the work that I developed over the years spread to others to used for the greater good of mankind to help them heal and transform their consciousness. If we want to survive, first we must spread our ideas to others to help others transform.
How we will survive will be by spreading our work for the greater good of mankind.This is how I would like my work remembered. How would you want to be honored?
I will share a story that happened last week that made me remember that we are all one.
Here is an incident that occurred Thursday that to me shows the power of souldrama and action methods. I thought I would share it with you
I was was teaching action techniques and Souldrama to a staff in a residential rehab facility yesterday for drugs and alcohol.For this purpose I come twice a month and work with a group of 45-50 patients. Yesterday they were all male and were there anywhere for 1-28 days. We were all strangers. I had 2 hours to work with the group. After warming up the group to find a central issue using action methods for 15 minutes, the group chose the protagonist. ( If anyone wants more details about this procedure let me know)
The group was to go through the first door of faith and surrender. The man who was chosen by the group to work, Bob, at first did not want to do the work but asked to read a letter to the group the night before.He read that 13 years ago his son at age 13 had shot himself in the head and he has had no purpose since that time. He could not figure why his son did that. He had never spoken about this tragedy until yesterday,.As the drama progressed he choose people to play the role of his son in heaven, himself, his old punishing God and his new loving God that he had forgotten over the past 13 years. There were many role reversals and tears and his son (Bob in his sons role) told him he did not want his life to have no meaning so that he would like his father to remember him by helping other young people who were about to take their life.
Yesterday there were about 8 teenagers in the group which was very unusual. In the end, Bob felt a new and different connection with his son and decided to keep his memory alive by helping young people and by being a mentor. He also decided to offer equine therapy to them as he is an accomplished rider. The group went on after meeting God and ended with the serentnity prayer.
In the sharing process, which came after the drama, people deroll and share.Prior to the sharing no one knows anything about the other person and they just choose a person to play the role..Bob knew none of them. Here is where I see God work in a group and soul in action....
The man who played his son happened to love to ride horses as a hobby and said he would help Bob.
The man who played the role of himself remembered his father being murdered when he was 13 and was crying.
The man Bob chose to play his old God lost his father when he was 13 and was crying
The man who played the role of the new God had attempted suicide the same way when he was 13 and never told anyone. The saftey on the gun was on and it did not work. He thought how it would have affected his family.
The rest of the group had similar incidences or were thinking of suicide and shared how Bob helped them.
What were the chances of this happening in a group? It was not my directing but the group itself as they chose the protagonist. and players that played a role
To me this is the wonder of the group is connection of soul which seems to be the individualized expression of spirit...... Soul is differentiated---deeply unconscious, the basic coming together of temperament, abilities, interests, sociometric resonances, etc. (Blatner 2008) This was a magical drama and the group chose the protagonist and learned to surrender to each other.Also as the group helped each other to heal, this was not only limited to their ancestors or transgenerational work but to the group itself. God and the group work as the therapeutic agent within the group... the director is the servant, The group will remember and honor the work..this is what matters.
Connie
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