| Callanan, Jennifer |
Taking Leadership of the Soul: Julie takes charge (PDF, 109.7 KB) |
Journal 32 December 2023 |
concretisation, creativity, cultural conserve, enactment, God, J L Moreno, leadership, Moreno, role reversal, soul, surplus reality, systems theory, transformation |
This article, using extracts from Jennifer Callanan’s Psychodrama Thesis, shares a glimpse into the complete work, “Taking Leadership of the Soul. Revitalising leadership development through psychodrama’s experiential learning approach,” completed in June 2023. |
5 |
2023-12 |
| Levack, Glenis |
Creating a New Warm Up to Learning (PDF, 114.6 KB) |
Journal 31 December 2022 |
as if, coaching, doubling, encounter, J L Moreno, learning style, mirroring, parents, Psychodrama, relationship, role, role training, warm up |
Teenagers who are pregnant or who have a young child face many challenges in returning to school, especially when they have had a number of earlier learning experiences that have been discouraging. In this article, factors resulting in students feeling that they lack the capacity to learn are acknowledged and interventions that assist them to have a new experience of learning are described. |
20 |
2022-12 |
| Bennet, Trisha |
Gifts of Encounter at Death’s Door (PDF, 167.1 KB) |
Journal 30 December 2021 |
auxiliary, death, doubling, encounter, flow, healing, J L Moreno, nursing, patient, Psychodrama, relationship, spontaneity-creativity, tele, vulnerability, Zerka Moreno |
Acute vulnerability, rawness, honesty, courage and depth all coexist and surface in the journey towards death. “I don’t want to die!” “It’s not fair, I’ve done everything right.” “I was not expecting this!” “I’m not ready!” “How can I leave them?” “I’m really afraid!” “I can’t even think about it!” “It’s too much!” “You wouldn’t treat a dog like this.” “This is their fault.” “Go away.” Embedded in each of these statements are offerings that communicate ‘what is’ for the person, each of which may lead to encounter. |
7 |
2021-12 |
| Postlethwaite, Jenny |
There’s Lots of World Out There (PDF, 194.6 KB) |
Journal 30 December 2021 |
academic mentoring, coaching, creativity, human development, insight, J L Moreno, mentoring, metaphor, organisational culture, spontaneity, supervision |
Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space (Card, 1995); sparking our imagination, our creativity, our understanding; providing us a royal road of relating to situations and possibility. Here follows a scene from a classic musical. I invite you to warm up to the world of a developing psychodrama practitioner. Don their garb, enter into this scene, sense the role relations, experience the spontaneity, look for what truth, insight and inspiration it may offer for them. |
5 |
2021-12 |
| Logeman, Walter |
The Value of Sociodrama in Psychodramatic Couple Therapy Training (PDF, 287.9 KB) |
Journal 30 December 2021 |
couple therapy, J L Moreno, Psychodrama, psychodrama training, psychodramatic couple therapy, relationship, sociodrama, sociodramatic couple, systems, tele |
This article focuses on the value of sociodrama in the training of psychodramatic couple therapists. The author describes the way in which a sociodramatic approach is employed to bring to life a ‘sociodramatic couple’, who later become the focus of training sessions in which the trainer and trainees explore the effectiveness of various interventions in couple therapy practice. Drawing on the illustrative material, the author reflects on the value of sociodrama in the development of the trainees, at both conscious and unconscious levels, and raises the possibility of applying a sociodramatic approach to training in related fields, such as individual therapy, family therapy and organisational development. |
6 |
|
| Hutt, Jenny |
Perspectives on Racism (PDF, 233.6 KB) |
Journal 30 December 2021 |
anti-racism, aversive racism, Gordon Allport, J L Moreno, legalised racism, racism, socialisation, sociodrama, systemic racism, unconscious bias |
Introduction This article is about racism. My interest was prompted by a study group to focus on the history of the relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other Australians, which I wrote about in this Journal (Hutt, 2018). This work made apparent to me the racism embedded in our history. I wanted to learn more about racism: where it comes from, why it is still prevalent today and how it can be transformed. I began with a search of literature on contemporary social research and anti-racism practice, and along the way discovered the contribution to this field of J.L. Moreno, the founder of psychodrama, and some of his influential contemporaries. This article presents my findings. |
3 |
2021-12 |
| Synnot, Elizabeth |
Book Review: Sociometry, experiential method and the Science of Society (2012) (PDF, 673.3 KB) |
Journal 29 December 2020 |
book review, J L Moreno |
Sociometry, Experiential Method and the Science of Society; an approach to a new political orientation (2012 edition). By J.L. Moreno. The North-West Psychodrama Association. United Kingdom. Reviewed by Elizabeth Synnot. This book is the second edition. It was first published in 1951 by Beacon House, New York. It includes much of Moreno’s significant sociometry writing from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. His writing continues to be relevant today with current social upheavals and tensions between and within social groups exacerbated by internet and other satellite communications. |
10 |
2020-12 |
| Heriot, Anna |
Three Ceremonies: Sociodrama In Situ (PDF, 152.2 KB) |
Journal 29 December 2020 |
ceremony, doubling, J L Moreno, mirroring, social atom repair, sociodrama, spontaneity |
Introduction: Integration of sociodrama into my being I respond somatically to completing my written and practice tasks for my final accreditation. Experiencing myself cellularly as enlivened and buoyed, I am able to sink down into the ocean of my life and work fearlessly, then bob up again, corklike, lightly and joyfully. My confidence, strangely, also feels unsinkable: another completely new experience. I remember Max Clayton looking at me in one memorable moment and saying, “You’re alright you know.” I heard him and believed him, but I didn’t feel it. Now I do. I begin to present myself as a sociodramatist, one who works with the whole group and different subgroups. I know I offer them, and they actively receive, something of real value. I feel the reverberations as I work. |
8 |
2020-12 |
| van Kuilenburg, Philippa |
Distortion, Praise and Authenticity - The Power of Mirroring (PDF, 120.6 KB) |
Journal 29 December 2020 |
development, J L Moreno, mirroring, modelling, Psychodrama, relationship, role theory, Zerka Moreno |
Research has proven the need for positive social interactions for a child to survive (Poulton et al., 2020). A parent’s job therefore is to create a nurturing environment in which the child experiences themselves as being safe, loved and valued. For many of my clients their parents failed miserably in this duty of care as their particular way of engaging their child was through control, judgment and criticism. The child had repeated experiences of being victimised, humiliated, shamed, patronised and pathologized until their confidence was eroded, their perception of self skewed and their ability to relate severely impaired. Somehow however those children survived into adulthood and maintained a small kernel of hope for a different future that led them to sign up for an eight week skills based programme for women on anger management, identity, self worth and assertiveness. That’s when my work begins as I lead this self development programme. |
7 |
2020-12 |
| Knottenbelt, Hilde |
A Place to Meet: Reflections on Group Improvisational Processes on Zoom (PDF, 882.1 KB) |
Journal 29 December 2020 |
creativity, director, German, J L Moreno, Moreno, poetry, protagonist, Psychodrama, spontaneity, warm-up |
Introduction It’s been a month since I worked face-to-face. The studio is looking decidedly casual. It’s become a place to hang out rather than a place to work. In the first weeks of Covid-19 lockdown, as I considered what my working life might look like in the next while, the word ersatz came to me. It’s a term borrowed from the German language meaning replacement, substitute, imitation, fake. In WW1 and WW2 ersatzbrot (substitute bread) was made with potato starch and sawdust and fed to prisoners who starved of malnourishment. I don’t want to create ersatz anything. |
3 |
2020-12 |
| Tapley, Kate |
The Horse as an Auxiliary for Life - Natural horsemanship, psychodrama and leadership development (PDF, 178.2 KB) |
Journal 28 December 2019 |
auxiliary, healing, horse, human development, J L Moreno, leadership, Moreno, natural horsemanship, Psychodrama |
Natural horsewoman and psychodrama trainee Kate Tapley draws our attention to the horse as an auxiliary for life. Through her work training riders in natural horsemanship from a psychodramatic perspective, she has noticed that horses, unerring sentients that they are, act as auxiliaries for human beings, mirroring their inner often unconscious experience with immediacy and authenticity, and following only those riders who prove themselves willing to enter their here and now world of being-ness and presence, as ‘true leaders’. This article presents the application of this approach during a natural horsemanship workshop and the positive outcomes in terms of leadership development, healing and wholeness. |
7 |
2019-12 |
| O'Rourke, Patricia |
The Thinking Heart, The Loving Mind - The application of psychodrama in therapeutic reunification work with maltreated and neglected infants and their parents (PDF, 181.0 KB) |
Journal 28 December 2019 |
babies, child protection, infant, J L Moreno, Moreno, parents, Psychodrama, therapeutic reunification |
In this article, Patricia O’Rourke describes the way in which she applies psychodrama in her therapeutic reunification work with parents and babies in the child protection system in Australia. The paper was developed from a keynote address delivered to the Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand Psychodrama Association (AANZPA) Conference in Brisbane in January 2019. |
6 |
2019-12 |
| Clark, Cushla |
Staging the Therapeutic Experience - Using Moreno’s psychodrama stage in parenting groups for women (PDF, 259.9 KB) |
Journal 28 December 2019 |
action space, audience, balcony, enactment, J L Moreno, levels, Moreno, Psychodrama, psychodrama stage, spontaneity, warm up, warm up step |
Moreno proposed the psychodrama stage as the first instrument of psychodrama. He designed it with four levels, the audience, the warm up step, the action space and the balcony, which mirror the stages of a protagonist’s warming up process. Providing illustrations focused on the use of the warm up level or step and the balcony in parenting groups for women, Cushla Clark proposes that a psychodramatist who maintains consciousness of the structure of the Morenian stage, including improvising the different levels when physical constraints are present, is able to enhance a protagonist’s warm up to spontaneity and produce a full and satisfying dramatic enactment. This article is drawn from Cushla’s AANZPA thesis, Liberation via The Stage. |
5 |
2019-12 |
| Logeman, Walter |
Encounter - The heart of psychodramatic couple therapy (PDF, 183.1 KB) |
Journal 28 December 2019 |
begegnung, couple therapy, doubling, encounter, J L Moreno, love, mirroring, Moreno, natural groups, Psychodrama, relationship, role reversal, spontaneity, synthetic groups, tele |
This article is concerned with the application of psychodrama principles and practices to couple therapy. In particular, it explores Moreno’s philosophy of encounter, that meeting of two, ‘face to face and eye to eye’, which lies at the heart of psychodramatic couple therapy. Drawing on illustrative material, the author shows the way in which the psychodrama structure of warm up, action and sharing apply in a couple therapy session, with the encounter presenting as the action phase. He also describes the psychodramatic techniques of doubling, mirroring and role reversal as they are used to facilitate the encounter. |
3 |
2019-12 |
| McVea, Charmaine |
Spontaneity or Emotion as the Catalyst for Change - Corrective experiences in psychodrama (PDF, 320.2 KB) |
Journal 28 December 2019 |
action insight, corrective experience, emotion, emotion-focused therapy (EFT), Greenberg, J L Moreno, Moreno, Psychodrama, psychotherapy integration, research, social atom repair, spontaneity, transformation |
Corrective experiences are a common factor in effective therapies, often having profound transformative effects. While Greenberg proposes that the activation and processing of emotions produces corrective experiences, Moreno emphasises spontaneity as the therapeutic agent or catalyst of change. Drawing on research, Charmaine McVea argues for the greater efficacy of spontaneity. She proposes that spontaneity not only constitutes an outcome of corrective experiences but also contributes to the emergence of those experiences, specifically through the development of action insight and corrective interpersonal experience during psychodrama enactments. |
2 |
2019-12 |
