Healing World Trauma with the Therapeutic Spiral Model. Группа авторов

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      ROLE RECIPROCITY

      We can make an analysis of almost any role to become aware of its implications, no matter which category it belongs to. Most roles do not exist in isolation, but are linked to counter-roles: there are no parents without children, no teachers without students, no therapists without clients, no slaves without masters, etc. In other words, we are all inter-actors with one another and it is precisely in this area that our problems occur and which concerns us in our work. Those of us who cannot do well in interaction suffer the consequences, as do their inter-actors. As psychodramatists, this interpersonal interaction is our focus. Helping people to change relationships is what we are called upon to do.

      Even artists, composers, painters, sculptors, poets, etc., though they work under exceptionally isolated conditions, need to have audiences to complete their true mission. If not recognized by others, they are considered failures. And today they often work in partnership or even teams. Many have to die to become immortal by recognition ex post facto.

      ROLE REPERTOIRE

      According to Moreno, we all have a role repertoire. That role repertoire is rarely used in its entirety. It is potentially far larger than we are aware of. There are new or different roles to be found and used and they can be given “trial runs” in our work, before they are employed in life. Some persons just do it in life, such as starting a new career. Thinking in terms of our role repertoire means being alive to our role potential. It also means we can drop unsatisfactory ones, try out a different form, or leap to new ones as yet untested.

      It is useful for us to take time once a month and take stock of our interactions with others based on our role repertoire, to see how well we are doing. Are there negative repeat performances or have we been able to change the shape of our role interaction, producing a new reaction to an old situation? If not, what do we need to do? Practicing new behavior can either be done in life or, if not possible, in psychodrama, remembering that it is linked to how one plays any role in relation to specific others. We may have to modify our roles in terms of the setting in which interaction takes place; one and the same performance under varying circumstances may lead to disaster. That is where spontaneity-creativity must enter.

      The concept of the human being as a role player led to my investigation of how the new roles imposed upon us affect older roles. At the time of the Second World War, when the role of the Soldier versus the Civilian was constantly active in our midst (unhappily again being played out in our world today), I began to investigate that concern and published a report on the results in our journal Sociometry (1944).

      The Five Instruments of Psychodrama

      Classically, psychodrama consists of five instruments: the Director, the Protagonist, the Auxiliary Egos (Therapeutic Actors), the Stage (or working space separated from the seated persons), and the Group. In this chapter I deal with the functions of the director interwoven with what is expected of the auxiliary ego, as I have come to formulate them over the years. These work as a team, not as combatants. The director leads but the auxiliary ego may come upon new information for the director to consider as useful or appropriate at the time or later.

      Functions of the Auxiliary Ego

      I think of people who take upon themselves the task of auxiliary egos as special humans because they put their own needs aside in order to be of use to others. The word “therapist” derives from the Greek therapeutes and means servant. What better way to serve can there possibly be? Remarkably, however, such work is unintentionally beneficial to us as well when we play an auxiliary ego role. It makes us fuller, more complete persons.

      The first function of the auxiliary ego is to portray the role required by the protagonist in order to help to complete that person’s drama. It may be a human being, body part, a pet or animal, an object, a ghost, a voice, a wish, a delusion or hallucination or vision, or whatever is needed in the drama.

      The second function is to come as close as possible to the perception the protagonist holds of that role, however bizarre it may appear.

      The third function is, while in action, to try to feel out, like a social investigator, what is really going on that the protagonist is not dealing with openly, some hidden dimension or part of the interaction. I have learned, in that function, to say, “I have never told you this but…” and out may come what I sensed. The protagonist is at liberty to confirm or contradict. (I will return to this later.) As director, I give my auxiliaries a certain amount of liberty to be as inventive as possible, provided that this is of assistance to the protagonist, not intended to show off their cleverness.

      The fourth function is to interpret feelings engendered in the interaction of which the protagonist may not be aware, which may be an extension or elaboration of the third.

      The fifth is to be an instrument of guidance to the future for the protagonist, as when the protagonist needs to learn a change of behavior for example.

      Classical Psychodrama Interventions

      The Double

      My own training in psychodrama began as a double to psychotic clients. The double is an old idea of the invisible being inside us. Psychodrama uses the double to assist in the exploration of the world, inner and outer, of the person enacting their life, who is the protagonist (Z.T. Moreno 2006). The double is a special function of the auxiliary ego in that the double takes on the identity of the protagonist. Because at one time we worked primarily with psychotic persons, the double was standard procedure. The director needed to learn what was really going on and the auxiliary ego, as double, became an interpreter of that inner world to the director who stayed outside the action. The double serves as a bridge between director and client. Doubling is not hard to grasp – after all, to whom do we talk inside ourselves when we are in trouble?

      As a double, I was trained to stand, sit, or walk next to the protagonist and to look sideways from time to time at their face and body. Body language gives new clues for the emotional state being enacted. We were not allowed to stand behind a protagonist for doubling. First of all, the subject has to see the double and standing behind does not allow that; besides, it becomes an intellectual exercise, not an emotional experience. Also, the double cannot see the face, or the body stance, the hands, or the feet, which might give important signals. When there is good doubling with the protagonist really “seeing him/herself” represented, it often corrects their position and movement. Doubling is done with the totality of being; if they stand behind the protagonist, the double becomes the voice of conscience and may confuse more than enlighten. In that case doubling is done with the head, not the heart.

      The Mirror

      The auxiliary ego as mirror refers to showing the client what their behavior looks like to others, to alert them to view it “as if in a mirror.” The protagonist remains sitting in the group while watching her/himself being portrayed (Z.T. Moreno 2006). It is a useful tool with non-insightful clients. It also allows the protagonist, after observing this action, a chance to change the offending behavior, to learn a new way to interact with others, including with others in actual living space and time. Psychodrama, therefore, is also behavior training. That aspect, though important, is often neglected in favor of therapeutic resolution and may be therapeutic in itself, since it can change both intrapersonal and interpersonal organization.

      The Soliloquy

      Another useful psychodrama technique for the director to use is the soliloquy, or “talk with the self.” We are familiar with Hamlet’s “To be or not to be,” which neatly summarizes his dilemma. Psychotics often use it in such a confusing manner that it may СКАЧАТЬ