 |
| Wilfred Bion |
Bion & Basic Assumptions
The group concept of ‘pairing’comes from Wilfred Bion, a
British psychoanalyst who studied how groups develop and why members act as
they do, especially in the service of dual goals: task accomplishment and psychic
survival. Bion became interested in understanding the impact of small and large
group processes from his psychiatric work with wounded soldiers during and
after WWII. He observed
survival-inspired strategies (basic assumptions of dependency, fight/flight and
pairing) employedby group members to feel safe and protectedwhen faced with the
rough-and-tumble demands of task completion within group life. Pairing with
another person in an exclusive (Bion thought, ‘sexual’) bond is one such
strategy. He imagined the group was colluding with the couple to do the group’s
work by (pro)creating a magical solution. The concept is particularly relevant
to our thinking about the underlying psychological processes of The Great God Pan. The play has many pairings, recognizable as
couples, pals and parent/child and therapist/patient dyads. All feature
intimate relating, but with varying degrees of attunement, attachment, stress and
distress—and purpose. While we never actually see the ‘group’ all together on
stage, the characters can be thought of as a distressed/regressed basic
assumption group. The ensemble of actors playing the characters is more
recognizable as a work group. Bion would say all groups have qualities of both
a work group and basic assumption group. The group goal is to be enough of both
to survive and thrive.
Character Pairs
In the ten scenes of the play there are only a few moments
where three characters are on stage together. I interpret this strategy as an
effort to avoid group-wide knowledge and painful exposure. This exclusive
reliance on pairing is a compelling feature of the dramatic structure of The Great God Pan. Whether intuitive or
intentional, the playwright sends a powerful message about survival with her
use of dyadic structure.
Jamie and Paige, as an intimate couple, are faced with the
prospect of becoming a family group.
Paige is pregnant, and this is experienced as a threat to the couple’s exclusiveness.It
might be said that Jamie’s inability to pair with the fetus threatens its very
existence.
Jamie and Frank were exclusive playmates as children, and
may have been harmed by an exploitative parent.
The arrival of Frank, with explosive news, threatens Jamie’s internal
sense of wellbeing, and by extension his relationship with Paige, and potentially
his wider circle of familial relationships.
Frank and Dennis (offstage character) are paired as son and
father. Their traumatic attachment bond
leaves Frank in the “impossible” position of being harmed by the very person to
whom he would otherwise turn to for protection.
Jamie and Cathy are paired as son and mother. His efforts to please his mother and her
desire for him to “just be happy” are often in conflict. Jamie’s reaching
out for an empathic and informational response from her, in light of his visit
with Frank, is frustrated by her dissociative inability to recall something
that happened “so long ago”.
Jamie and Doug ‘act the parts’ of father and son,
awkwardly. Their pairing seems to producemore
longing than comfort for either of them.The play offers them a redemptive
opportunity to risk more authentically ‘living their parts’.
Dennis Lawrence and his wife (both offstage characters) are
paired as a highly distressed marital couple. Her inability or unwillingness to
respond with outrage or instrumental action to the harm being done to her son is
“complicated”, as acknowledged by Frank.
Paige and Joelle are a therapeutic dyad. The wounded healer and the healing wounded,
mirror each other in comforting and confounding ways. I imagine this will be painfully familiar to
therapist audience members who work with trauma victims.
Jamie and Polly were paired as youngster and nanny. The remembering
of Polly “as the best babysitter” captures the protective power of what we call
in dynamic therapy, an idealized positive transference. The desire to recreate
that kind of protective bond in future relationships throughout life is
ubiquitous.
This structural choiceof theatrically dramatizing twosomes generates
for me the clinical question: What would it be like for Jamie, or any of the
characters, to be in group therapy? To
be faced with the emotional risks of telling their story in the presence of others
could feel quite threatening.
Destabilizing. Painful. Redemptive.
Liberating. Relieving. Devastating. The emotional possibilities are
complex and many.
Our ensemble of therapist/actors have an opportunity to
explore this ‘what if’ clinical question through theirown experience of
preparing to dramatically read The Great
God Pan for an audience. Their depth
exploration of the characters of the play is intimately linked to their own corresponding,
very particular, internal emotional terrain, making the theatrical work
ultimately, therapeutic as well. This experience occurs first through the
ensemble experience of preparation, second, through their performance for an
audience and third, through post-performance process group discussions and
written reflections.
Actor and Director
Collaboration
Today was our first effort at focusing exclusively on scene
study and character development. We established a sequence of scenes to work on
and a basic working contract between the actors and the director. This would be primarily a theatrical
rehearsal, with group process explorations deferred until the very end of the
rehearsal. Instead we began the process of collaboratively integrating the
director’s interpretation of the dramatic action of the scenes with the actor’s
interpretation of the characters motives, relationships and modes of
expression.
My intent in establishing a clear demarcation between the
director’s responsibility for interpreting the play, and the actor’s responsibility
for interpreting the character was for many reasons. But foremost, I want to empower the actors to
be the final arbiter of their artistic choices.
My goal is to help clarify the action of the scene—what we call the
“here-and-now” in group therapy—and allow the actors to consider how their
character would ‘act’ under the circumstances.
We are consultants and collaborators to and with each other: they assist
me in better understanding the action from their character’s perspective, and I
assist them, in better understanding their character from an action
perspective.
Looking Within
In the processing segment following the theater rehearsal,
the emotional nature of some of our own pairings operating within the ensemble
and leadership team emerged. Various
pairs, (notably the director and consultant,and two actors who work together in
a clinic setting), identified interpersonal conflicts related to the
convergence of their designated roles and tasks, the emotional impact of the play,
their collegial relationships as ensemble members, and their professional roles
beyond our theater enterprise. Whew!
As an ensemble, the actors are able to do theirexploratory work
of revealing to each other theirsubjective experiences—of the play and of each
other—in a ‘safe-enough’ group context.
Everyone is privy to hear what isgoing on between pairs (and subgroups
and the group-as-a-whole), to bear witness, and to offer reactions, commentaryand
support. This takes dedicated time, effort, courage, talent, tenacity, clinical
skill, empathy, compassion, timing and more than a sprinkle of love and luck.
It is only because the conflict of the drama infects the
ensemble and the leadership team—slowly, insidiously, inevitably—that we can experientially
learn about group therapy through the parallel process of play reading. Our way of working is thus part theatrical,
part therapeutic, part educational, and part relational. These multi-dimensions of a play reading
process allow us to learn about dynamic group processes thatare relevant to our
work as group therapists.
Bob Schulte
No comments:
Post a Comment