Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Counting Mistakes
There are parts of life where mistakes really do count, they make a difference. Part of this then involve a ready willingness to get quick feedback about what the mistake was and be willing to correct it. For many people this is undercut by tests in which you only learn (much later) your score, implying […]
Posted in Autobiographical, Follies, Foolin Around, My Favorite Things, Wisdom-ing | No Comments
Back, Dragon!
When I was young I was very taken by the struggle of the boy in the poem, Jabberwocky, in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass. My pretend dragon—let’s call him Poof, because in some ways he came back in the 60s as Puff the Magic Dragon, and I would engage in cartoon-fantasy struggles. […]
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Applying Moreno’s Ideals More Widely
Psychodrama has evolved, and it now has a number of “cousins,” including: – theater artists, actors and directors who realize that improvisation has its own aesthetic, and beyond that, practical applications beyond the goal of entertainment—i.e., the applied improvisation network – drama therapists who emphasize the healing power of creating something aesthetically compelling […]
Posted in Play and Spontaneity, Psychodrama, Social-Depth Psychology (Sociometry) | No Comments
Problems with Social Depth Psychology
To begin with, let’s clarify the terminology. Sociometry has been used in the field of psychodrama to describe, in a more narrow sense, the method, mainly involving making explicit those preferences that are generally not explicit. In a larger sense, the word talks about all the dynamics involved in this process, and I think it […]
Posted in Psychodrama, Psychological Literacy, Psychology, Social-Depth Psychology (Sociometry) | No Comments
Philosophy & Depth Psychology
I’m pretty sure these two categories cannot be adequately separated. I’m not talking about the distortions of recognized mental illness, but rather the distortions and illusions imposed by pretty healthy folks who are moderately introspective and somewhat philosophical. As we have learned more about the prevalence of illusion and how compelling this is, it becomes […]
Posted in Autobiographical, Mind-Spectrums, Spirituality and Philosophy | No Comments
Getting Personal in Experiential Learning
A friend asked me to clarify the difference between psychodrama and sociodrama and the spectra in between. He wrote, “Interestingly sometimes in the past when I started out doing a sociodrama in teaching a group of therapists come up with some themes such as how to deal with an angry patient, someone may volunteer to […]
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Integrating Methods of Psychotherapy
Increasingly clinicians are integrating a variety of expressive therapy modalities in with psychodrama, and the point is that wisely done, this is fine. There is no need to be purist: In a recent book by Carnabucci & Ciotola on Eating Disorders they seamlessly incorporate other modalities with action, including music, art, exercise, yoga, Reiki, and […]
Posted in Psychodrama, Psychotherapy and Psychiatry | 1 Comment
Mandalas
For the last several years I’ve become especially intrigued with the art form of mandala-making, and especially my own form, which often involves making variations of nine circles in a circle. (See a recent example). This has no intrinsic meaning other than it appeals to me intuitively, but were I to try to put into […]
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Problems with “Past Lives”
Someone asked me for my thoughts about the theory of “past lives”—a take-off on reincarnation. First, I think the mind is a hundred times faster and more clever than what we think it is, and it can generate quite compelling and vivid fantasies that seem like realities. In a multi-dimensional universe, perhaps they are a […]
Posted in Follies, Mind-Spectrums, Spirituality and Philosophy | No Comments
A Confession of Faith
A personal myth: Which is to say, The older I get, I sort of think the following: Not that I believe any of this is literally true, of course. It is such a metaphor! But, seriously, I do live deeply into it: That God/Universe is Awakening In a billion galaxies […]
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