Granada IAGP Academy Just Completed

[CGayle]

Wow!  Thanks, Ed, for sharing about this phenomenal experience!  What a 
stimulating conference...esp. the world mix, and blending of group methods. 
Congratulations as well for sharing your work in such a venue.
Best to you,
Cynthia Gayle


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Edward Schreiber" <edwschreiber at earthlink.net>
To: "Grouptalk Listserv" <list at grouptalkweb.org>; "bulmonte21 Burmeister" 
<bulmonte21 at bluewin.ch>
Cc: "Rosalie Minkin" <ROROBEAR at aol.com>; "Fred and/or Toni" 
<fharthor at bestweb.net>; "MA Frank S Bartolomeo Cummington" 
<fbartolomeo at swiftriver.com>; <christian at revolutionarywisdom.us>; "Zerka T 
Moreno" <tmceline at comcast.net>; <fdumar at leadershiptools.com>; "Adam M. 
Barcroft" <amb1111 at mac.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2008 10:16 AM
Subject: Granada IAGP Academy Just Completed


> 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 unpublished material of Dr.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
>
>
>
>
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