Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Aspen Education Group
The future of LifeStep
Deborah:
From the Press Release:
--- Quote ---Advances, however, in our understanding of trauma, the adolescent brain and disorders of affect regulation have correspondingly led to more judicious applications of expressive therapies. These understandings have played a key role in Swift River's implementation of an evidenced based clinical model.
--- End quote ---
7. Why is psychodrama not more widely recognized?
It continues to be marginalized for a variety of reasons.
1. There are increasing numbers of competing forms of psychotherapy, new ones emerging every few years.
2. There is a continuing demand for "evidence-based" approaches, requiring hard research.
Many forms of therapy are not readily amenable to more current requirements of research, while a few other approaches are more amenable?especially those that can be described in a manual. (The problem with such approaches is that they address some common denominators in most psychiatric problems, such as sloppy and self-defeating thought patterns. It is not surprising that tightening up thinking would be shown to be statistically effective in most problems, but that doesn't mean it gets to the roots of the problem!)....
http://www.blatner.com/adam/pdntbk/Psychodrama-FAQ.html
--- Quote ---This workshop, hosted by Director of Counseling, Frank Bartolomeo, M.S.W., A.B.D. and Ed Schreiber M.Ed., T.E.P., Director of Moreno Institute East, will focus on psychodramatic techniques and especially the role of catharsis. Psychodramatic methods can be very powerful, however, when misapplied can create the risk of harm especially for certain adolescent populations. This workshop will address these misapplications and offer guidelines for safe, competent application of psychodramatic work.
--- End quote ---
Is psychodrama a cathartic therapy?
While catharsis has been associated with psychodrama, there are many aspects of this method that are not particularly concerned with catharsis per se.
The processes of warming up and behavioral practice often have little to do with catharsis, except in a broader sense of there being a minor, not-particularly-emotional sense of "aha" or "whew" that goes with the integration of any learning experience. This corrects a talk by Prochaska in which he assigned psychodrama to the action phase of therapy, but not to the pre-contemplation, contemplation, or, following the action phase, homework phase. In fact, psychodramatic methods can be helpful and adapted to all phases of the work.
Problems with Psychodrama: Usually people are impressed and pleased with psychodrama, both group members and professionals who observe the method. On occasion, though, I've heard someone report that they either had a terrible experience with the method or they know someone who felt bad about the method. What explains this discrepancy?
Psychodrama, like any method, can be done badly. This is one reason the field tried to build in some quality control by establishing a Board of Certification, just as is done in many specialty areas in the professions. Still, there are many people who use psychodrama who have taken little actual training, and there is no legal way to stop them. It's not a big enough field to lobby for a requirement in licensing. Also, as mentioned, many professionals integrate the methods into their other types of counseling or therapy, and when this is done judiciously, it's usually quite helpful. But it can be done injudiciously, clumsily, or partially.
For example, I've heard a number of people who had negative experiences with "role playing." When these experiences were asked about in greater detail, usually it turns out that the group leader failed to adequately warm up either or both the participants and/or the group as a whole. Under such circumstances, being pressured to perform without being warmed up generates anxiety and is awkward and unpleasant. Some group leaders don't think there's that much to it.
I hear tell of undergraduates who are asked to demonstrate psychodrama in classes on psychology! This would be like asking high school students to demonstrate surgery! It's necessary to recognize that psychodrama?especially classical psychodrama?is in fact as complex as surgery!
Deborah:
Beginning to see it's appeal.
Psychodrama and Dramatherapy are based on the principle that actions speak louder than words. Both forms of therapy encourage clients to be creative and each spontaneous action may contain a multiplicity of meaning.
How then do we evaluate our practice both as art forms and as clinical interventions?
When we can see that clients benefit from these interventions, who are the evaluations for?
Why do we need to present a body of evidence in the first place?
9.45 -10.00 Introduction
10.00 -11.00 Therapist-Researcher: An impossible role to play?
Dramatherapists - and I imagine Psychodramatists too - sometimes set out to find "proof that Dramatherapy (or Psychodrama) works". This may be by searching for studies that other people have undertaken, or by trying to design their own research to fulfil this purpose. I will argue that this goal is (a) too ambitious for the stage of knowledge we are currently at in our professions and (b) in any case a fundamentally flawed question. I will suggest some alternative, more achievable and more valid questions, and make some suggestions for how the professions might develop in order to answer them. Some other questions to be addressed will include:
*What's the difference between efficacy and effectiveness (and does it matter)? :question:
*How are these measured and do we want to play by others' rules to do this? :o
*Is the drama part of the process or part of the outcome?
*Can we 'measure' the drama and would we want to?
I will use my research on the 6-Part Story Method to illustrate some of these questions.
Dr Kim Dent-Brown trained as a Dramatherapist and now works in the NHS and at the University of Sheffield as a Research Fellow in Psychological Therapies. Current research interests include a trial of psychotherapy for Borderline Personality Disorder, and an evaluation of the Layard-inspired Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme. He is convenor of the research sub-committee of the British Association of Dramatherapists.
Anonymous:
This man should practice his "therapy" in an an atmosphere better suited to it.
I suggest the surface of Venus.
Troll Control:
--- Quote from: ""TheWho"" ---
--- Quote --- ?..notice he has no psychology degree and his title is trainer. this guy has no business trying to "treat" anyone.
--- End quote ---
Whoa sorry I gave the impression he was treating kids he is a theorist and writes and teaches on the subject at the Moreno Institute. Deborah pointed this out also in the above post, thanks Deborah, I can see how that could be confusing.
--- End quote ---
the point is that this garbage has nothing to do with psychology. it's roots are in psychotherapy, long ago discredited (like all the works of Freud). he shouldn't TREAT anyone or presume to TEACH OTHERS how to treat anyone. he's a QUACKER.
why would ASR change approaches to include non-outcome-based treatment like this nonsense right after they pledged to do outcome-based work? oh yeah, i forgot...they won't use any outcome-based strategies that would require tracking and reporting results. :roll:
Anonymous:
--- Quote from: ""Covergaard"" ---During my research of Aspen Ranch, ASR og Copper Canyon I have discovered that Lifestep has been abandoned at ASR.
Detainees from Aspen Ranch has to go to Copper Canyon for the Marathon seminars and it is only those person, who is "working the program", who is tormented with the ordeal.
According to a press-release ASR made that the decision to abandon Lifestep in order to achieve better results.
Why did the rest of the facilities not go in the same direction. Why continue to use a less efficiend method?
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_at_Swift_River
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Canyon_Academy
--- End quote ---
Perfect example of ASR changing certain things so they don't appear as controversial. That type of "therapy" is nothing more than new age guru bullshit and it's incredibly dangerous. Especially in a setting like ASR. Once they began to get some bad publicity, suddenly LifeSteps arent' a part of ASR anymore. Or are they?
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