Sociometry of the Ancestors/Elders

Sun Apr 20 10:56:24 CDT 2008

Bud,

I am interested in your mention of Bryon Eicher, whom you mention as a
psychodrama ancestor and active in St. Louis - particularly interesting, as
the conference will be in St. Louis next year.

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 BARNETT WEISS
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2008 12:34 AM
To: ASGPP grouptalknew
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 <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 <mailto:connie at souldrama.com>  

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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