sociodrama thread

[BARNETT WEISS]

Adam wrote: "Boal distances himself from psychodrama. I think this is a mistake, but who am I to suggest this. Folks define their own babies.   They don't systematically utilize doubling, role reversal, and other psychodramatic techniques."
  Whie I have not worked with Boal and hope to meet him some day, I did work with Marc Weinblatt when he was in New York City for a 4 day antiracism training and found him quite open to using all these techniques.  In fact, much of what went on had elements of role reversal, multiple doubling spontaenious at times and sociometric tools used frequently breaking up into groups through chaining and sociometric action lines with people distributed along a line from an extreme at one end to it's opposite at the other end. 
  People then renegotiated for their space and action developed out of that. Of course, I might have had some influence on what happened in the development of that action phase, Hehe.  None the less,  Marc and his partner seemed totally at home with this and began with the choice points with people distributing themselves along that line. 
   
  I did not get any sense of resisting psycodramatic techniques. What I found curious was that Marc said that Boal did not like to work with very large groups say over 40 people when doing one of the more protagonist type Rainbow of Desire format or the cop in the head type interventions. He wanted intimacy and a good measure of control when working.
   
  Perhaps he has changed since then. If not, I think that would be because he did not have the understanding that comes from fully applying sociometric warm ups. I have worked with over 100 persons at a time in an open public session and it was quite intimate for the people since they developed their family groups and felt supported by those throughout whatever action took place with either their member or others. They had time given to share both in and out of their groups and so the level of participation for everyone was quite high. 
  Blessings, Bud
  

Adam Blatner <ablatner at verizon.net> wrote:
          Howdy, folks, about sociodrama:
      Bud brings up an important point: There are common elements in a variety of activities, though people might differ on the proper names to give, or wonder if approach x more properly fits in category M.
             In this case, consider some of the following approaches:
    1. Things called "sociatry"--- while actually there is no particular method or activity for this word, I wouldn't be surprised if a few people started naming a workshop or saying a technique was "sociatry"--- we'll see
     2. Theatre of the Oppressed    -- in spite of that brief encounter between Zerka and Boal at the International IAGP conference in '93, Boal distances himself from psychodrama. I think this is a mistake, but who am I to suggest this. Folks define their own babies.
                 They don't systematically utilize doubling, role reversal, and other psychodramatic techniques.
     3. Different uses of what folks call sociodrama, with variations:
                 People playing more fictional roles, sometimes, ranging from group roles to characters from history or fiction. At what point does this become drama therapy?
                 People doing community theatre, playmaking, working out presentations based on the common experience of a subgroup, community-- at what point is this not sociodrama as originally considered but more improvisational self- or group-revelatory theatre
   
      4. Family constellations therapy (??) It never occurred to me to call this sociodrama-- it has tended to be protagonist-centered.  but it does blur over to a group dealing with collective issues, such as the adult children of Nazis and children of Jews encountering. Miller & Volkas describe the latter's workshops that use drama in "Healing the Wounds of History" in my latest anthology. As to Hellinger's stuff-- perhaps someone has adapted or modified the original approach to address this. 
   
      ...    So when is it useful to acknowledge as interesting variations and yet make some definitional boundaries about a given term?
        what are the boundaries of psychodrama, role playing, sociometry? What activities should be considered NOT psychodrama, for example?
   
      As for Rachel Naomi Remen, the spiritual, and all that. Hey, I'm all for this stuff and think she's terrific, but again are we to think her work is sociodrama? 
             Or, Bud, are you suggesting only that there are a number of facets of creative work being done by others that might inform and enrich our work? (I certainly agree with this.)
   
       Finally, whether or not we might agree that TO is or isn't "sociodrama," in the spirit of the last sentence, I've been encouraging folks to bring in to our field other ideas and methods that might cross-fertilize our work; and in turn to take Morenian approaches and techniques to present at the conferences of other sub-fields so that they might make more use of our gifts. 
   
                      Warmly, Adam
    ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: BARNETT WEISS 
  To: CGayle ; list at grouptalkweb.org 
  Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2008 10:43 PM
  Subject: Re: sociodrama thread
  

I apologize for possibly coming in on a late stage of this discussion. I wanted to know how much anyone has discussed the work of Augusto Boal who for my money is the greatest living ever sociodramatist who has done the work in some of the most challenging places and brought it forward as much or more than Moreno. In fact, Zerka gave him an award for his work at one of the International Congresses of Group Psychotherapy in the 90s.
For me, it would be impossible to adequately discuss or train people in the theory and uses of sociodrama without reference to and utilization of his work. Finally, the most dramatic evolution of all of this comes in the form of Transgenerational Ancestral family constellation work. For those still resisting looking into this work thoroughly, I can only say that It's use in the most dire of social situations has saved lives in large numbers. As far as I am aware, no one has attempted adequately to combine the spiritual ancestral multigenerational approach evolving in this work with the work devolving from Dr. Moreno's contributions and those of his followers who have created many brilliant add ons to his work as well as those who have done the same with Hellingers.  
THe aspect of the Spiritual for me is essential as noted so clearly by so many, one of whom Rachel Naomi Remen M.D.writes and promotes so elegantly of it out of her experiences and work. http://www.rachelremen.com/ see a beautifully inspired talk by her which I have attached  which illustrates this singularly to my way of thinking. 
There are so many of these spiritual warriors.  Too often, we in the "Sciences," deride their "non scientific," work pleading for objective data regardless of Heisenberg and Quantum theory as we spout off from our dark aged mentality. So, Sociodrama for sure evolving I pray. Shall We Survive?
 Best from Bud Weiss. 



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