International Psychodrama News & Survey
(Compiled by Adam Blatner, M.D., T.E.P.)

Re-Posted July 3, 2013.

Dear Psychodrama Colleagues Internationally,
    For many years (as many of you know), I have endeavored to promote a greater degree of networking among the many psychodramatists internationally. I've compiled directories (published in the British edition of my Acting-In, in 1997); for a while contributed a column on global developments in the Psychodrama Network News (the newsletter of the ASGPP in the USA); and for several years I've posted news on my website on the internet. What's great about this medium is that I can revise it as needed, with your input! 
         You can see the more recent items published on related webpages on the following related webpages:
             International Psychodrama News A-E      International Psychodrama News F-M
           International Psychodrama News N-Z         2013sojourns: Photos from Recent Conferences
 
    Please help me to maintain our networking. Your efforts also create a kind of sociometric process insofar as we give  ourselves as the whole group feedback about who we are and what's happening with us. I think of this process as an extension of Moreno's ideal of a sociometrically-informed society or group dynamic.

 In order to network better, it helps to know something about others. For this reason, we post news sent by our colleagues around the world, along with email addresses. (Alas, some of these may no longer work well, as people sometimes change their email addresses without letting the larger interested collective know about these changes.)

      Another sociometric technique for promoting group cohesion is the development of a photo directory
of the international leaders in psychodrama
.

        All these serve the general principles of letting people know what you are doing, so they can recognize you, appreciate your efforts, feel inspired by what you do and for how psychodrama is spreading throughout the world!

    Another function of these news-web-pages: Those who want to travel to other countries to teach or learn may be helped to do so by using the email contacts in making arrangements for programs.

  My hope is that more people will be inspired to join international organizations, attend international psychodrama and/or group psychotherapy conferences, submit papers, and get their ideas more widely read and known, and that from all this, personal connections can grow and a greater sense of group cohesion can be experienced by the field as a whole.
 
    Let’s try to build an international network in psychodrama. Already there are some threads in this process: The International Association for Group Psychotherapy-Psychodrama Section has a listserve that includes also people who may not be members of the IAGP; there is a listserve, “grouptalk,” centered in the United States, that also has many people from all over who participate. I think there may be (or have been) some other networks, such as one in Spanish.

   I have had on my website some pages that note the developments happening in psychodrama internationally, and before that, listed events in our own national (ASGPP) “Psychodrama Network News.” Now with the continuing expansion of the internet, there is an opportunity to network further.

   Another effort has been made in the past in our Journal of Group Psychotherapy, Psychodrama & Sociometry–titled (before around 1971) simply “Group Psychotherapy”–the journal Moreno founded around 1945. It had some issues devoted to “international developments.” One of the advantages to this kind of format is that it goes in “hard copy” to many university libraries. The point is to make available to researchers, those who might be a little interested in psychodrama and want to know more, how the field is expanding and being used all over the world.

   Please make an effort to find someone in your country–perhaps you–or perhaps a few of you– who will then write at least 3000 words about how psychodrama is operating in your country or region. Here are some of the kinds of questions to ask:

   1. Estimate the number of people using psychodrama in your area. Develop this estimate by considering how many people attended your last local conference on psychodrama or who showed interest especially in psychodrama at your last local conference on group therapy or psychotherapy in general. If you have one or more psychodrama organizations, or training institutes, please estimate the number of people involved in those.
        You might want to differentiate the number of professionals involved who have just dabbled in psychodrama and then gone on to use the methods in their work, but don’t identify themselves primarily as psychodramatists. (The cut-off might be those with less than, say, 200 hours of exposure.) Then there are those with more than 200 hours, serious students and those who have graduated. Note also those numbers who are fully certified as practitioners and teachers. The idea is to give some sense of the size of the field in your country–50, 200, more?

    2. If you have an organization, what is its name, initials, and do you have professional conferences? How often?  When is the next one?  Do you have a newsletter and/or a journal? What is its name?  Does the organization have a website? What is it?
      (Try to have something–even a little–describing this information–in English on your website.)

   3. Please list some of the main books you use–those translated from other languages, and those written by people there in your own language. Full citations for our international bibliography would be appreciated: Lastname, firstname. (Year of publication). Title of book. City and country of publisher: Name of publishing house.

  4. A small review of the history of psychodrama in your country would be nice, who the pioneers and early trainers were.

  5. Mention a few trainers and institutes and their email addresses, and note especially those who would be willing to network internationally.

  6. Note various applications of psychodrama in your area. In some regions, psychodrama is used more in the schools, in other areas, in trauma work or prisons, or as aids in consultations in business and organizational development. The idea is to both give some international recognition to those pioneering new approaches in your region and to help the world community enjoy and be inspired by innovations elsewhere.

  7. Please visit my webpages and review what is said about your country. Help me edit those items, correct email addresses that (1) no longer are valid, because they’ve been changed; (2) the person no longer wants to be listed on this website or contacted. Do likewise for changing institute names, email or postal addresses and website urls (a u r l is a website address), or historical errors. Events that are past or no longer significant, help me edit out. This might also become the basis for your written paper about developments in your country.

  8. We continue to seek translations of articles, and ideally, if they can be scanned on or sent in digitized format, we could put them on the web somewhere. On this website if nowhere else. Translate from English to other languages, or other languages into English. (Feel free to take my papers on this website and translate to other languages.)

  9. Please browse my website and link to the various pages there, especially about history of group psychotherapy, photographs of Moreno and other leaders in the field, books available in psychodrama and drama therapy, and various other papers on psychodrama.

 10. Please send me photographs of leaders in psychodrama in your field along with about 40 word captions. Note if you want your email address listed.

The following list has been significantly influenced by Dr. David Kipper (in Chicago, USA), has been active in the IAGP and one of the editors of the International Journal of Action Methods. I suggested that we have an article about the state of the field internationally, and in response David suggested the following survey among all the countries. (In my email communications, I find that not every country's psychodrama community can be easily described in these terms, but here is a mixture of his suggestions and what you might be able to answer.
     Also, you might print this off, copy it, distribute it among your colleagues, and compile the results.  As people respond, I'll put an edited copy on my website. As corrections or additions are needed, please email me with how you want the summary revised. I'm assuming that unless you specify otherwise, it is okay for me to include your name and email address or those of others– that you've checked with them. Please don't feel that you need to follow Dr. Kipper's outline carefully, but rather just use it as a general guideline. If you can't answer some or most of the questions, that's okay--try answering any of them even just a little bit!


   SURVEY OF PSYCHODRAMA INTERNATIONALLY
David Kipper, PhD, TEP

 1. Name of your country.

 2. Your name and email address.
 A: The name and email addresses of some of the major trainers, if they are willing to have their name and email address posted on the internet. (Please note what languages they speak, read and/or write)
           (B. If you have some names and addresses of enthusiastic practitioners or students who can read and write English and would also be willing to help develop the international community and internet correspondence, please list a few of these here–if they also give permission to do so.)

 3. Number of people in your country who are involved in psychodrama– even a rough estimate.  Perhaps that may be broken down into the following categories:
    A. Number of members of your national psychodrama organization, if you have one.
    B. Number of people who have over 500 hours of training in psychodrama.
    C. Number of people who have over 150 hours of training.
  (This is because there are a fair number of professional therapists who get some training and go on to use psychodramatic methods in their work without ever becoming identified in their own mind or professionally as psychodramatists.)
    D. Number of people studying, in active ongoing training programs–not just introductory or follow-up workshops.

 4. If you have a professional association or society, what is it (in your language, and then also translated into English)
      A. When was it founded? Or incorporated?
         (1) What type of incorporation?
               (a)____Legal
               (b)____Legal/professional
               (c) __Informal/voluntary

 5. Does your country's organization have a national newsletter?
           How often is it published?
      A. What about a professional journal?  What is the name of the journal?
          How often is it published?
     (Do you also use publications from international newsletters or journals?)
     (Do you publish many articles on psychodrama in your country's general psychological or psychotherapy journals, mixed with articles on other approaches?)
    B. Does your organization have a website?  What is it?
          Are there any papers on it?    What languages are on it?

 6. Have there been any books published on psychodrama in your country?
        How many?   Please list three of the more recently published ones.

       Please note the books that are most widely used in your training programs, even if they were written many years ago.

 7. Does your country have a certification process that differentiates people with a goodly amount of training from those who are interested in psychodrama or a similar approach but not particularly trained?
      If so, please estimate the number of certified practitioners.
    A. If you do have a certification process, is it organized in your country or is there an international or other certifying board?  What is the basis of certification?
       (1) How many certified practitioners do you have?
       (2) How many certified trainers– directors who are recognized as being able to train other psychodramatists?

    (See below for more detailed breakdown of types of practitioners, if you care to try to fill that section out.)

 8. Number of training programs or institutes in your country________
   If less than four, please note their names and some of their main trainers.
    If any of these trainers would be interested in email communicating with colleagues internationally, and would be willing to list their names and email addresses online so that others could reach them, please list those names and email addresses (five or less)

    A. Estimated number of person currently in training programs___________

 9.  Places people practice psychodrama (estimated %)
         (a)_____  Training institutes
         (b)_____  Private practice
         (c) _____  Out-patient clinics
         (d)_____  Inpatients groups (in hospitals)
         (e)_____  Schools
         (f)______ Management and businesses
         (g)_____  Self-growth and Wellness centers.

10   What percentage of their work is based on psychodrama, role playing,
           sociometry, work?________

11. Is your national organization affiliated with other organizations?
       A. A general psychotherapy or group psychotherapy organization in your country?
     Which one?

       B. An international psychodrama organization, such as FEPTO or (and) Psychodrama Institut fur Europa ?

12. Do you have plans for any national or international conferences?
  A. When was your last conference and how many people attended?
  B. When is your next conference?  What languages will be used?

12. What other questions would you suggest? Additional comments are welcome.

Dr. Kipper points out that a general email questionnaire will not offer a truly reliable sample for any scholarly assessment and will be biased by those who answer; my response is that we can only try, and then work with what we get–some information may be better than no information at all. Anyway, your help will be appreciated.

Finally, the nice thing about a web-page is that it can be easily revised, so I'm interested in your suggestions as to how we can make this process more effective.
           -                    -                              -                                   -
Addendum, from item number 6 above. For those who keep records, it might be helpful to break down the listing of certified practitioners as follows:

     B. In some countries, that might be broken down as follows:
        (1) Number of certified first (Assistant) level
                (a)  Their Academic degrees
                (b)  Their professional major area (other than psychodrama)
                (c)   Their average age (and range)
     (d)   Male/female percentage
       C.  Number of certified Second/Director level
                (a)  Their Academic degrees
                (b)  Their professional major area (other than psychodrama)
                (c)   Their average age (and range)
     (d)   Male/female percentage
         D. Number of certified Supervisor level
                (a)  Their Academic degrees
                (b)  Their professional major area (other than psychodrama)
                (c)   Their average age (and range)
     (d)   Male/female percentage
 (* I think this is more specific than most people could respond to, but I included it because Dr. Kipper wanted it.)
         E. Other types of Certification e.g., sociometrists, role theorists, pedadogue/psychodrama. Please fill as many as appropriate.  If not applicable skip to item number
             (1)  Number of certified.......................................   Assistant level
                (a)  Their Acadenic degrees
                (b)  Their professional major area (other than psycchodrama)
                (c)   Their average age (and range)
     (d)   Male/female percentage

            (2)  Number of certified.......................................  Director level
                (a)  Their Academic degrees
                (b)  Their professional major area (other than psychodrama)
                (c)   Their average age (and range)
     (d)   Male/female percentage

      (And for a different track of training)
         (3)  Number of certified.................................  Assistant level
                (a)  Their Academic degrees
                (b)  Their professional major area (other than psychodrama)
                (c)   Their average age (and range)
     (d)   Male/female percentage

          (4)  Number of certified.......................................  Director level
                (a)  Their Academic degrees
                (b)  Their professional major area (other than psychodrama)
                (c)   Their average age (and range)
     (d)   Male/female percentage



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PS: If you're interested in finding out what is going on in the world of psychodrama, or want to send an announcement of workshops, new books, etc., please consider subscribing to the IAGP-Psychodrama Section Listserve!  To subscribe, go to the IAGP Website:  http://www.iagp.com/lists/psychodramalistinfo.htm   or, ou can simply email to   psychodrama-announcement-list-subscribe@iagp.com and we will let them know how to complete the sign-up process.