Peace-building comments

[Adam Blatner]

Dear Andrea, I'm warmed up to responding with some thoughts to your open letter to grouptalk of 31 July:  psychodrama in peace-building/mediation/community re-building.
       Check with Dick & Laura Chasin and their Public Conversations project in the Boston area. More talk, but their background includes Moreno training. 

       AH   I'd love to find out more on how you've used it, and with what results.  My professional background combines anthropology (the cross-cultural perspective and love of ritual) with psychodrama, as a way to set out in the open the disputes that keep communities apart.  Warring ethnic communities would, for example, set up a carpet piece representing the dynamics of their conflict (or better: the emotions/judgments behind them), then get resolution and healing via the drama.
         AB: Again, there's a good chapter on using drama for healing the wounds of history, a chapter by Armand Volkas and Ron Miller in my 2007 anthology about applied drama!  www.interactiveimprov.com/ 
         Also chapters on ritual, and mention of sociodrama in my chapter on psychodrama -associated approaches.

        AH I also want to take the symbolic nature of this work a step further, using individual members of a community or conflict to represent the whole.
          The reading I've done in Jung and R. Steiner implies that such symbolic work positively impacts the group or community as a whole.
          AB: Your researches will be interesting. I see many variables operating, and so am inclined towards a case-study (i.e., "idiographic") rather than a large-number statistical overview ("nomothetic") approach (which of necessity limits the number of relevant variables). 
          In other words, so much depeneds on
    size of group, make-up of group, expectations, degrees of psychological mindedness, how did participants be admitted, be selected, which (if any) forms of psychopathology are excluded (I'm thinking of degrees of zealotry or axe-to-grind, wanting an audience, commitment to resolution, etc. different participants might have); support or sabotage by outside groups (e.g., threat of execution or divorce if a group member gives in or compromises on certain or any points), etc. 

The particluar vein of psychodrama I'm trained in is ShadowWork (developed by Barry/Blandford, based on Jung's shadow & H/S Stone's voice dialogue).
           AB: References? Where can this be explored. Is Blandford's first name Barry or are they two different people? How have they integrated psychodrama?
      (I know Hal Stone and he & Sidra Stone's approach and may have been one of the people from whom he learned about the integration of the multiple ego technique in his method.)

AH I would appreciate any literature suggestions & continuing this conversation w/ interesteds. Andrea Hummel
(Andreachf at aol.com)     (AB: yes, I'd like to hear about other links, too.)
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