Open sessions

Sat Jun 21 00:50:21 CDT 2008

Well well well, "Someone's gone and put orange juice in my orange juice." as the great W.C.  Fields used to say.  

I loved open public sessions and have conducted somewhere around 500 over the years beginning with a few at Beacon and of course for the year or so that I was in charge of 3 nights a week at the Moreno Theater in New York City in the late 60s. 
I remember Marsha or Hanna Saying that a couple came up to them after a particularly intense session and asked,"That was a wonderful show. Who does your costumes for you; they were so perfect for the play?" 

My point in that and I suppose either Marsha's or Hanna's was that the action was too real for these folks and so the way they took care of themselves was to deny that it was real. I was never really worried about what would take place on the stage with the protagonist or those chosen to participate from the audience as auxiliaries, it was the remaining audience about whom I was concerned. 
Having an assisting team made it so much easier and they were built out of the following I achieved over the first couple of months that I was running sessions. Also, I had superb support from Bonnie Weiss, my wife at the time who had seen and participated in so many psychodrama's prior to that time at Beacon and elsewhere with the Morenos. 

Dr and Zerka were found of saying that people are far tougher than we give them credit for. If you truly learn to follow the protagonist instead of pushing your own agenda, you will not harm them. That to me is the key and a huge part of becoming a recognized Director who can be trusted to handle open sessions. You have to learn how to get out of the way, trust the process and build safety in the space prior to the main action. 

Warm up is everything in terms of preparing the safe place for decent action to take place. In a real way, you have to let go of control while remaining in control. 

Something from the EST training has always remained with me regarding this and I think it really fits with psychodrama. It is a lot like skiing. To direct  effectively, you have to be in control out of control. The way you do that is having a sound foundation in the understanding of group dynamics, role theory and practice and sociometry that underlies it all. When you have really got that under your belt and you are observed both as an auxiliary and director in classes, after having spent a great deal of time watching a respected director, it becomes clear that you have got it. After a certain amount of time, you can be seen to really know how to take charge of any session. Taking notes while a session is going on conducted by a well respected director is also an important way for preparation and then presenting your notes afterwards to the director as to how you would have proceeded and why at each turn. 

There were times none the less for me in public sessions when I dreaded going in there and getting it on. My greatest fear was not someone being out of control or harming themselves. My greatest fear was that the session would be boring and so would be a disservice to the protagonist as well as to those who came to see the work. This is where an assistant director who you can trust is so important in a public session especially as far as I am concerned particularly when you have only a few dozen sessions under your belt as a director.  

The most difficult session I ever had in a public session was when a person in the audience, a Vietnam veteran, began having flashbacks watching the psychodrama and saw me as his Sargent as I had to play a particularly important role to assist the protagonist and let Bonnie stand in as the director while I did so. It was touch and go and at one point, I actually feared for my life since the fellow said he was going to kill me. I had nowhere to run and there was no one in the theater who looked like they could physically protect me so, I had to literally trust the process and worked with him joining him from my role saying something to the extent of "You are right, I do remind you of your Sargent and he deserved to be killed for what he did." That simultaneously joining and accepting the man's emotions and projection while shifting the context broke him out of one trance and into another and off we went. He recovered as we went forward and came back to several sessions after
 that to work with me. While in a real sense, I was flying by the seat of my pants, I knew from all my experience that joining was the only thing that could allow a shifting of the energy that was fueling his actions. Resisting would have maintained his trance seeing me as the Sargent and we would have come to blows or worse.
I had worked with gangs in Chicago when I was quite depressed and had begun to learn psychodrama. I had no fear at that time since I was quite willing to be harmed since that fit with my feelings about myself. However, I also wanted to be of help to these young men and so on the streets, I began to psychodramatically encounter them daring them to reverse roles with me for a prize they had challenged me for, to buy them some glue to sniff which of course they said was for models they were building. It was such a powerful learning experience for me which allowed me to be respectful of their space and demand respect for mine. That sort of thing stayed with me as it did for my coworker who witnessed it. Years later, he remarked how he had used something like that in an encounter with a young man who was psychotic. 
There are two beautiful books which outline so specifically ways of joining a psychotic person which I think every psychodramatist should read and should be used as part of a training manual. They are both by Dr. Xavier Amador who I hope to work with in producing some trainings in his work. His brother was schizophrenic. 
1) I'm Not Sick. I Don't Need Help
2) I'm Right. You're Wrong. Now What?

Finally, life experience is such a boon. Having seen many psychodramas by fine directors, and life itself is such a teacher which you begin to appreciate more and more as a consequence of working in this field. 
I remember Ferdinand Knobloch talking about who he chose to be the staff at his therapeutic community in Czechoslovakia. He wanted down to earth  people with life experience who were not up in their heads.  So, after absorbing all you can of the theory and viewing those you and others sociometrically deem as effective directors, and having the chance to work with them, it becomes easier and easier to get out of your mind and down to being human with those coming to the open public sessions. One of my most cherished colleagues back when we were working together at Beacon when he came to complete his training, Byron Eicher had his own auxiliary ego which came with him everywhere and I suggest everyone cultivate their own.   It was his asshole. When it puckered, he knew it was time to change direction and it never failed to be on target. 
Blessings all, Hugs, Bud

Adam Blatner <ablatner at verizon.net> wrote:Re: Sociodrama open evenings?       Hello, all. The question of open psychodrama is  interesting, as there have been some people who have expressed some wariness  about the wisdom or ethics involved. Do people attending know what they're  getting into? What are the cautions that directors should know about or be  expected to maintain. What is properly not the responsibility of the  director?
     In the olden days of the 1940s  through the 1970s, people were viewed as somewhat more rational and capable of  making their own boundaries. This is ironic, because during that era, in medical  circles, they were also patronized---not given full information if it was  thought they "couldn't handle it"---such as being told they had a likely fatal  illness. After the 1970s things changed. The feminist movement brought forward  themes that others had noted---the power of authority to subtly silence protest  being one that is most relevant. It's as if the bar shifted upward. Medical  research found that people who gave technically informed consent were found not  to have really understood the paper they were signing. People who were being  explained things often nodded and said they understood but if tested later only  absorbed a fraction of what a patient physician may have said, and not  infrequently got things backward. So when is informed consent "really"  informed?
        The encounter  groups of the 1970s were often irresponsibly conducted, with a baseline  expectation that folks were responsible for their own needs and mental health.  Within this setting, leaders allowed for confrontations and scapegoating that  led to psychological casualties. 

           Even in ordinary  yoga and fitness classes, people are led to do what the leader instructs,  even though it may stress out certain tendons or joints and lead to physical  problems. Learning how to "listen to your body" and resist the instructions that  may work for others takes a bit of practice. 

       Nevertheless, a  variety of centers have operated open sessions, from Moreno's work in the 1940s  through the 1970s (continued by many of the leading training directors and Zerka  during Moreno's decline and after his passing); and at other institutes. Let's  get more feedback about who conducts such sessions.

     Did anyone do this for a while  but then stop and if so, why?

        I have past  correspondence about this, as it's been addressed on and off for many years. I  think Jacob Gershoni was going to write up his experiences, but he seems to have  gotten busy.  I'm not personally experienced enough in leading such events  that I'd be willing to be a first author, but I may help a little in sharing  what I've heard and my thoughts. It would make a good symposium but mainly it  does need to be integrated and eventually written about! 

        The theme of  psychodrama versus sociodrama open sessions adds another dimension to it, for as  sociodrama the contract shifts a bit to the less personal-- there's less of an  implied contract that's therapy-like--- (not that such a contract ever actually  existed, but there are nuances in phenomena). 
      here it shades into Boal's  work and similar efforts like Theatre of the Oppressed and Rainbow of Desire.  

                      Let's see if this probe hits anyone who wants to pick it up and run with it.  Warmly, Adam
    ----- Original Message ----- 
   From:    Peter    Parkinson 
   To: Peter Howie ; Group Talk    
   Sent: Friday, June 20, 2008 3:09 PM
   Subject: Re: Sociodrama open    evenings?

Hi Peter
History wise, starting 1980 there was a    regular one in Thames New Zealand, a small rural community (8000 people) an    hour from Auckland. It was a weekly occasion, government funded that I ran    together with Sally Christie for 13 years, and it was continues by John Barton    (now in Melbourne) and Noel Borst for a further few years after I left the    area. Chris Mourant and I (and later Cushla Clark who took my place, ran a    Monday evening group for several years in Auckland also on a weekly basis.    What open psychodrama will be happening  in Auckland from now on is    currently being discussed.

As you know, Peter, I am keen to see open    psychodrama be available in each and every centre in the world, and perhaps on    the same day of each week or month, so that, when traveling, we can meet one    another through the open psychodrama session and have the method available as    we travel.

Cheers

Peter Parkinson
Aoteoroa New    Zealand

On 20/06/08 6:31 PM, "Peter Howie" <peterhowie at macquariehouse.com.au>    wrote:

   HI fellows,

A quick question - I      know many places run regular psychodrama open evenings - does any one run      regular sociodrama open evenings? 

We ran our first the other night      and had a great response.

Cheers for now

Peter      

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