Functions (Sub-roles) of the Psychodrama Director - Seeking Information/Citation

[CathyNugent at comcast.net]

Hello, Psychodrama Colleagues - 

Thank you for the thoughtful discussions that occur on this listserv.  Although I rarely weigh in, I read the dialogue regularly, and I find the discussions very stimulating and helpful to my ongoing work as a psychodramatist and PAT.  

I am writing at this time with a request for help:  I am planning a training session on directing skills, and, among other things, I'd like to offer the trainees a conceptual framework on the director role.  From my training with Doug Warner many years ago, I vaguely recall  learning that J.L. (or maybe Zerka?) delineated some number of (maybe 3-5?) "functions" or sub-roles of the psychodrama director.  My memory on this is not good, and I cannot find the reference (although I think it is one of the Psychodrama Volumes).  

I have a vague recollection that these "functions" or "sub-roles" include:

Analyst/Therapist - The director brings his or her knowledge of personality, psychopathology, human growth and development, and appropriate interventions to the director role to help shape and guide the action toward the protagonist's goals

Director (or maybe Producer?) - The director uses knowledge of staging, dramaturgy, as well as his/her aesthetic sensibilities, to produce a coherent and aesthetically pleasing drama.

Sociometrist (?) - The director relies on her/his knowledge of sociometry to promote connections between and among group members, to select a protagonist or protagonists, to guide the enactment of transferential relationships in dramatic enactments and/ through encounters. 

Social Investigator (?) - The director probes the social world of the protagonist to elicit clues for action and direction the drama should take (?)

I think there may be one or two additional functions, but I am not sure.

Can anyone help by indicating whether the above functions/sub-roles (what did Moreno call them?) are those identified by Moreno and if my descriptions are substantially accurate?  Are there others I have missed here?  Have I made some up?  Finally, if anyone knows where I could find this information in a primary source, I could then go to the text for further information. Thank you so much for any help! 

I hope this message finds everyone well and in good spirits!

Best wishes,

Cathy Nugent
Laurel, Maryland

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "Adam Blatner" <ablatner at verizon.net> 

Dear Colleagues, 
      My poor percolating brain has been chewing on a number of issues. 
          1. Belonging-ness: Posted on webpage: http://www.blatner.com/adam/psyntbk/belongingness.html   This essay also touches indirectly on issues related to sociometry, though I felt that for a number of audiences the introduction of that word would be a distraction. In another paper, perhaps, I'll relate this paper to the sociometric implications.  

        2. Paradigm Shift: My intuition is that we are in the midst of several fundamental shifts of world-view. One is the developing of more complex forms of self-reflective thinking: Written about on  http://www.blatner.com/adam/consctransf/paradigmshiftmtcog.html   

         I'm working on essays on two other paradigm shifts---maybe three--- and would be more than interested in your ideas. The question is not just what new ideas are becoming more influential, but whole complexes of ideas involving many cultural institutions. What represents a way of thinking that was almost unheard of fifty years ago, and/or was vaguely disreputable. (A friend noted that a new idea begins as heresy and ends as superstition! ;-) 

       Warmly, Adam Blatner, M.D.
   website: www.blatner.com/adam/   
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