The first quarter of 2021 has passed by like a whirlwind! What will the rest of 2021 bring?
In February, I received exciting news from the American Board of Examiners (ABE) that I had passed my psychodrama exams and am now a Certified Psychodramatist by the ABE. Being the first fully qualified Psychodramatist in Singapore certified by the ABE has been a long journey. Nevertheless, I am grateful for the years of my own growth as a director of psychodramas and of group psychotherapy. I recently also received news that I am now a PAT or Practice as Trainer. This opens more doors for me to give out psychodrama training hours that can count toward certification with the ABE!! So, look out! Our training program towards certification as Experiential Facilitators and Psychodramatist is in the pipeline! I will start running short training workshops in which you can start accumulating your hours sometime soon!
In the meantime, keep coming for our Personal growth groups so you get to do your own work and experience the action method of psychodrama in more depth.
After having our first in-person Open Session in January, we ran a Personal Growth Group that comprised of mostly counsellors and facilitators. Many psychodramas were done on various themes including Chinese New Year and the Chinese Zodiac animals. We thought about which animal we would prefer to be and had some hilarious fun!
Following this we started a Women’s group called “Disarming My Inner Criticâ€. The 6 week group is almost finished and we plan to run another one beginning in May. Having women of all ages in the group has been a real gift as mothers in the group gain perspective from younger women who have them play the role of daughters. The healing in the group has been amazing to witness. Do join us for the next one starting on 22 Apr – “Ready Set Glowâ€.
Our Open sessions have been held monthly with the participation of people from all walks of life. Our last one was fully subscribed and we had to start a waiting list as spaces are limited due to Covid-19 restrictions. We have 2 bottles of sanitizer in the room, tissues and wipes, as well as extra masks in case people need a fresh one. All the necessary precautions are being taken to ensure we all stay safe! Join us or tell your friends about it!
The pandemic changed the way I run groups and has called on me for greater spontaneity and resilience. What I took so much for granted has become a luxury today. Having large groups in a room, smilling about and shaking hands is a sweet memory from a day I hope will return someday.Â
This year in January 2021, we began our first group in Singapore after the number of cases dropped and the situation remained fairly stable. We were allowed a total of eight (8) people in the room, including myself. With two large bottles of sanitizer and a box of disposable masks, we began our first session. We sat one meter apart (roughly 39 inches), and began with introductions. So how do group members see each other and have connection with faces obscured by masks and social distancing creating further separation?
With only eyes exposed and body language to read, the power of tele still is at work.
Tele, a term coined by Jacob Moreno, is referred to by him as the invisible connection that flows between two people. Ann Hale, in her book, *‘Conducting Clinical Sociometric Explorations’, states Moreno’s definition of it as, ‘insight into’, ‘appreciation of’, and ‘feeling for’, the ‘actual makeup’ of the other person. Most of us have experienced ‘tele’. That inexplicable feeling that you ‘click’ with someone after talking for a short time. Often it starts before you meet, when you see each other across a room and know that you would like to meet this person. It is that intangible element that attracts people to each other and starts the process of communication. These connections between people were observed by Moreno who began to map them out in his studies of social networks. This study of connections between people he termed as Sociometry from the Latin root words “socius’ for companion and ‘metrum’ for measurement.
Planning the sessions, I always begin with Sociometry. As Ann Hale says Sociometry’s purpose is to reveal information about group members and to show, “… the connections which exist between group members.†Shared experiences people have are discovered as we do warmups such as ‘Polarities’, Locograms, Spectograms and other sociometric structures. These exercises get people moving and into their bodies, thereby assisting them to access their spontaneity more easily.
Sociometry includes having people choose based on certain criterion with a view that the choice will lead to an action. For example, asking the group, “Who would you like to have lunch with later today?â€, means that their choices will be followed by them having lunch with the person they chose. Thus tele comes into play as people make choices. The work of a group leader is then to pick warm up exercises that help to reveal more about each individual so that each group member has a higher likelihood of being chosen by others. So the outliers who are shy reveal surprising details about their lives and interests that make them more attractive as choices to others in the group. This has the power to often re-distribute the attention from the most chosen person in the group to others, thereby creating more inclusion and group cohesion.
During one of our sessions the protagonist chose someone to play her younger self, feeling ashamed that she couldn’t understand the language everyone else was speaking in the pre-school. She felt alone and that nobody was going to help her. After the drama, the auxillary she chose shared a story about how she had also been shamed for not being able to speak the language in pre-school and was still carrying the trauma and shame. The person the protagonist had chosen to play the teacher, shared that he comes from a long line of teachers which was why he could take on the role so easily. This all came as a surprise to the protagonist who had no idea about the backgrounds of these two group members, but she acted on her sense of connection and insight into the makeup of people in the group.
In another session, a woman who was doing a drama about her mother chose someone who had a mother with similar issues. This was not known to the protagonist and during the sharing, the auxilary spoke about having a similar mother who was clinically depressed and stayed in her room all the time just like that of the protagonist. She was able to play the role so well because it was so familiar to her! Many such ‘coincidences’ have led me to consider tele as an almost intuitive knowing that we each have within us. This knowing seems to be activated by our spontaneity as we go with the flow. There is almost an existential aspect to it which echoes Moreno’s theory that we are all connected via the universal consciousness of the ‘Godhead’, as he put it.
As I look back on these sessions, I am once again blown away by the power of the action method of psychodrama and sociometry. Using it to build the group, I see how true Ann Hale’s words are when she says Sociometry is “…a methodological necessity for the conscientious group leader…â€. I echo this sentiment as I lean on sociometry to build connections far beyond what the eye can see!
*Hale, Ann E. (1981). Conducting clinical sociometric explorations. Royal Publishing Company: Roanoke, Virginia.
This
poem quoted by JL Moreno is an illustration of the concept of role reversal in
Psychodrama.
When someone steps forward and says ‘yes’ to being spontaneous and thereby to being creative, they are open to the possibilities of changing perspectives.
As
I’ve directed Psychodramas over the years, I have come to see the Psychodrama Stage
as a laboratory where the protagonist experiments with different possibilities
and outcomes. Relationships are explored and as role reversal takes place, the protagonist
gets to experience the Other and the psyche of the Other that lives in them.
We all have a version of our Mother, our Father, our sibling, our enemy that lives in us. This version when brought on the stage gets concretized (or made concrete/ real) by the use of another group member who takes on the role as an Auxillary. As the protagonist reverses roles and takes on the role of the Other, he or she can then take on the posture, speech style and warm up to being that Other person. Their version emerges and the encounter with the Auxillary playing them takes place. They then reverse roles and the Auxillary (as the Other) will repeat what has been said and the protagonist experiences a dialogue with the Other. This goes on with several role reversals until the Protagonist’s purpose has been achieved with the Director.
This
experiencing of a different perspective engages empathy and deepens
understanding of the Other. Moreno called this the Encounter.
The
poem quoted is from his seminal book “Who Shall Surviveâ€.
