Granada IAGP Academy Just Completed

[Edward Schreiber]

May 29, 2008
IAGP Academy - Granada Spain - 	

Dear Colleagues,

I want to share with you about the International Association of Group  
Psychotherapy and Group Processes (IAGP) annual Academy just  
completed in Granada, Spain.  The Academy takes place each year in  
Granada, in the south of Spain.  The Academy brings together three  
group models: the psychodramatic group, the group analytic group, and  
the group dynamic model.  About 100 people from around the globe  
attended and it is growing. The rate of growth of the Academy is the  
result of the shared learning from many cultures of these three  
models and the potential for helping the world situation.

I was a member of the Academy and I presented both a lecture and a 3  
day workshop about Sociatry much of the work from our research of the  
unpublished material of Dr. Moreno.  I am convinced he was not simply  
a psychodramatist or psychiatrist, he was fundamentally a  
sociatrist.  He wrote about the world as one group, and about the  
large sociometric structures impacting humanity, which he called the  
sociodynamic effect impacting all groups, to which sociatry must  
attend.  The IAGP Academy is a true living example of sociatry in  
action.

In a letter I read from Zerka Moreno to the Academy, she noted that  
J.L. Moreno started the IAGP in 1951 as a way to change the world  
order, not only to help people to adjust.  To this day the IAGP and  
the Granada Academy brings together different models of group work  
and people from many lands to address the needs and realities of  
human life.

There were outstanding practitioners and students at the Academy from  
Spain, England, Israel, Morocco, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Austria,  
Greece, South Africa, Cuba, Nicaragua, Chile, Mexico, Guatemala,  
Argentina and Brazil.  I was the lone American.  The Academy is a  
brilliantly designed conference structure unlike any I have ever  
before experienced.  In the morning there is a lecture and  
discussion, setting a tone for the day.  After the lecture there are  
small and medium size groups from each of the models:  a small and  
medium size psychodrama group, analytic group, and group dynamic  
group.  These groups form on the first morning of the Academy using  
sociometry and stay together through the entire 5 days.   There is a  
nice long lunch and siesta break followed with another set of groups  
which are topic focussed and meet through the Academy.

At the end of each day the entire Academy meets in one large group.   
Each year the type of large group changes, this year it was based in  
the group dynamic model.  The structure reflects years of thoughtful  
and creative programming, masterfully done to maximize connection and  
learning.  The richness of bringing together three models of group  
work with so many cultures made for an exceptionally rich  
experience.  Power, domination, culture and history, language,  
translation, gender, boundary issues and differences of time, space  
and proximity, politics, analysis, sociometry, sociometric  
connections, triangles, dyads and synchroncity all emerged.

One morning lecture was given by a psychiatrist-psychodramatist from  
Chile who led groups in silence in a prison camp during the military  
dictatorship where he was imprisoned and where he developed a model  
of psychorama:  internal and in silence, to help others in the camp.
Granada, Spain is the site of the Academy and it felt like the right  
place at the right time.  Granada is close to Morocco and has a large  
and vibrant Arab population and history, mixed in with a history of  
Jews who came to Granada 600 years before the birth of Christ and  
there is a deeply rooted Christian tradition and history.  These  
major religions and cultures have emerged and have created a unique  
melding melting - called Mudejar - a
blended creation and fusion of the three.  The entire city sits below  
the Alahmbra, an ancient Mosque and Palace with Christian influence.   
The amazing nature of the Academy were the sociometric relationships  
which emerged, the tele.

As an example, and Italian psychologist offered a Jungian group that  
took place in the Arab Baths, making use of water during the group  
sessions.  During one of their sessions the image of the butterfly  
appeared and emerged.  Around the same time in another group at a  
different site with a different group model, the image of a butterfly  
emerged as a theme.  The next day in the lecture I gave to the  
Academy on sociatry, I concluded with a presentation about the  
metamorphesis of the caterpillar to the butterfly, the "imaginal  
cells" in the caterpillar that carry the DNA and blue print for the  
transformation - and how humanity is in the same process during this  
period of global climate warming and how in fact we are the "imaginal  
cells".  These synchroncities of connection extended deep into the  
group gathered who have all now left and returned to their own  
sociometric networks, all in some way deeply changed.

Like all endeavors it had some limitations.  There lacked  
participation from other parts of Africa and unlike past years, there  
were no Palistineans participating.  For some members of the Academy  
there were conflicts about boundaries of time.  The starting and  
ending of groups had a fluidity to it, a kind of dance unfamiliar to  
some of us.  For others, in the analytic model, time boundaries were  
important and needed more attending to hold, frame and contain.  Time  
and space for some became an issue, reflecting differences of  
culture.  The process of defining oneself seemed to be a theme for  
the whole experience.  This defining of self was steeped in depth and  
richness of differences of culture and approaches, with much to  
reflect upon.

This was a very active sociometry!  One reason was the Spanish  
culture and Granada, where physical proximity, emotion, passion and  
eroticism are much more in the air than in much of North America.   
There was an almost endless physical contact in the passing of  
strangers on the street.  The richness and heart of the Arab  
communities, their generosity, openness impacted the setting.  Chance  
meetings with a shop keeper in the Arab markets let to suggestions  
for where to visit small villages, which led to another discussion  
with another shopkeeper about Clinton and Obama.  A chance lunch at  
an Arab cafe with a group from the Academy led to an invitation to an  
encounter a few days later about the nature of religion and God.  I  
arrived for this meeting to find that a feast had been prepared of  
traditional food as a gift and to honor an encounter between an  
Spanish Muslim and this American psychodramtist, an encounter in an  
ancient Arab market.

The Academy was a wonderful chance to meet some of the members of the  
IAGP - Moreno's other organization - and taught me a great deal about  
conferences, conference structures and sociometric links.  The next  
Academy will take place in Granada in 2009.

Best,

Edward Schreiber