subtle feelings

[Adam Blatner]

Dear Patti,
     This is the kind of cross-disciplinary thinking and exploration that I think will 
fertilize and stimulate our field! Thanks for your comments!  I have a few responses to 
your email of July 20  ... some not direct replies so much as comments...
    1. Re dissociation and "hysteria" (now identified in the DSM-IV as DID, PTSD, 
personality disorders, etc.)
AB: I'm intrigued with a range of not-fully dissociated but rather slightly 
compartmentalized yet still available for modulation by the core self- meta-role...
        We do this a lot in drama; take roles, shift roles, not be fully identified with 
the role--- i.e., role distance---
     and of course kids do this in make-believe imaginative play... so it's not abnormal
           And I think we're in an era in which conscious cultivation of alter egos is 
becoming normal and even healthy! This is new---I don't remember seeing anyone baldly say 
this before... maybe 1970 or thereabouts?

      as a correlate, so much of the psychological literature deals with people who, on 
the whole, are not reflective. Again, prior to 1970, though many continue this mode. 
However, an increasing number of people are reflective, psychologically minded, think 
about their own thinking, the group dynamics, etc., and our therapy must adjust to 
including such folks in a different way in therapy, more collaborative, educative, and 
open to being educated in turn by folks who have interesting angles and insights that may 
transcend our worldviews!  This, then, calls for a recognition that much literature and 
theory in psychology describes and formulates a frame of mind that is becoming 
increasingly obsolete, which is what makes pre-70s writings a bit funny "tasting." There 
are still many valid insights there, but it's mixed with other elements that are no longer 
very prevalent.

       PD:  Janet did not address the affective system directly but his work recognized 
sensations as a very real part of consciousness that get derailed by the dissociated 
process.   And the affective system is what I routinely address in psychodrama work.  His 
concept of "psychological force" is also a mainstay in my work and it directly speaks to 
spontaneity and creativity as Moreno conceptualized in his Canon of Creativity and 
throughout his writings.
          ab: thanks for this!

   PD  For example, Janet talked about the "reality connect"--using the senses and the 
mind to be in the moment, free from anxious thoughts, images, sensations, etc. and able to 
exercise sound judgment and make accurate meaning out of our experience.  As Moreno taught 
us, experience enough anxiety and we will experience a disconnect from our creativity.  I 
see this in some ways as Janet's "reality disconnect"--a loss of unity with body and mind.
            ab: Certainly valid, but neglecting an increasing awareness that in some 
roles, reality is incidental. These imagined roles can become major sources for many 
things---spirituality, recreation, expansion of role repertoire, surplus reality, 
creativity, etc.  Admittedly, there are still many who don't do enough critical thinking 
and exercise sound judgment, but that's a different role set. This theme is in many 
writings---it privileges rationality and marginalizes non-rational dimensions of life. I 
certainly value rationality and decry the innumerable occasions in which it fails to be 
adequately exercised; but the pre-70s view confused non-rational endeavors, some of which 
were wonderful, with pre-rational or merely childish and immature endeavors. The 
philosopher Ken Wilber comments on this pre-trans fallacy.

  PD Also, Janet's concept of psychological force and psychological tension he  describes 
as the quantity of basic psychic energy available to us and our capacity to use it.  This 
is so basic Morenian to me--as it precurses Moreno's ideas on spontaneity and creativity. 
(AB: Interesting example of how our language continues to grow... making the noun 
precursor and its phrase, "acts as a precursor to" into a verb, precurses. The overlap 
with curse, though, makes it semantically awkward, but there's a germ of a valid idea 
here! smile.)

       ... pd:   And I see this energy sabotaged over and over in clients who become 
overwhelmed with emotion. And because I view emotion always as a feeling--after all we 
cannot feel a  thought right?--I immediately move into interventions that help clients 
reconnect in safe, calming ways with their body.  One of the primary interventions I use 
to help clients become "reality connected" or in Morenian language, reconnected with their 
spontaneity, is the double and very specifically the TSM body double.
         AB: Wonderful! My daughter who has only modest acquaintance with psychodrama, 
coming to some conferences, etc., uses other "grounding" techniques, breathing, physical 
relaxation. (I don't think she knows the scholarly foundation of this in the behaviorist 
psychology  approach of Joseph Wolpe's "reciprocal inhibition"---i.e., you can't sustain 
anxiety if you physically motoric-muscle relax. (He was an M.D. psychiatrist, even though 
he's associated with behaviorism---a field otherwise for the most part dominated by 
psychologists.)

        AB: continued: But what motivated me to respond is the line, "...we cannot feel a 
thought" and I'd like to suggest that this may not be so. While there are affects---the 
emotions of fear, anger, joy, sadness, and others, there are also more subtle sensations 
that are generally not appreciated.
       Beyond the "five" senses, there are many others---and touch is only one of several 
kinesthetic senses---others include temperature, pain, position of joints, tension in 
muscles, etc.
      I think we need to recognize that some other psychological experiences are something 
between ordinary sensation and feeling (yet not emotion), such as sense of presence of 
others, tele (or rapport, positive or negative), meaning, ego-cohesion, reality of present 
events,  and so forth. I think we need to elucidate these more subtle experiences.

    PD: Another intervention is the mirroring structure whereby the protagonist sits off 
stage and 1) puts into words the experience to be enacted, 2) while doing so chooses 
auxiliaries and describes their role, what to say, etc., and 3) watches the enactment. 
This is excellent for a dissociative client as I can titrate the action in order to help 
the client remain present.   AB: Good. I haven't seen this done with the protagonist 
sitting, but I can imagine it being useful in certain circumstances, such as needing to 
promote the protagonist's relaxation.

   PD  Once h/she can watch without dissociating h/she is ready to move into the  scene. 
This intervention reflects a core capacity related to Janet's "reality connect"--the 
ability to experience a coherent narrative including effects of the experience while 
staying in the moment.
     Of course, psychodrama is a method that requires action that engages all  parts of 
self--mind, body, and spirit.  Janet, again in what I think was  revolutionary for his 
time and unfortunately derailed by Freud's psychoanalytic perspective, made no distinction 
between the intellect, feelings, and what we actually do.
          ab: historically, derailed may be confusing, as Janet continued developing his 
own thought. Would "obscured" be a better word? And not so much by Freud himself as by the 
overall organization's development, spread, and coming into fashion, which also displaced 
Jung and Adler---treating these innovators as if they hardly existed.

  PD He (ab  you mean Janet?) saw thought, feelings, and behavior intimately 
interconnected with consciousness, activity, and ideas --all that support a natural push 
to manifest and expand or contract depending on who we are and what we have experienced.

 So movement is a key intervention I use.  Anxiety in sufficient force paralyze so I get 
the body moving in safe and supportive ways to break the paralysis.  When we move physical 
sensations are stimulated and provide opportunities for clients to learn how to safely and 
knowledgeably experience their bodies.
        AB: good point. There's almost another sensation here---the connection of mind and 
body, energizing the body, and in turn allowing the body's motion to un-stick the mind. 
Big element in DMT (dance-movement therapy), Lowen's Bioenergetic Analysis, before that 
Reich's "vegetotherapy," Susan Aaron's work, etc.

    PD  Sometimes that happens through a soft, fluffy pillow toss , other times through 
appropriate laughter, and many times it is to use auxiliaries to personify a client's 
inner reality in positive ways.  Strengths building with auxiliaries and then role 
reversing is a wonderful intervention.   (AB: Patti, your continued use of TSM and other 
methods has generated enough of your own creative modifications and clinical anecdotes so 
that I'm inclined to encourage your considering writing about them when the Journal gets 
restarted.)

    As I said Janet did not specifically study the affective system, but his concept of 
dissociation certainly included an understanding that sensation was a key component in 
feeling safe and thinking and acting competently and effectively.  I believe this is why 
his treatment sessions often included  painting or listening to music or sculpting.  I 
have used all these types of activities in my psychodrama workshops and psychodrama a 
deux.  They consistently reduce anxiety and stimulate spontaneity and creativity.

 His interventions through hypnosis also give us profoundly effective ideas for helping 
clients heal.  And while I don't use hypnosis I have applied his idea of using an altered 
state of consciousness in other ways to help clients access their innate spontaneity and 
creativity.  They include creative visualization, mindful meditation structures, 
affirmation tapes, stream of consciousness writing, etc.
      In some key respects I see Janet's work as a precursor to Moreno's ideas.  I just 
wonder if Moreno read his work and was inspired by it.  They seem so sympatico in some 
ways.
             AB: No cross-influences that I know of and I wouldn't think of Janet's work 
as a precursor so much as the saying that great minds run in the same channel.

        Thanks for sharing: very rich! Warmly, Adam