Elders, Archives, etc.

[HV Psychodrama]

Here is another fascinating tidbit that my students love! Moreno was an influence on Alan Funt, the creator of Candid Camera. According to what I've heard, Funt came to open sessions in the city, saw spontaneity tests, and devised Candid Microphone (pre television days). Anyone have the citations on this?
Rebecca
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Adam Blatner 
  To: BARNETT WEISS ; ASGPP grouptalknew 
  Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2008 10:46 AM
  Subject: Elders, Archives, etc.


  Dear Bud, 

          I am delighted and impressed with your comments on specific people. If anyone wants it, I'll send my few pages on this that were in Foundations of Psychodrama and these can be used as a basis for further descriptions of various people's contributions.
       I've also advocated putting the reasons for various people who received awards, posting these reasons in a separate linked webpage, thus linking up the name with what they did to deserve recognition. 
       This could also be done linking the person with a photograph. 
              (such as in my photo directory, including photos of some of the folks mentioned below, in historical figures)

           Your sending me photos of pioneers and what they did might add to this, or I'd be willing to share these photos and other things with whoever will be working on archives.

    About archives: Please forgive my reticence, but I await some gathering of energy and structure so that what I send won't just end up on some dusty shelf somewhere, never to be found, and finally just tossed in the trash. Without energy and structure, I fear that may well happen.
        Example: Joe Smith (made up name) becomes the person to whom archival stuff gets sent. Joe feels excluded, offended, insufficiently appreciated, distracted by family issues, having babies, parents getting sick and dying. This kind of stuff happens. Job changes, whatever. Joe Smith disappears. Won't answer emails. The stuff that was sent for care for all practical purposes is lost. 

    Minor pedantic point: Walter Klavun  (not Klavoon)   was the guy I think who introduced Moreno in the Words of the Father record - cd- now on YouTube

     Virginia Satir took on a few psychodramatic techniques, either consciously or unconsciously---the parts party, the different stances (role theory), some family sculpture... but so far I've found nothing that acknowledged Moreno, psychodrama, nor in turn directly contributed to psychodrama. I recently spoke to a group of her "followers" and this stuff---the roots of certain ideas in Moreno's work---was quite new to them. 
          Certainly Satir was an innovator and there were some resonances, but so was Eric Berne (who at least did acknowledge Moreno's contributions as seminal), Fritz Perls (who pointedly did not until confronted by Zerka Moreno at an APsychol Assn conference in San Francisco in 1969, where he said, "Oh, give it up. Okay, you thought of it. Now let go!"  This mixed acknowledgment and discounting as if wanting acknowledgment was pathological---and, admittedly, Moreno did overly seek this, which complicates the picture--- is an interesting communications gambit.).. etc.     Sorry, I got carried away, but some of these folks are interesting. 
         So am I being exclusionary?  Or might we want to clarify our criteria?
                There are scores of people at the periphery who came in and went out, took some, often made no further acknowledgment, often failed to give any encouragement to others to learn about Moreno's contributions... and I don't know, but I wonder how such folks should be included?

      Hey, Bud, what about Byron? Can we re-include him? Would he want to be? What can be done to mend fences? Do we have to idealize Moreno, and what does that do for those who found him (to put it mildly) "difficult"?  Do we need to deny Moreno's good points in order to accommodate those who found his behavior and dealings with them offensive?  So this bit of history adds to the story. 
         
           Warmly, Adam

  ---- Original Message ----- 
    From: BARNETT WEISS 
    To: ASGPP grouptalknew 
    Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2008 12:34 AM
    Subject: Sociometry of the Ancestors/Elders


    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



------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  Grouptalk mailing list
  List at grouptalkweb.org
  http://grouptalkweb.org/mailman/listinfo/list_grouptalkweb.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://grouptalkweb.org/pipermail/list_grouptalkweb.org/attachments/20080420/ba7bdb30/attachment.html