Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Current Events
The Problem with Holistic Medicine
Holistic and alternative medicine has been largely coopted by quacks. This is not to say that some of its approaches are valid. I suspect they are, and indeed that they will induce a revolution or two in the field. However, there are 1000 alternative holistic approaches out there and 950 are probably not valid, in […]
The Relevance of Play
Play is not just a bit of frivolity. It is deeply connected to psychological freedom, spontaneity, and creativity. To illustrate the power of overlapping properties of a dynamic, consider electricity: In the 19th century electricity was found not just to “flow,” but also to have many properties not envisioned at first, such as its relationship […]
The Truth of Truth (or Is It Delusion?)
“Aha, it all comes clear!” Such is the compelling feeling of what I heard called an “epiphanous delusion” that is a hallmark of paranoid schizophrenia. (See the Wikipedia on Apophany.) Or mystical insight. Or for that matter, any compelling insight or convergence of notions. Some of these can seem crazy to others, and some indeed […]
The Whizzard of Ahs
This is a bit of an autobiographical contemplation: Perhaps I too am a bit like the Wizard of Oz, not a great wizard, but really a good man. Maybe my name in another story would be “The Wise Art of Ah’s” or the “Whizzerd.” Anyway, the point of this post is: Who is to say. […]
The World Needs You (Or, Why You Belong)
I read on a listserve news item of a colleague doing a workshop titled, "Where Do I Belong?" I wrote an email to my professional colleagues and, before erasing it, it occurred to me that it applied to lots of folks. I googled “The world needs you” and found many entries. Good! So what if […]
This Moment in Time
There’s a song with that title and first line. I’ve been a fan of Jewish humor, especially in the mid-20th Century. I picked up “The Myron Cohen Joke Book” (New York: Gramercy Press) and have been leafing through it. It reminded me that I’ve enjoyed humor and cartoons, joke books of various types, all my […]
Time Passes, Fashions Change
There was a comic strip for a while titled Mother Goose and Grimm, in 1995 or so—and the title of the strip in question is Vampire Coffee Houses, and it shows a vampire is singing on a guitar, “Sunshine on my shoulder makes me shrivel up and blow away; Sunshine on my eyes burns […]
Too Much or Not Enough
The comedian George Carlen remarked, “There are two kinds of people on the road: idiots and nuts. Idiots are those who drive slower than you; nuts are those who drive faster.” A friend wrote that as president of his (church, synagogue, congregation), he was always needing to mediate between those who felt their clergyman (minister, […]
Translation Feature
The internet and technology in general continues to be mind-stretching. I asked about a new feature, the ability to insert automatic translations, and my son was able to insert this “app” or feature. I am astonished and grateful, as well as curious. What means this? It motivates me to import more papers onto the blog, […]
Types and the Power of Folly
How much insight can we expect people to develop in our time? I am wary about this, because it seems to me that very few people value or expect to experience true creative breakthroughs. That expectation is a rare “meme”—a term for an idea that catches on. In contrast, a meme that has widely caught […]
Vicissitudes of Cultural History
Forty years later a culture blossoming may become re-interpreted popularly in ways that are very different from the currents involved at the time of that phenomenon. I was on the outskirts of the hippie revolution in San Francisco in the late 1960s, for example. The other night our group had a hippie-theme square dance, though […]
Warning Against McCain’s Political Associates
Forgive me, but this is a pro-Obama piece in the run-up to the 2008 presidential election. Still, it presents some interesting perspectives that haven’t sufficiently been addressed in the news: One of the major elements in actual political life involves the choice by the winning politician—especially in the election of a United States President—of members […]
Ways of Growth
This anthology is matched by a website for others to write about their non-psychotherapeutic applications of psychodrama, drama therapy, applied improvisation, drama in education, Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, and other forms that overlap with the expressive arts therapies. It has occurred to me with increasing vividness that much that began as "therapy" need not […]
We Got Off Easy
It’s not just watching television! As grandparents grow older, there’s hosting family in trips out to eat, or at home. Clothes for grandchildren. Kids who are in financial straits or crisis. Paying off cars. Worrying about kids’ family’s debts. Attending sports, graduations—it goes on and on, filling one’s whole life. In our case, we have […]
We Had It Easy!
First, there’s a funny skit by Monty Python’s Flying Circus where four guys try to out-brag how tough they had it as kids. As a child of parents who lived through the depression, a common complaint we heard our parents make was “You kids have it easy! We had it tough!” School was more demanding, […]
What Are Old People For?
That’s the title of a book written in 2004 by Dr. William H. Thomas, subtitle: How elders will save the world. (Acton, MA: VanderWyk & Burnham, 2004). He brings up many points that I find important. I have become interested in subtle forms of oppression—including overt and subtle forms of age-ism—a theme that has become […]
What is Applied Theatre?
There’s an emerging field, a sub-set of the theatre arts, that differs from ordinary theatre in that it’s not done just for entertainment. It’s used for education, social action, community-building, recreation, personal development, therapy and rehabilitation, business, religion, and so forth. It’s been emerging for a few decades, but most modern books on theatre don’t […]
What Should Young People Be Learning
In the June 7, 2010 issue of the New Yorker on page 21 there is an article about whether college is really cost effective. My attention was caught by the statement that skills appropriate to the workplace include the ability to “resolve conflict and negotiate,” “cooperate with others,” and “listen actively.” What strikes me here […]
Who’s Right
On a website, https://shar.es/16hs8Q , the writer of a blog criticizes a New York Times essay by Barbara Ehrenreich, a best selling author. The essay criticizes the “selfish side” of thankful-ness. The criticism suggests that she may have misread the research? My response is that this is a meaty topic for sociodrama. Of course there […]
Why Don’t They Lock Up the Nuts?
I as talking with an acquaintance who was dismayed and a bit angry at the murders by nuts around the country. “Why don’t they lock ‘em up?” It turned out that she really believed that psychiatrists were able to tell with some degree of accuracy who was really dangerous and who wasn’t. She was a […]
Why I Think Attacking Iraq is a Baaaad Idea
1. It’s not a pre-emptive strike–that’s an euphemism, a nice way to put what is really naked aggression. The claim is that they’re going to attack us or someone pretty soon, as soon as they get their armamentarium established. The appeal of the “hawks” is to that point in history before Hitler attacked, perhaps that […]
Why We Should Get Out of Iraq Now
A couple of years ago I posted on my website a paper, Why invading iraq is a baaaad idea. Turns out I was right in ways that I hadn’t even anticipated. Mixed emotions: I confess to being slightly triumphantly satisfied, but mainly I’m very sad, worried and indignant, enough to be losing sleep over it. So […]
Zordak’s Easter
My little flying saucer little green man friend Zordak was explaining: The Easter Bunny is an example of neoteny—the tendency of species to take on the qualities of the young child—which evokes instinctual responses of “cute” and the desire to nurture, to have around as pets, or stuffed toys. It speaks to the archetypes of […]