Working with Groups: ‘EnActing the Withheld’
Psychodrama, Dramatherapy, Theater of Oppression, and Augusto Boal
Source: https://augustoboal-oppression.weebly.com/theatre-of-the-oppressed.html
Introduction
This is the fifth blog devoted to “working with groups” as a part of a six-blog series.
Given my experience across nearly two and a half decades of group dynamics, group relations, and process consulting in the form of behavioral labs, t-groups, and change management teams, I have been exploring and tracing the genealogy of ‘working with group’ and integrating this with my professional experience.
The blog series maybe useful to anyone who works with groups — as a change agent or a process consultant or as a member of a behavioral lab.
The title — Enacting the Withheld comes from Pulin Garg’s four pithy principles or tenets of process work including ‘seeing the unseen’, ‘articulating the unarticulated’ and ‘owning the disowned’ apart from ‘enacting the withheld’.
The Trigger — Learning Theater Lab,
September 1998 at IIM Ahmedabad
It was in 1998, when I participated in a Sumedhian Lab — titled as Learning Theater — that had two very eminent facilitators — Raghu Ananthanarayanan (One of the co-founders of Sumedhas, who pioneered the integration of theater, yoga, and process work in India, and with whom I had the privilege of working as an OD consultant for two decades at TAO) and Rudra Prasad Sengupta who is a much acclaimed theater professional, actor and director, and who has worked in famous films including Bertolucci’s Little Buddha and Joffe’s City of Joy.
This particular lab offering, in September 1998 at IIM Ahmedabad, was perhaps the last time Raghu and Rudra Prasad worked together as co-anchors of a lab. While the conflicting pulls and tensions between them were quite clear to most of us — it cannot be denied that the two of them had left a tremendous legacy in India — work that delved deep into the field of drama, dramatherapy, and theater, and how these can transform individuals as well as groups.
As a part of preparation and post lab reviewing, I had to read up on not just J L Moreno’s works on working with groups, but this lab also introduced me to Augusto Boal and his immense work and experience with the Theater of Oppressed (TO). TO was mind-blowing both in terms of designs and in terms of intense experiences that I was privileged to undergo. Moreno and Boal have been pivotal to my favorite way of working with groups — leveraging expression, the body, and physical action for breakthroughs and insights for self and the group.
In the first four blogs, I have paid due homage to the historical evolution of theory(s) and axions that led to understanding the group phenomena and group dynamics — a journey that saw me explore and introduce the works of eminent practitioners and therapists including Kurt Lewin, Wilfred Bion, Alan Rickman, Sigmund Foulkes, and Yalom.
Writing this blog has perhaps been more evocative for I have a clear bias or preference for action, enacting, expressing, storytelling, and role-playing when it comes to working with group. I am often judged as someone who is cognitive, but theater brought an immense relief in my fellowship journey between 1998 and 2001. it released me from the burden of having to be ‘right’, ‘poignant’ and ‘insightful’ in my verbal interventions and it released me and many others from what my colleague Sarbari Gomes used to phrase as — the oppression of language in process work.
Part 1
The work of Jacob L Moreno
Moreno was a psychiatrist who recognized the importance of social interaction and new actions, when it comes to mental health — and he pioneered several contributions in the area of ‘Psychodrama’, ‘Sociometry’ and built ‘Role-Theory’ in group psychotherapy.
Moreno rejected Freudian theory and spoke of an encounter with Freud in 1912. In his autobiography, he writes — “I attended one of Freud’s lectures. He had just finished an analysis of a telepathic dream. As the students filed out, he singled me out from the crowd and asked me what I was doing. I responded, ‘Well, Dr. Freud, I start where you leave off. You meet people in the artificial setting of your office. I meet them on the street and in their homes, in their natural surroundings. You analyze their dreams. I give them the courage to dream again. You analyze and tear them apart. I let them act out their conflicting roles and help them to put the parts back together again.”
This anecdote was mind-blowing for me for Moreno speaks of psychodrama — a therapeutic method that employs dramatization, spontaneous role-playing and creativity, — as the next logical step beyond psychoanalysis. This also meant acknowledging that traditional talk therapy was perhaps limiting — for it did not allow them to ‘act-out’ not just their feelings, but enact newer narratives in a creative manner, and perhaps emerge with new action and role-taking.
One of the earliest associations that I have with ‘going beyond psychoanalysis’ was Ken Kasey’s work — One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. If I was to refer to the film (and not the book), there is a chapter on how Jack Nicholson’s character (Randle McMurphy) takes out his group of mental patients to a fishing trip — he steals a school bus as well as a boat (very impulsively and spontaneously) and pushes his group not just to learn fishing but also sail the boat — this was the most poignant scene where each and every character ‘acts’ and moves beyond the limitations of group therapy — discovering something anew… The fish that they catch is immensely symbolic and the characters proudly present what they have discovered from the depths of the sea (or the unconscious).
You may argue that this has nothing to do with group psychodramas and dramatherapy, but the association remains in my head — I just cannot get rid of it for this scene underlies how spontaneity, and impulsivity often enables the discovery of something new — when contrasted to the group somehow working under Nurse Ratchet’s normative boundaries.
A couple of stills from Milon Forman’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
It was when he was working with groups of prostitutes, Moreno wrote on the genesis of group psychotherapy. Moreno to me was clearly a man who worked on the street (metaphorically as well as literally), and he described his intellectual position as ‘threefold”:
A) Spontaneity and creativity are propelling forces in human progress, and these are beyond the Freudian ‘libido’ and Marxian ‘socio-economic’ motives.
B) Love and Mutual sharing strengthen ‘Faith’ and are critical for groups and inter-personal relations
C) Communities can be (re)built on the abovementioned principles — Moreno started a theater company — Stegreiftheater or the Theater of Spontaneity
Over the years, I have been able to build a greater appreciation of Moreno’s work as going beyond the constraints of psychoanalysis. It was also his claim that he worked with people on the street — that made this work more valuable and insightful for me.
My subsequent work with Raghu and street-theater professionals from Kotthu-p-Pattarai, highlighted the essence of working with simplicity, spontaneity, and intensity together as opposed to use language and the associated jargon that accompanies it. Koothu-p-Pattarai is a contemporary street theater movement that was founded by Padma Shri N Muthuswamy.
Moreno later migrated to USA, and it is here across several decades, he researched and developed his theory of interpersonal relations and developed tools including sociodrama, sociometry, and sociatry. I choose not to talk about sociometry and sociatry in this blog.
Part 2
The work of Augusto Boal
Boal was a Brazilian theater practitioner and a political activist to the boot. He was focused on ‘social change’ and used theater and its tools for vitalizing communities to think critically and imagine alternative solutions.
He was the founder of Theater of the Oppressed (TO) — a form of inter-active enactment of narratives to empower the audience — this was done by inviting the audience to participate in narratives that explored oppression, injustice, and hegemony within society. The techniques included the construct of ‘Forum Theater’ where the audience can not only halt the narrative but suggest changes and uncover new consequences.
Boal challenged the traditional passive role of the spectator — and introduced a new role — that of ‘spectactors’ — that of audience which can participate in the enacted drama — through dialogue and ideation.
Experience of using Forum Theater
My memory of the 1998 lab is quite intense and powerful — Raghu and Rudra evoked the internal witness / “drashta” in all of us, and we all got a chance to set the context of an external oppression and invite others to take key roles. For example, I was exploring a nagging memory of feeling intensely hurt at being manipulated by a friend and the group played various personas in that psychodrama.
Forum theater allowed me to (a) take on the drashta / witness role and invite someone else to play me — this is often done in most labs. However, when the larger audience after having an initial sensing of my psychodrama — started creatively exploring not just new role-taking for me in the form of new stances but also exploring new outcomes for me — is when I experienced a strange relief. I felt firstly understood by the group that played out the psychodrama and more importantly there were several who played with their body and dialogue to offer newer outcomes — these were not cognitive solutions but a deeper resonance and creativity within.
Boal believed that when communities play out resonating and yet deeply hurtful / oppressive relationships and political games — the participating members reach out for newer solutions and change. Forum Theater brought many an activist across the world alive to its potential.
Image Theater
The other powerful tool that Boal created was the use of tableaux and physical postures to represent social problems. The initial set of actors take physical stances depicting a drama — maybe of oppression or dominance — depicting violence, aggression, and victimization. The Tableaux is presented as a static picture of ‘frozen’ actors.
The ‘Spectactor(s)’ is invited to manipulate the ‘frozen’ postures and expression to offer new ways of relatedness and new relationships. This technique of using Image Theater can be quite powerful.
Again, my memory of 1998 was to create a tableau of the Karpman triangle — three actors playing the role of the Oppressor, the Victim and the Rescuer, and while we as the Spect-actor had fun in manipulating the physical stances and expression of the role-takers, the impact of our interventions was palpably deep as well.
Source: https://augustoboal-oppression.weebly.com/theatre-of-the-oppressed.html
Rainbow of Desire
Boal brings alive several other techniques including the Rainbow of Desire (there is a book by him with the same name), the Joker technique and the Legislative Theater — each of these techniques has a specific focus and design for audience participation. Let me summarize the work on the Rainbow of Desire.
The Rainbow of Desire looks at internalized oppression (as opposed to Forum Theater or Image Theater that deals with external oppression) — by internalized oppression — I am looking at how societal norms, power structures, and past experiences are internalized and thus become the source of immense inadequacy, and fear.
Colonization and the Colonized Mind becomes an intensely useful canvas for groups to explore internalized oppression and violence to self. Raghu used this technique to really allow us to get in touch with deeply internalized oppression including ‘self-hate’.
The Rainbow represents a spectrum of emotions and desires including love, fear, anger, joy and sorrow. In Sumedhas, Raghu brings alive the rainbow by linking this with Vishnu Sharma’s work on Navarasas.
Theater and its large array of games is used to identify and confront the internalized oppressors — very often the inner landscape / inner psychodrama gets physically represented or voiced. I have liked Raghu’s work on painting the inner landscape of the Actor and the internalized oppression of the Judge, the Defender, and other voices within.
The Rainbow of Desire is extremely powerful to map inner landscapes and yet invite others to join (just like Forum Theater) and break the shackles of internal and external oppression.
Boal: Other Techniques
The figure depicting the tree of the Theater of Oppressed is quite evocative. My exposure and immersion have been limited only to the three techniques mentioned.
The ‘Legislative Theater’ for example captures my imagination — for in this technique — groups work out the rules, norms and principles that govern communities. I do recall an extensive and half-day long immersion exercise where a community of 40 professionals collected materials and created a ‘village’. (Sumedhas Summer Program 1999–2nd week — the Community Lab, facilitated by Raghu Ananthanarayanan in the second week)
This community exercise was immensely deep as we created a village community and used structure, design, and underlying norms and rules to make it vibrant.
Source: https://augustoboal-oppression.weebly.com/theatre-of-the-oppressed.html
My current work with Sumedhas is with NGO professionals and social entrepreneurs — and both Mustafa (the current chairperson of Sumedhas) and I are quite passionate to deploy these tools and techniques.
Conclusion
J L Moreno and Augusto Boal brought a more action-packed, intensive, and even fun way of exploring group dynamics, and therapeutic approaches.
The group or the community becomes the container of invested spect-actors and together — there can be deeper exploration of inner psychodramas, outer political discourses and hegemony through expression and creativity. The container offers new ways of relating to self and to the Other.
But the most interesting aspect of Moreno and Boal’s work is the focus on ACTION — it allows to enact the withheld and assume new role-taking and new choice-making.
When I look at the work of Pulin Garg and his creative genius in the design of several tableaux and psychodramas — I suspect that he was quite influenced by the work of Moreno. Pulin wrote and leveraged the Four Princes Narrative in a very Moreno-esque fashion — where the choice and analysis of the four Jungian archetypes was just the first step. It was the choice making and subsequent journeys that invited more understanding of the participating storyteller. The subsequent psychodrama was perhaps more critical than a cognitive appreciation of the archetype. Pulin’s other resources and techniques including the Magic Shop and the Magic Pot again resonate with the work of Moreno.
Other Notes
Raghu Ananthanarayanan continues to offer learning theater programs under the Rithambhara banner. He has chosen to use the narratives of Mahabharata and the Ramayana to invite participants and groups to explore inner psychodramas — many find it easy to work with pivotal characters and their inner demons / dilemmas. Raghu integrates his seminal work on Yoga with Theater, and these are unique learning spaces.
Sumedhas continues to offer a learning theater laboratory — once every few years — this weeklong lab is currently facilitated by Vandana Menon and Mustafa Moochhala — much of the lab design was seeded by Raghu Ananthanarayanan.
Feedback Sought
This is the fifth blog on working with groups — the next and the final blog is devoted to socio-technical systems as well as SEAM. The former was designed at Tavistock UK, and the latter was a beautiful journey of learning that I undertook in Lyon France.
These six blogs would make their way into a book that I am planning to write — a book that would be available as an e-book at a price of coffee at Starbucks — a large part of the proceeds would be made towards Sumedhas and Group Relations India — two professional bodies that have been critical in my learning and growth as a consultant with groups.
If you have liked any of the five blogs — do write to me — for it just intensifies my intent to write more on process work and working with groups.
