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Transcript

The psyche is not linear

It is a system of interconnected systems

And and amazing flow of energy

Role Theory captures both:

structure and energy!

It is a systemic approach to

the old questions.

It can be tested and

is tested in many ways.

It is elegant and understandable.

It has a small set of building blocks

but unlimited capacity for explaining

different phenomena of life.

A role is a crystallized form of all responses

a person creates in similar situations.

Is the food shopper a role?

There are some

useful categorization of roles

Psychosomatic roles

Social roles

Psychodramatic roles

progressive roles

fragmenting roles

coping roles

Roles emerge and grow only if they are enacted in a situation. See further explanation in the Warm-up section.

How is the food shopper role built up?

Role size means the scope

of situations where the role is enacted.

Role size also means the strength of internal organization of the role.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the stars.

(Max Clayton)

Roles size grows by enactment. Overdeveloped roles have to be decreased, underdeveloped roles to be increased. Embryonic roles need care to start growing.

On a social network everybody is there without whom the person would be different.

Parents, grandparents, spouses, husband, wifes, children must be signed. Grandparents, friends, previous girlfriends and boyfriends, living or deceased relatives, important teachers, pets or even books can be on the map.

A whole network of supportive roles is a developed role network. Such a network tends to behave like one unit and can be described as one role at the next level of abstraction.

Professional roles are typical role networks and almost all social roles are an integration of previously experimented roles.

Spontaneity propels the individual towards an adequate response to a new situation or a new response to an old situation.

Creativity is a state and process where something new is born

Introduction to

Role Theory

Role Theory is a framework for interpreting internal and social phenomena. It uses the language of both drama and psychology. It's best use is in psychodramatic and training settings.

Theory

History

Role Theory starts with

Jacob Loevy Moreno, the founder of psychodrama.

He had a vision of the human being having a source of divine energy.

The concept of "role" evaded the social sciences. Recently the term is used as a trivia (leadership roles, social roles, etc.). The original "role" concept is closer to the "identity" concept that is used in scientific circles.

Thank you for watching!

Building blocks of the system

+ +

- -

mutually rejective weak connection

- -

+ +

+-

mutually acceptive strong connection

+ +

+

=

+ -

- -

ambivalent connection

Role systems

Roles

(pictured by circles)

Connections between roles

(pictured by lines and signes)

+

energy, that flows into these systems and

generates short and long term dynamics,

that we generally call life

by Peter Aszalos

What is a Role?

peter.aszalos@openessence.eu

During lifetime people accumulate a role repertoire. Health and capacity for survival supposes a richness of this repertoire. Missing important roles entail continuous suffering, maladaptation and compensation.

Example

Definitely

Mary's behaviour, emotions and thoughts during shopping are evoked and enacted in every foodstore, on holiday or with a friend of her. She just needs a food source and she is ready.

This means the food shopper in her is a role: a complex that controlls her personality in a well defined set of situations.

Every morning Mary goes down to the shop, selects products, looks for healthy food, calculates the needs of her husband and children. She feels joy to prepare food for her family. She thinks her family is the best place on earth for her. She is a enthusiastic food shopper.

Inside a Role

The sleaper, the eater, the lover, the runner. Psychosomatic roles have a genetic basis and are present at birth.

Early memories and feelings are stored in the body and can be released.

A role is a unit of the psyche composed of ideas, emotions and behaviour in a special domain of life.

Roles and role categorizations are not strict science. Rather they can be used as good guides in many situations. Fragmenting roles have to be weakened and progressive roles have to be strengthened.

Mather, father, husband, policeman, sibling, teacher, classmate, body-builder, pope.

All these roles have meaning only in a social context.

Example

selects

looks

actions

calculates

From 3 components

Every morning Mary goes down to the shop, selects products, looks for healthy food, calculates the needs of her husband and children. She feels joy to prepare food for her family. She thinks her family is the best place on earth for her. She is a enthusiastic food shopper.

emotions

feels joy

thoughts

thinks her family

is the best place

Roles of imagination, where experience goes beyond the ordinary reality. Witches, heroes, Superman, little mouse, beautiful flower, wind and all the figures count here. Less fantastic examples include memories, anticipation of the future, expectations and fears. This realm is called surplus reality.

When a friend tells she had to fight with her internal beast no one thinks it was nonsense. Rather we get involved into the situation she is experiencing.

There is a continuous

interplay between the components

Emotions

Ideas

  • of the world (this is a frightening word)
  • of myself (i am ok)
  • etc
  • behavioural patterns
  • solutions

Negative roles that are split form the self and their counter role parts that embody the suppressive force.

Individuated roles, emerging from the "true self". They are the center of self-esteem, balance, awareness.

Adequate roles developed in the family system are also progressive.

Behaviour

Roles important for survival in the family system, including 'moving against', 'moving away' and submissive roles.

How are roles

born?

Enacted roles live in us and have a major inpact on the present.

There is a long way from the unity world of the newborn to the specialized universe of the adult.

Roles have a history

Role

Roles have a beginning...

Roles don't stop changing...

Psychodramatic and social

roles start growing by internalization and imitation

biological functioning

generates psychosomatic

roles

roles are strenghtened

and weakened

The child internalizes the (counter) roles of the parents.

new roles are created

new roles emerge

when the person meets

new situations

psychodramatic roles develop in the encounters with other people

His or her roles emerge in response to these counter roles.

As an adult he or she "reverses roles" and start enacting the counter roles in the appropriate situations.

social roles are defined by society and its values and children learn them during socialization

roles get connected

and loose connections

A conscious internalization process start very early with imitation.

...if they are enacted

roles get connected

and form role systems

There are other forms of role-learning. Socialization can be seen as a process during wich roles are grown, elaborated and suppressed.

Role Size

Energy

Role naming

overdeveloped

embryonic

underdeveloped

adequate

A role is best named by its function.

Furthermore an adjective is added describing the atmosphere, giving further insight into the meaning of the role.

Overdeveloped roles fill up situation where they have nothing to do. Consider agressive behaviour, overgrown self-defense, addictions, hypochondria.

Embryonic roles are those (almost)

never enacted but being dormant in the psyche as seeds. They are activated in brand new situations or during psychotherapy.

Underdeveloped roles appear as a lack of adequate functioning.

Give or receive love or to be adequately assertive reflect underdeveloped roles.

Example

Adequate roles have a strong organization. Ease of enactment and competence is characteristic for them.

Note: role naming has some rules to be optimal

the naming process is based on mutual communication

naming a role is not an objective process: the actor has to be reminded that no one else can know which word fits best

good chosen names can heal socially imposed views (e.g. instead of being "exalted communicator" one may choose "expressive lecturer")

Roles are continuously created

using spontaneity and creativity

Overdeveloped roles exert themselves at the expense of other underdeveloped and valuable roles.

A balance between spontaneous action and

habits is preferable.

Moreno gave a definition for spontaneity

It is an energy that works only NOW!

It cannot be stored, it only can be used.

Spontaneity arises when one gets into connection with something else.

Spontaneity is the spark that bring us to the unknown.

however Phil Carter's is clearer and crisper

Spontaneity is a rediness for a free and vital response to the emerging moment.

Warm-up and Enactment

Without creativity one can be a spontaneous idiot. Without spontaneity, creativity is just determinism.

Creativity uses all the forms, systems one has created, all the experience, memories and other resources one can reach in a given moment.

S - spontaneity

C - creativity

CC - cultural conserve

W - warm-up

Social network

Drama

Special systems

Role cluster

On this social atom women are signed with red circles, man with blue rectangles. Distance means closeness felt here and now and connection strengths are relevant. Note some connections with +- signs that mean ambivalent relationships.

Variations

Who would be included to make life ideal?

How did it look in childhood, adolescence or in the future?

Fragmenting role connection

Collective network showing groups, clubs, organizations.

Surplus reality network: heroes, helpers, ancestors, fairy tail figures, etc.

A set of roles with given connections is a role system.

In most cases in life not a single role but a role system influences a persons actions.

Role

Systems

Roles connect up in a meaningful whole.

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