Adam Blatner

Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner

December, 2012

Don’t Watch It—Do It!

The number of screens is multiplying—movies, television, hand-held electronic devices, e-books, computer “games”—all “shadows on the wall,” illusions seductively fashioned to offer a hyper-reality, “bigger than life,” more wonderful than anything puny you could actually do yourselves. You can partake of this far more excellent world while in fact in your actual body-mind turning into […]

Posted in Current Events, Play and Spontaneity, Psychodrama, Wisdom-ing | No Comments »

More About Mandalas

I was discussing my own use of mandalas with a lady who has a website about this subject, in addition to producing her own very beautiful designs. Her questions evoked some thoughts that I’ll share with those of you who might be interested. I started drawing mandala-like designs—somewhat circular and symmetrical—around 1966. One fun drawing […]

Posted in Autobiographical, Play and Spontaneity, Psychodrama | No Comments »

The Meaning Instinct

I suggest that humans have an intrinsic need to construct meaning—something that orients them to the chaotic phenomena of the world. We pass along meanings as stories, myths; we organize religious-cultural systems based on these stories. It is universal. (When people become sufficiently disoriented through delerium (due to fever, some plants or medicines, some illnesses, […]

Posted in Essays and Papers, Psychological Literacy, Spirituality and Philosophy | 1 Comment »

Medical-ization

A friend, asking about what she called “arbitrary definitions of illness,” noted that they “pose a therapeutic challenge. As a society we also tend to medical-ize normal human conditions (like infertility). And what’s normal?” This got me thinking about the nature of “diagnosis.” Also, the word "medicalize" is interesting.   Sometimes diagnosis is one of […]

Posted in History, Psychotherapy and Psychiatry | No Comments »

Trauma, ACoA, Psychotherapy

The following are thoughts stimulated by reading a book by my friend Tian Dayton, who recently published The ACoA Trauma Syndrome: The impact of child pain on adult relationships, (2012, Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications Inc.).  The book notes that substance abuse affects not only the person involved, but often the family members, and offers […]

Posted in Psychodrama, Psychotherapy and Psychiatry, Wisdom-ing | No Comments »

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 […]

Posted in Action Explorations, Current Events, Psychodrama, Wisdom-ing | No Comments »

The Art of Blogging

So perhaps we consider blogging as an art form, as valid as sculpture or dance. How much attention should I put into it? Should every piece be rehearsed, re-worked, evaluated in terms of a variety of criteria? Is it elegant, well-written, understandable, persuasive, innovative? It is the extension of easy self-publishing, that’s all. Open to […]

Posted in Autobiographical, Essays and Papers, Whassup? | No Comments »

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