Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Action Explorations
A Graceful Goodbye: A Book Review
We’re reading together or apart a number of books, as I browse the local library and check out those that appeal to me. One was titled, A Graceful Goodbye: a New Outlook on Death,” by Susan B. Mercer. I’ve written about weddings as rites of passage, and she wr0te enlighteningly about dying. She asks many […]
A Sad But Amusing Situation
Fields of Specialization in psychology or medicine or anything need to struggle to gain recognition and status, but what happens when some of the more active aspirants are “upstarts” who challenge the “establishment”? I was one who, because of my persistence, obtained status from some people—but not in the eyes of everyone! I see this […]
Action Explorations
This is a term I give for non-therapeutic psychodrama. It’s a new term, a new “field.” Really, it’s psychodrama applied to non-clinical problems or, indeed, n0t problems at all! In it’s old form of “psychodrama” (about which I wrote several books and countless articles), it is also applicable in another way. While as psychodrama, it […]
Action Explorations
This is my term for a class of activities that used to be lumped with drama, psychodrama, applied drama—e.g., my anthology on Interactive & Improvisational Drama. I’ve changed my mind, though—I think it’s better to call this category “action explorations”—or, as an alternative, “exploratory enactments.” I am re-writing my two major books on psychodrama, updating […]
Action Explorations Explained
It seems that psychodrama has two roles in modern culture: (1) psychodrama may be used as “therapy,” or (2) it may be used quite apart from therapy, to serve other goals of consciousness-raising. In business, education, personal development, role training in industry, for conflict-resolution, play, and so forth, what I call “action explorations” applies psychodramatic […]
Action Explorations—The Term
It’s time now to break out of the medical model! Although Moreno confined himself to the psychotherapeutic applications of simulations that he called "psychodrama"—and it could well be argued that it was appropriate he did so at that time—now it is even more appropriate for the method to gain some distance from the medical model. […]
Action Explorations: A New Category
I’m proposing a new category for thinking about and addressing collective challenges: “action explorations.” This term includes a variety of approaches that have in common the properties of enactment, improvisation, role, and story. One of the approaches within this category is psychodrama, but most dictionaries and many professionals think of this approach mainly as a […]
Action Explorations: The Field
This field involves improvisation, enactment, insight, and collaborative creativity. Insight involves bringing that which is hardly admitted even to oneself into explicit expression in the group. It helps people be more conscious, to include more within their critical capacity. In turn, that allows people to update old and obsolete attitudes, immature thought patterns, habitual reactions, […]
Action Explorations:The Book
I’m assembling an anthology of how improvised drama, Morenian methods and related approaches may be utilized far beyond their applications in psychotherapy. The book will be titled Action Explorations: Enhanced Simulations, and it will be used to spread the word and encourage applications of Morenian methods in non-clinical situations. Moreno said in his seminal book, […]
Action Methods
I use the term “action methods” to bridge several fields—or applications within fields—to raise the human potential. Psychodrama, drama therapy, educational drama, applied improvisation, maybe even Theatre of the Oppressed, Playback Theatre, etc. Action methods includes them all, transcends them! Perhaps it’s a new class for colleges, for people aiming at not college students but […]
Amplification in Group Work
People often lower their voice unconsciously in order to disqualify their own statements. It’s an expression of ambivalence: “Perhaps I shouldn’t be saying this.” There’s a gradient of disclosure from repression to shouting it from the highest hill: – I can’t admit it to myself at all. Repression. – I admit it secretly […]
Creativity Enhancement
Action Explorations are really just using psychodramatic methods and related approaches as tools for enhancing creativity, in business, community-building, education, even developing spirituality. Applied beyond the context of psychotherapy, though, I prefer using the term “action explorations.” In other fields, creativity itself is being recognized as a valuable dynamic in producing ever more useful innovations. […]
End-of-Life Doula”! Brilliant Idea
I picked up a book at the public library titled A Graceful Goodbye: A New Outlook on Death, by Susan B. Mercer. She’s an end-of-life doula. The idea of “doula” as one who facilitates a major role transition like birth was familiar. Indeed, I was a doula for my daughter’s first child’s first few weeks. […]
Enhanced Simulation (More)
Enhanced simulations should be used as a kind of therapy, and indeed, as part of the training of helpers, paid professionals. It’s also a part of therapy, including psychodrama, drama therapy, and related approaches, may be thought of as a kind of education. Simulations should be applied not only as therapy but rather for all […]
Enhanced Simulations
I’ve been that rare breed of psychiatrist who did psychotherapy, but I’m growing away from that role. As I’ve done so, it recently became more clear to me that psychotherapy is really a lesser application of a broad field that I call "Enhanced Simulations"—although I may not put that phrase in the title of my […]
Enhanced Simulations
The German language “Zeitschrift fur Psychodrama” (Zeitschrift translated literally is time-writing, that is, a Journal). The latest issue deals with general sociological concerns from many standpoints. The problem this poses is that it opens wide the implications of Moreno’s vision and throws into question the narrow bounds of professionalism monitored by the Board of Examiners. […]
Happy Springtime! (2018)
Glorious Spring! Birds are singing, and mocking-birds (my favorite) are impro-vising ! We’re all dancing! We are creating in multiple ways in the service of God-Becoming in an exponential-experiential way. (I just made that phrase up!) I’m writing on my next project, which is an anthology of ways to use Moreno’s psycho-dramatic methodology (or related […]
How Action Expl0rations Work
I see action explorations as being a synthesis of all of the following: 1. The general principle of “Creativity” as a general goal—which contrasts with the 20th century goal of hoping to “get it right” (as if some authority knew what the right answer was). There’s a whole world-view here that shifts from the world […]
Ideas About Psychodrama Literature
Here are some ideas: Let me know if you’re willing to help. First, everything is being digitalized and miniaturized, including our past issues of our journals. (The word for this is “disruptive technology”—a major shift, such as the shift from horse-and-buggy to horseless-carriages—also known as automobiles. Digitization offers a potential of making available a far […]
If Not Psychodrama, What?
A student of psychodrama in Europe asked me about international qualitative and quantitative standards in psychodrama psychotherapy as he is writing a thesis about training between different training organizations and the prospects of some unification of minimal standards. I appreciate his offering me an opportunity to comment as a private citizen, by no means a […]
Improvisation
Paul Jackson in the UK writes: Leaders know that an improvisational mindset helps fuel the practices of many of the most successful companies, especially in Silicon Valley. Leaders frequently reference their impro training, and they bring improviser in to help with management development, team-work and strategy. I’ve been hired by Google, for example, to set […]