Role Reversal, etc. (response to Peter H)

Fri Mar 28 20:24:48 CDT 2008

I couldn't agree more. Glen Doman of www.iahp.org THe Insititute for the Achievement of Human Potential has been coaching parents for years so that they do not DUMB THEIR CHILDREN DOWN. The result is parents who follow his program end up with total geniuses by and large self motivated to learn in divergent directions coming from their interests.  Also see John Gatto's work Dumbing Us Down as well as his Underground History of American Education which details the roots of this dumbing us down process which is working to the benefit of those in power. Gatto is one of the most amazing teachers ever. He was the New York State teacher of the year in 1992 having for years taken the most difficult middle or intermeidate public school troubled near dropouts and turning them into some of the most accomplished self motivated students in the New York Schools anywhere in a year or so. 

All children other than those with serious brain damage or serious retardation are born geniuses and I'm not so sure that these latter ones are not as well, it's just harder to get it with them. Instead of teaching children, we need to learn to assist them as they go about mastering everything in their environment and expose them to more as they go along. Sociometry in the classroom and elsewhere would go a long way toward assisting their Genius coming out in social engineering for the benefit of all. 

 Howard Glasser's work in Transforming the difficult child through the nurtured heart approach has shown that the geniuses we have unwittingly made into monsters through our compulsory schooling and TEACHING STUFF can be saved by basically noticing what they are doing that is good and calming ourselves down when they act out.  This is similar to the work of DeShazer ( deceased unfortunately) and Inzoo Kim Berg in Milwaukee who put together SOLUTION FOCUSSED THERAPY which is still one of the most effective approaches for shifting children and adults out of their blocked paths and back onto the road of productive satisfying lives. 

Ah well, there's the rub.  Too many good things happening all at once. That's why we need Fred Newman to balance things out. LOL.  Blessings, all, Bud

Peter Howie <peterhowie at macquariehouse.com.au> wrote:   Dear Ivo,

 First up I am not a Wilber fan or anti-fan. But I wanted to put a small counter to his idea of the 3 major development levels from a Morenian perspective. Maybe not a Morenian perspective but a Morenian expression at least. Moreno suggested in one of his books on Sociometry that - something like - " the child is not interested in self-realisation - the child is interested in world realisation"... and it is us that stop at self-realisation. I think also implied is that the child with all their capacity for spontaneity and creativity is pegged back to only self-realisation.  This I guess has more to do with the interests of the child - while what you are bringing up is the capacities of the child - but interesting nonetheless.

 Cheers

 Peter  Howie
 www.morenocollegium.com.au

 At 07:54 PM 3/28/2008 +0000, Ivo Banaco wrote:

 We can add in this conversation some useful theoretical inputs by some important points made by the field of developmental psychology. American philosopher, Ken Wilber, makes an important synthesis of some of the most important discoveries in this regard. To put in simple, every human being develops through 3 major levels of development that goes from egocentric to sociocentric to worldcentric (eventually kosmocentric in the higher realm). There are many scales that we can discuss, but the normal movement is from the narrow circles of egocentricity to the wider embrace of the world and its perspectives. 

 Things get more complicated (but more intuitive) when Ken Wilber adds to this levels of being, lines of development. The most important works in this field comes from Howard Gardner with his frames of mind and multiple intelligences. The general message is: Some people can be better in some areas, other people in others. 

 Ken Wilber's theory is more complex than that as some of you might know, so I will not develop more than that. 

 Having said that, let me just explore an important intersection about levels&lines and this conversation about Moreno's Developmental Theory. Ken Wilber in most recent works develops an important meta-theory framework. Specifically in the interior/subjective dimensions of human beings (what he calls the Upper left quadrant and Lower left quadrant, being the exterior/objective dimensions the upper right and lower right quadrants, completing the four quadrants of reality, upper quadrants the individual dimensions, lower quadrants the collective dimensions), Wilber distinguishes the view from within and the view from without. Let's call them zone 1 and zone 2 approaches, respectively. 

 A zone #1 approach privileges an understanding of the subjective and intersubjective dimensions of our beings from within, using the first and second person languages, using meaning, intersubjective mutual understanding, hermeneutics, phenomenology, etc.  A zone #2 approach is mainly a structuralist stance, an "it" language, a theory. Ideally, these two perspectives must be co-creating an integral view of subjective dimensions. A failure to do so could have serious negative implications. For instance, Freud could had had a pretty good theory about the unconscious, neurosis, etc, but it lacks a good therapeutic method in order to bring solutions to the patients. He was good at it language, not so good in zone #1 approaches.

 In this discussion, we should have in mind that what is being discussed is mainly a view from within, which is great as far as it goes. Concepts as role reversing, mirroring, empathy development, must intertwine with modern research of human development in its multiple intelligences. 

 "Experience without theory is blind, 
 but theory without experience is mere intellectual play"
 - Immanuel Kant 

 I think the above simplifies my issue.

 All the best,

 From Portugal,

 Ivo Banaco

 On 3/28/08, Peter Howie <peterhowie at macquariehouse.com.au> wrote: 

   Hi Adam,

   Good responses! but lunch and a meeting call. 

   PH  The other aspect of this model is noticing when a client or trainee is, during their work, in one or other of these stages. For instance confidence fading, energy going down can often indicate the stage of a double and hence doubling is valuable. The stage may only last a moment but it could indicate some form of doubling rather than mirroring or role reversal (which includes mirroring)

            AB: I think you're saying that doubling is often useful when the protagonist is "losing energy" -- is that so? 

   No I am suggesting that the protagonist is actually acting as though they are in the stage of the double - that in the role they are in they are incapable of the things a person who has gone through the stage of the double are capable of - in that role. Its not there in role reversal or taking up other roles. But really a person may have matured past the stage for all practical purposes but when enacting a drama they may be in that stage again. 

   Cheers

   Peter

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