Adam Blatner

I wrote about this previously under the title, “Creating Your Living,” but that was not the best phrase. You don’t create what you do, but you create how you describe what you do, or did. Indeed, how you describe it makes it anywhere from tragic to annoying, from good enough to glorious. You’re playing with words, but the word “play” tends to trivialize what is also called “re-framing” in psychology, or shifting from fair to great in publicity or propaganda. (It reflects the fact that words have other words that say the same thing but describe it with more of a positive or negative twist. This is what comes of knowing about semantics.)

For example, I’ve been shifting from using the word “psychodrama” to “action explorations.” I don’t want the many unpleasant associations many have about psychodrama—which, for one thing, is now the name of a grunge rock group. It’s also socio-  (as in sociodrama), and sometimes it’s not dramatic.

I acknowledge Moreno’s psychodrama, the base form that I’ve written about extensively, but now that I’m turning away from applying it as a method of psycho- therapy and more towards applying it to enhance creativity in a broad range of settings besides psychotherapy—in business, in education, in religion, etc.

Back to re-narrating, using semantics intelligently, re-thinking not only how you speak but also how you think about things. The main thing is to re-tell your story so that you are truly encouraged!