Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Psychotherapy and Psychiatry
Perhaps Psychotherapy Cannot Be Evaluated Scientifically
Some aspects of psychotherapy might well be able to be scientifically assessed or validated, but many other aspects transcend this kind of assessment because these aspects are not specific, replicable techniques. Rather, they prepare the stage for clients possibly making some new synthesis, creative breakthrough, or other type of progress. If one approach doesn’t work, […]
Perspectives on “Mental Illness”
Things have changed: Different types of “mental illness” need to be discerned. Certainly the history of medicine includes as a them the recognition that, for example, some diseases that seemed to be infectious were actually due to nutritional deficiency—such as pellagra. Similarly, a number of major mental illnesses such as “dementia paralytica” that was a […]
Philosophy: A Spectrum of Coherence
For many people it doesn’t take that much rational coordination to sustain a viable philosophy of life. Such a system can be sufficiently developed and maintained using a limited number of relatively self-evident platitudes and general social norms, loosely assembled and supported by one’s peer group. Interestingly, all that is needed is the illusion of […]
Play: “Vitamin P” for Optimal Vitality
I went into psychiatry because (1) I truly loved medicine, both the learning what we presently know about the astonishing complexities of the workings of our mind-body; and (2) more specifically, as I got into it, I found the workings of the mind-part even more of a challenge, as well as the channel through which […]
Postmodern Vocabulary: Logocentricity, Marginalization, Privilege, etc.
New words can help us think clearly about new concepts. It isn’t that we’re just trying to be fancy. Old words don’t address the meaning at all. For example, here are some words that help me think about new trends: Logocentricity is a word that suggests that someone speaks in a mode of discourse (or […]
Problems With Psychotherapy
Considering the challenges of counseling, let’s also consider the idea that there may be not just differences in the severity of illness, but rather different types of illnesses, as different as conditions caused by vitamin deficiencies and conditions caused by infectious agents (as I discuss on a webpage about the history of medicine.) So let’s […]
Process is Our Most Important Product
In the 1950s and ‘60s the General Electric company—abbreviated GE—had as its motto “Progress is our most important product.” It occurred to me in contemplating the difference between improvisational theatre and psychodrama that one of the more valuable features of the latter is that in psychodrama the process is made explicit. In theatre there is […]
Prosopagnosia and Other Ability Differences
In the New Yorker of August 30, 2010, Oliver Sacks wrote an article titled “Face-blind: the perils of prosopagnosia” (pp. 36-43). He himself has a moderate case of this difficulty in recognizing other people’s faces, and sometimes even neighborhoods, unless there are other guiding cues he can use to remind himself. This seems to be […]
Psychiatric “Diagnoses”
Several months ago I sent this to the American Psychiatric Association’s committee in charge of making a new Diagnostic & Statistical Manual (DSM-5). I wrote: Though I’m retired from active practice in psychiatry now, I get questions from neighbors; and also I teach and consult with various mental health professionals in training. My impression is […]
Psychiatric Practice: Not What It Was
A colleague recently asked me why I was not still in practice. I felt awkward, because if I kept up with the news, I could be just as good a clinician as I ever was—and my wife said she thought I was pretty good—as have some colleagues, etc. But the field has changed! In the […]
Psychodrama
My old chapter on psychodrama and many other readings on this subject are on my website. Note that some people use terms such as “clinical role playing” and “action methods.” Psychodrama has of late become associated by news reporters with any complex problem suffused with psychological implications. That is hardly its original meaning, which was […]
Psychodrama as a Root Form
Moreno’s method has been a major source for inspiration for drama therapy and a minor source for a number of related fields. For example, there is the Applied Improvisation Network (look it up)—mainly an organization formed by people who have been active in improvisational theatre. These folks have mainly been influenced by the work of […]
Psychodrama Research
Psychodrama research falls victim to the same pitfalls as psychotherapy research: The mind is many-leveled. There is thinking, and thinking about thinking, and pathological and unconscious dynamics, namely the multi-leveled functionality of symptoms. Symptoms are also expressions of the deep self. (I confess to being influenced by the “wild analyst” Georg Groddek, who was a […]
Psychodrama Theory
A recent NY Times Magazine article dated Sunday, June 28, 2015 by Casey Schwartz was titled “Tell it about your mother: Can brain scanning save psychoanalysis”. Schwartz interviewed Otto Kernberg, now 86, known for his contributions to using psychoanalysis with borderline person-ality and work on personality disorders. “Psychoanalysis is several things,” he said. “It’s a […]
Psychodrama, Positive Psychology, etc.
Psychodrama offers a less specific type of positive psychology. The actual founder of PP is Martin Seligman, of course, but Seligman built on a number of previous workers. Barbara Fredrickson is another pioneer in PP. Neither bothers acknow-ledging Moreno, but I think Moreno (who created psychodrama) should be thought of as a pioneer also, whether […]
Psychological Theory: Both / And
J. L. Moreno, M.D. (1889-1974) was prescient in some ways; but not in others. He was right in noticing the deficiencies of psychoanalysis, but he was biased in his own favor. Theories of psychology or psychopathology were at that time either/or not both/and, and it didn’t occur to Moreno to be more inclusive. Moreno’s insight […]
Re-Thinking “Disorders”
I just read that "federal health officials" said that, using a wider screening for "autism spectrum disorders," guess what: more kids are picked up who fit the broader or looser criteria. Duh. If you loosen the criteria on anything, that increases the sensitivity to shades on what used to be the borderline and you’ll pick […]
Recent Psychodrama Postings on My Website
Now on my website with the links here is presentation on Beyond Psychotherapy , which will soon be given as a plenary presentation at the national ASGPP psychodrama conference. I speak to two issues on my mind of late: That Moreno’s methods have many applications well beyond the clinical context; and that these methods should […]
Reconsidering the Oedipal Complex
I’m thinking that a little bit of this is a good thing. I was watching an attractive young mother coo over her baby, about 9 months old, and I thought, “Hm, I want an Oedipal complex. I don’t want to marry Mom or have sex with her, but I do want her to absolutely delight […]
Regarding Psychotherapy Research
Efforts to offer research on psychotherapy are worthy, but there is an additional and rather fundamental problem: People range from low to high ego strength, and this variable—more than the severity of their "diagnosis"—that determines prognosis (i.e., the degree of response to a therapeutic intervention or healing). People with a generous number of compensatory skills […]
Role Reversal
A e-colleague of mine, Barbara E. Johnson, wrote: “Over the years I’ve been introduced to variations of dream dialogue with symbols or characters within one’s dream and intra-psychic imagistic exploration, such as the writings of Carl Jung and his writings on Active Imagination (developed 1913-1916) or Ira Progoff’s technique of Intensive Journaling (that he wrote […]
Sensitive Perception
What if some people are more sensitive than others, and pick up more stuff? We know about tetrachromats, a small minority of people who are sensitive to not three basic colors (like most people) but rather four (tetre) colors! This sensitivity allows for a richer perceptual field, more permutations than most people. What if this […]
Shame: An Underestimated Dynamic
I think shame should be recognized as being as toxic as lead or scaring kids with descriptions of hell. And many medical conditions have a “final common pathway,” a certain rash, headache, fever. I think shame and guilt—they overlap in many ways, although some differences might be discerned—also generate a kind of shrinkage, a somato-psychic […]