Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Life Improv(-isation)
There is improv (short for mainly dramatiic improvisation) for psychotherapy, also known as psychodrama, pioneered by Jacob Moreno. This has been given new life by professionals who have also done improv for therapy. There’s also comedy improv, done by people associated mainly with the theatre arts—though some few have glimpsed at improv as a way […]
Posted in Play and Spontaneity, Psychodrama, Wisdom-ing | No Comments
The Impossible Dream
I was singing this song to myself, from the Broadway play of the 1960s, Man of La Mancha—, revealing my private dreams of grandiosity. These betray the mind’s capacity to think in terms of superlatives. Each is paradoxical, a way of dramatizing ambition, such as dreaming an impossible dream or fighting an unbeatable foe. They […]
Posted in Autobiographical, Essays and Papers, Follies, My Favorite Things | 1 Comment
Age-ing (Growing Older)
I’m age 80 now. My wife and I are reading an intriguing book about ageing titled Aging: An Apprenticeship, edited by Nan Narboe. This book’s goal is to help us think about the finitude of our living and to prepares us for our dying, our mortality, our limitedness. The book got me thinking about my […]
Posted in Autobiographical, Spirituality and Philosophy, Wisdom-ing | 2 Comments
Popular Songs (1940-1980 plus or minus)
I realize that I have not kept up with modern music, with a few exceptions. I’ve found the lyrics before that period a bit insipid and after that interval bewildering. That means I’m dated, I fear. I’m reconciled to that, though I am always open to being invited to reconsider a piece. I was looking […]
Posted in Autobiographical, Foolin Around, My Favorite Things | 1 Comment
Improvisational Theology
I disrupt the tradition of theology in several ways: I am not a member of any school of theology, much less even a member of the clergy. I am not building on anyone else’s theology, and indeed, I am somewhere between apophatic—which means I acknowledge that we cannot know much if anything about God—and improvisa-tional. […]
Posted in Autobiographical, Spirituality and Philosophy | 1 Comment
The Higher “I”
I’ve become increasingly aware that I’m only part-way between me and not-me. There are parts of me that are spontaneous, and realistically speaking I should not take credit for these parts or their products. I’m tempted to say, like Jack Horner in the nursery rhyme, “Oh, what a good boy am I!” But a couple […]
Posted in Autobiographical, Psychological Literacy, Psychology, Wisdom-ing | 1 Comment
Explaining “Dimensionality”
I call my theory of reality, my metaphysics, “dimensionality.” The word suggests that some things are better understood as operating at different dimensions. Thus, some truths are best understood as applying to certain dimensions, and there is “more-yet” that is so at a higher dimension. For example, consider solid geometry. In dealing with a sphere, […]
Posted in Autobiographical, Mind-Spectrums, My Favorite Things, Psychology, Spirituality and Philosophy | 2 Comments
Social Inclusiveness
It occurred to me that another function of psychodrama is social validation.. We are social beings who are unconsciously asking, “Do you see me? I exist. Does anyone care? Does anyone find me interesting? Am I in any way a part of the whole?” A colleague in Italy wrote that in a sense, the field […]
Posted in Essays and Papers, Psychodrama, Social-Depth Psychology (Sociometry) | No Comments
Dimensionality
I’ve worked out my own theology: The cosmos is structured somewhat like the triangular designs of the Sri Yantra, in expanding patterns of downward facing triangles met by upward facing ones. In the middle is God, sort-of, a point. The next level out is the recognition that what we call the highest is multidimensional. In […]
Posted in Art (Mandalas, Doodles, Scripts), Spirituality and Philosophy, Wisdom-ing | 1 Comment
“Truth” in Psychotherapy
The idea that one theory for mind is true and the others less so is based on an idea that truth is one, whereas I think it likely that what’s true for one “level” may not be true for other levels or categories. What works for elementary arithmetic may not be true for psychology. It’s […]
Posted in Psychodrama, Psychology, Psychotherapy and Psychiatry, Spirituality and Philosophy | No Comments