ABSTRACT:

Increasingly hot summers, snowless winters, water restrictions – the signs of the climate crisis are becoming more and more apparent in our daily lives. How can sociodrama help to promote a more environmentally conscious attitude, so that we realise that we need to change our lifestyles for the sake of our future?

The discussion will be attended by foreign sociodramatists, such as Marjut Partanen-Hertell from Finland, Enikő Fazakas from Romania or Hungarian experts, such as Barbara Mihóh and Attila Donáth, who have worked on ecological issues.

The aim of the roundtable is to give experts the opportunity to share their experiences and present their work.

Main themes might include:

• How can we address these issues without creating fear, anxiety, or reinforcing images of disaster?
• Sociodrama can also serve as a way for a community to collectively figure out what they can do for their immediate environment. How can sociodrama contribute to developing community solutions in this area?
• To make the necessary changes, it is not enough to change individual lifestyles, but economic, political and social changes are needed. How can we work sociodramatically with this?

The audience will learn about different possibilities and “best practices” on how sociodrama can serve to shape ecological attitudes and conscious behaviour – at the individual, small community, or societal level.

ABOUT THE MODERATORS:

ABSTRACT:

In this presentation ecological scientific facts are combined to a creative process with sociodramatic and other action exercises. After this session participants will be able to:

• explore and illustrate scientific facts with some action exercises and make science alive trough sociodrama
• understand the present ecological situation in the Anthropocene and see their own place in that
• describe what Ecological Justice means and identify their own role connected to that
• define part of the different views and stakeholders emerging on the field of ecological justice
• strengthen their abilities to take responsibility to support the world as we know it now.

Marjut Partanen-Hertell. 2011. Sociodrama in Finland – an environmental context. In R. Wiener, D. Adderly, & K. Kirk (eds.), Sociodrama in a changing world. www.lulu.com
Johan Rockström, et al. 2023. Safe and just Earth system boundaries, Nature, vol. 619, pages102–111. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06083-8

ABOUT THE PRESENTER:

ABSTRACT:

Sociodrama is a natural, powerful and playful method for helping children develop problem solving skills and try out new behaviors and roles. It helps children learn how to self-regulate and develop impulse control as well as to safely and appropriately express strong feelings. Sociodrama can be used to address social issues that arise in the classroom and on the playground such as stealing, fighting, bullying and intolerance. Sociodrama can be used to address issues that come up in counseling and therapy groups such as dealing with abusive siblings, displacement, the absence of parents due to death, divorce and incarceration of parents. The use of sociodramatic stories provides the necessary distance for younger children to address difficult feelings and issues. In this highly interactive workshop participants will patriciate in sociodramatic structures that work well with children ages 6-12 including the Empty Chair(s), Fairytales, Sociodramatic Heroes and Role Training for New Behavior.

Participants will be able to

• distinguish between sociodrama and psychodrama and when to use which
• describe at least two sociodramatic structure that work with children’s groups
  

ABOUT THE PRESENTER:

ABSTRACT:

What are the values of democracy? Respect for individuals and their right to make their own choices. Tolerance of differences and opposing ideas. Equity – valuing all people and supporting them to reach their full potential. Each person has the freedom of speech, association, movement, and freedom of belief. Are we connected to democracy in our cities, in our countries? Social traumas reflect on the values of democracy. In this sociodrama workshop, we will explore the values of Morenian sociodrama and the values of ancient Greek democracy in relation to our connection with democracy and how we can improve our world by providing a chance for a more creative global voice for freedom and social equity, in order to have a collective future.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER:

ABSTRACT:

In the aftermath of the fallen communist regimes at the end of the XX century, these societies are far from reaching a homeostasis.The history of conflicts and lost beliefs has not only created collective trauma and polarization, but these societies have been continuously re-traumatized by the communicated „post-truths“ (Oxford Languages, 2016) and „gaslighting“ (Merriam-Webster, 2022).

The hypothesis is that when individuals fall victim to the societal post-truths and gaslighting, they are inclined to form certain sub-groups with similar mental, emotional and somatic experiencing, corresponding to the fight-flight-or-freeze states: 1) nationalists (angry, agitated, ready to “protect” the nation and fight with the perceived enemy), 2) the nostalgic (fleeing to idealisation of the past, grieving for the communist „paradise lost“), or the numb (those that freeze, shut down or even die, unable to cope with the changed circumstances).
The workshop will include a sociometrical exercise with three groups, a sociodramatic exploration by making use of role reversal and deepening double techniques, with deroling and a sociatric intervention as closure.

After this 90-min workshop, the participants will be able to:
1) explore ways of collective re-traumatisation in dismantled societies and how individuals respond to it,
2) identify how different social sub-groups are formed, depending on the individual autonomous nervous system response,
3) consider some viable social healing techniques.

References:

Oxford Languages Word of the Year (2016): post-truth – “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief“.
Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year (2022): gaslighting: „the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage“.
Billmer, G. E. (2020): Homeostasis: The Underappreciated and Far Too Often Ignored Central Organizing Principle of Physiology, Front. Physiol., 10 March 2020, Sec. Integrative Physiology
Volume 11 – 2020 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2020.00200
Damjanov, J. And Westberg, M., eds. (2023) Discovering the Languages of Peace – A Handbook of Sociopsychodrama
Hübl, T. (2023): Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World, Kindle Edition
Kellerman, P. F. (2007): Sociodrama and Collective Trauma, Jessica Kingsley Publishers – London and Philadelphia
Mass, P. (1997): Love Thy Neighbour: The Story of War, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Porges, S. W. (2020): The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation, Audiobook – Unabridged, Tantor Audio
Williams, J. M. and Tygielski, S. (2023): How We Ended Racism: Realizing a New Possibility in One, Kindle Edition

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS:

ABSTRACT:

After identifying some common collective transgenerational traumas in the group, we will choose one collective pattern to better understand any collective wound and the transgenerational events that have contributed to it. We will also identify, express and reinforce some collective positive resources After some enactments with sociodrama techniques of the problematic situation, together with the positive resources, we will evolve to surplus reality to find and experience different endings for the unfinished business, and we will try to reflect and co-create different solutions for this common collective trauma.

After this session, the participants will be able to identify the main concepts and the main sociodrama and sociometry techniques used and will be able to apply some of them.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER:

ABSTRACT:

The main objective of sociodrama intervention in no profit or for-profit organizations is to intervene in the professional role and the meaning attributed to it. The hierarchical structure never coincides with the actual organizational chart, so people constantly live in a conflict from which they must protect themselves. The work group interacts, communicates, copes with everyday life, but there is a lack of opportunities for sharing and integration. Through symbolic language and the sociodramatic scene, the protagonists experiment with new ways of relating in order to find new answers to the adversities and conflicts they encounter. Sociodrama acts as a connector between private and collective roles in the pursuit of social and personal well-being in organizations and the development of a positive tele.

At the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:

• make more conscious reflections on the roles acted out and the needs to be met within their context of belonging
• read more clearly the group dynamics and conflicts present
  

Please bring an object representative of your professional life!!

ABOUT THE PRESENTER:

ABSTRACT:

In the workshop, we will explore the use of the three circles of interaction developed by J.L. Moreno – Sociometry, Sociodrama and Psychodrama. Those three powerful major innovations in the fields of human relations, would be applied in the group experience. The Tele fields of a group and its various agendas, histories and backgrounds create a unique group cultural situation, which is as particular and unique for every group as the individual’s fingerprints. In the workshop we will look at the doing and being of the group, the conscious and unconscious forces through which we may explore the present – what exists now and how the themes of the group are presented by the individual, in the role of the group’s representative – the protagonist.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER:

ABSTRACT:

Intersecting spaces: navigating individual and social narratives through critical psychodrama (Presentation)
The critical psychology approach takes social factors and social issues into consideration among the causes of psychological phenomena. During the presentation, we aim to look at the individual themes and group processes appearing in psychodramatic scenes, and also their connection to sociodrama, from a critical psychodrama perspective.

Is it among the tasks of the psychodrama leader to make participants of the psychodrama group think about and reflect on discriminative social systems and power inequalities that affect them? Does the thematization of social embeddedness have relevancy when individual themes and problems arise on the stage of psychodrama, and if so, in which way? What can psychodrama and sociodrama learn from each other? What is the result if both the individual and the social point of view appear in the same psychodramatic space?

In our opinion, these are exciting and timely professional questions. Critical psychodrama examines the processes appearing in the space of psychodrama not only at the level of the individual but embedded in a broader social context, using a systematic approach. Basically, individual problems are not merely manifestations of blockages, role deficits, and self-limiting beliefs in the protagonist’s mind, but instead systems created and maintained by several actors and factors. As a result, it can easily happen that the protagonist’s attempt to put their new kind of emotional knowledge experienced on the psychodramatic stage into practice, quickly collides with social expectations and role pressures, thereby making the long-term integration of the new pattern difficult, or even downright impossible.

What can we do as psychodrama leaders? During the presentation, we are looking for theoretical and methodological answers to the above questions and scenarios. We present the main principles of critical psychodrama and introduce interested parties to the dilemmas that a psychodrama leader working with a critical approach encounters.

Tools of insight: enhancing psychodramatic practice through a critical lens (Workshop)
Following the presentation addressing the foundations and theoretical background of critical psychodrama, the workshop will showcase and explore several practical tools of the approach. The speakers aim to expand the psychodrama toolkit with methods, techniques, and procedures that consider individual experiences and the encompassing social environment in their full complexity, thereby opening up new aspects to the members of a given psychodrama group. Throughout the workshop, we aspire to showcase these methods and techniques to the participants, with particular attention to comparisons with sociodrama.

The focus is on applying techniques within a psychodramatic context, enabling group members to develop new, system-conscious interpretations and coping mechanisms and to gain awareness of the social embeddedness of their social roles and identities. In this short method demonstration, together with the workshop participants, we will explore the possibilities of the brought situations and what the critical approach can offer to deal with them.

The goal of critical psychodrama is, on one hand, to establish realistic expectations among group members regarding the nature and process of change and, on the other hand, to explore how individual recognitions can be durably implemented into practice, for example, through building alliances and exposing the weak points of the hidden social structure shaping our lives.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS:

ABSTRACT:

In this workshop, you will see how sociopsychodrama, its theory, methods and philosophy can be used in group work.
You will experience and explore blockages in the social matrix. Through our sociopsychodramatic work we will identify creativity blockages inside social matrix.
Also, we will find ways how to transform these blockages. We will open new pathways for flow inside social matrix.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER: