Amy Cuddy starts by asking us to pay attention to what we’re doing with our bodies. Are our shoulders hunched? Are we trying to not bump into the person next to us? Are we sprawled out? She encourages us to notice how our non-verbals effect us! She points to research that the body language of others effects us immediately. This is relevant to psychodrama because we often work extensively with body language, reshaping body posture, and experimenting with body movement as a warm-up trigger for new roles. Amy Cuddy starts by asking us to pay attention to what we’re doing with our bodies. Are our shoulders hunched? Are we trying to not bump into the person next to us? Are we sprawled out?
Role reversal; is a technique typical to psychodrama, and it is one which is considered by many practitioners as the single most effective instrument in therapeutic role-playing. According to J.L. and Z.T. Moreno (Moreno et al. 1955), such a procedure is important not only for interpersonal socialization with others, but also for personal self-integration
This is a discussion with the author of a new book, David Brooks. He has summarised the main findings he considers are important from cognitive science. 1) Most of our thinking is below awareness, 2) Emotion is the foundation of reason, and 3) we are deeply linked and respond quickly to others. Tell me this does not interest you. I dare you! This certainly interests us.
BONUS culture has come under intense scrutiny since the ongoing financial crisis began in 2007. Many people have been outraged by the way some bankers and top executives seem to have been rewarded for failure. Others find the idea of multimillion-dollar bonuses morally abhorrent. Even US President Barack Obama has gone as far as to call large bonuses "obscene".
But few have asked whether performance-related bonuses really do boost performance. The answer seems so obvious that even to ask the question can appear absurd. Indeed, despite all the fuss about them, financial incentives continue to be introduced in more and more areas, from healthcare and public services to teaching and academia.
Many readers would be familiar with the model of unconscious and conscious competence. If not then please keep reading because it is included in its briefest form below. However you might be aware that established habits demand little conscious effort. It is presumably an evolutionary advantage to be able to do something until it now longer requires conscious awareness to be competent at it. Take, writing, reading, driving, cooking and bringing someone a cup of tea in the morning.
Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying: 'Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do.' Being a highly virtuous child, I believed all that I was told, and acquired a conscience which has kept me working hard down to the present moment. But although my conscience has controlled my actions, my opinions have undergone a revolution. I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.
What an extraordinary situation is that of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he feels it. But from the point of view of daily life, without going deeper, we exist for our fellow-men--in the first place for those on whose smiles and welfare all our happiness depends, and next for all those unknown to us personally with whose destinies we are bound up by the tie of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. I am strongly drawn to the simple life and am often oppressed by the feeling that I am engrossing an unnecessary amount of the labour of my fellow-men. I regard class differences as contrary to justice and, in the last resort, based on force. I also consider that plain living is good for everybody, physically and mentally.
This is a chapter of a book called “Too good to last: The death of a caring culture” Written by Dr Robert Crawford and reprinted here with his kind permission. There are a number of Maori words and you may need to search on google if they are not familiar though often the context will give them their meaning as well. This example is taken from the vast stores of Robert’s experiences. The patient’s are not real though the examples are. Details have been altered enough to make them indistinct and keep the anonymity of actual patients secure. Reading this is a powerful experience.
This article by Mike Consdeine was published in the ANZPA Journal 15 December 2006 is about accessing spontaneity in a role training session. In it Mike relates his understanding and learning about spontaneity in dramatic enactments and when he discovered that spontaneity is the key.
Like many of life’s significant events this one begins with a story.
Psychodrama and sociodrama participants in general, and protagonists in particular, often report that during a session their conscious experience is altered. Many are in fact drawn to experiential methods by their desire for this experience of heightened awareness. Psychodrama will be seen as altering most of the 14 dimensions of changed subjective experience that characterise altered states of consciousness (ASC’s). Psychodramatists need to be aware of both the dangers and benefits of experiencing altered states.
