Skip to content

Flip remark within serious news conference opens a glimpse of psychodrama

Barrack Obama in his first news conference as United States President Elect makes a couple of light remarks. One about the White House children’s dog selection. The other turning a titter at having said he had spoken to all past presidents. First he says “All living past Presidents”, then “I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing”. Afterwards there were many things to deal with, tie up or follow up on. One has priority. He phones Nancy Reagan apologises and has an engaing and mutually satisfying conversation. A correspondent noted that it was not only flip it was innacurate. That former First Lady had consulted astrollogers. In fact the report continues it was First Lady Hilary Rodham Clinton who had spoken with the dead. A seance? no, not that. In a counselling consultation her therapist had guided her into a conversation between herself and her heroine First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

That may have been “guided imagery” or it might be “psychodrama”. In psychodrama the space that becomes the stage where encounters occur whether a space in our minds for creative imagery or a space cleared on a floor, within which to stand and be “self” and then to cross the floor turn and speak for and as “the other”. Active body movements and speaking free-flow out loud can release what we don’t know we know inside, and have us discover what we otherwise will fail to recognise.

Not then seances, but stars and planets for one, and being a star in her own psychodrama with her hero in “surplus reality” for the other. Hilary Clinton is not with a medium but a therapeutic guide facilitaing a warming her up to herself and her vision of her hero, her dreams and her own aspirations.  The psychodrama producer is a companion watching for the body cues that a person themselves wil not see so that Hilary or any client can be alive to them and gain motivation and confident flow towards making her goals a reality in her life. Psychodrama is not weired or spooky and nothing to do with letting all hell rise up and run loose. Psychodrama is about meeting and integrating ones own truths.

{ 1 } Comments