“We will be a community that is in the world and we will define ourselves relative to
the activity of being a place in the world, an activity in the world, a practice in the
world that’s going to do something about the cruelty and heartlessness. We will be an
activist community of people and no one, least of all people who control the heartless
institutions, is going to tell us what community is. We will define what community
is.”

Fred Newman, 1990

THE PLAY’S THE THERAPY

(House lights dim. The social therapist/performing writer moves to the center of the
historical stage. She appears nervous, insecure. She is quietly talking to herself. After
a long moment of silence, she begins her monologue in a strong and passionate
voice.)

Social
Therapist: Social therapy is a performance-based cultural approach designed to
help groupings of people do the uniquely human activity of creating culture.
Performance, the tool and result of this activity, is the search for method, which
creates the space in which we develop – to qualitatively transform who we are into
who we are becoming. As a therapist dedicated to the creation of living, breathing
environments that allow human beings to grow and develop and be the active
creators of their lives, I want to offer this paper as a collective moment of the social
therapy experience.

Act One, Scene One: "Community Group"

(House lights are on. Center stage sits the supervisor, Bette Braun. She is in her late
forties, a social worker, long-time social therapist, and colleague of Dr. Fred
Newman. Sitting in rows of theater seats are 35 white, black, and Latino, gay, straight
women and men. They are lawyers, secretaries, actors, mental health workers,
fundraisers, business professionals, and political activists. They are there to get
supervision on the issues being raised in their performance as a collective therapist.
The patient, Dr. Fred Newman, founder of social therapy, is not here tonight. He
comes every other week to this Sunday evening therapy session called the Community
Group. On alternate weeks, the group receives supervision on their work as
therapists. This is one scene in a long-running play of a unique and innovative
therapy play.

Supervisor: How’s therapy going?

The collective therapist has written some notes on their work that they want their
supervisor to read.)

What’s our relationship to the development community?
How do we continue to organize the community?
How do we develop the life of the community group?
What is our performance as collective therapist?

(The collective therapist performing as an historical chorus responds.)

Ode To Who We Are Becoming

We are non-authoritarian
Non-rule governed
Creative
Not inner-directed self-defining
We want stability but stability isn’t necessary developmental.
How do we deal with our vulnerability to keep things the same?
How do we keep shaping and reshaping who we are?

Supervisor: Who are you?

Collective
Therapist: An interesting and weird group of people who have come together over
the last eight and a half years.
We’re an upside down therapy group.

(Ken Gergen enters, walks around the perimeter of the stage. He begins to paint the
theatrical backdrop: the various shapes and sizes of constructivism. His voice
reverberates.)

“It is sometimes said that the truly creative work in any discipline takes place at the
borders—by those who understand the conventions governing the interior but who
also understand something else. It is at the borders that we also find individuals who
are sufficiently free from the tyranny of the normal---the pattern of expectations,
obligations and swift sanctions within the core of most disciplines—that they can risk
innovation.”

Ken Gergen. 1999

(The social therapist clears her throat and creatively imitates the collective therapist.
They are teaching her how to create. They are curing her of her own pathology.)

Social
Therapist: We are living in an historical period where the conditions for human
development are minimal.
How do we create new environments?
How do we create out of our own development? Can we?

(It is late Sunday night. People are tired from the week’s work. Some faces look
sleepy. Others are attentive. A grouping of community organizers, political activists
work to create conversations that are the practice of method. The postmodern activity
theoretic act of not knowing -- abandoning the cognitive biases of human intercourse.
They work to create something new without the tools of instrumentalism. They work to
abandon understanding, knowing, truth and explanation as the justificatory means of
explaining life. As therapists they are learning to not characterize what their patient
is doing. How do you do therapy and not rely on the “aboutness talk’ of what it is
you’re doing together. The collective therapist is learning that interpretation and
description are merely veiled diagnosis. Social therapy’s roots are Marxian.)

(The social therapist and the collective join voices)

How do you work to change the world, not to interpret it in therapeutic practice?

(Lois Holzman, longtime colleague and collaborator with Fred Newman, sits
patiently in the corner and holds up a picture of Karl Marx, the revolutionary.)

“Newman’s methodological challenge to psychology also confronts the conservative
ideology embodied in its (and modernism’s) conception of change. Along with Marx
and some non-Marxist philosophers, Newman is convinced that discrete particulars
(psychology’s objects of change) are fictions. What there is- and therefore what is
changeable – are totalities. His work has been dedicated to changing the conception of
change that currently dominates mass culture and the social sciences as a necessary
part of the activity of changing the world.”

Lois Holzman, 1999

Act One, Scene Two

Supervisor - You’re talented organizers. You’ve had to work with your conflicts of
what it means to do therapy with a patient who does not have any
problems. You’ve had to challenge your own assumptions that this is a
therapy group and not a therapy group. You come week after week, you
pay your fees and it’s not about getting help. It’s about giving.
Learning to do a better performance as givers.

Collective
Therapist - Being on the edge of chaos – are we doing it? I think so – we’re less
driven by questions. We’re less point driven.
We’re less into focusing on the particulars

Supervisor - Yes you’re now actively silent – which is very particular to your
patient. He enjoys silence and doesn’t like to speak unless he has
something to say. You’re able to do this now. You’re more collective.
You’re better at building with what you have. You used to have no
capacity for completion. You’re no longer impositional. You’ve created
an environment where your patient can do new things.

It might be helpful to look at how you’ve come to this moment. How
you’ve created your own development.

(House lights fade. A weeklong intermission begins.)


(The patient, Fred Newman, is sitting on stage. The collective therapist is in the
theater seats. The supervisor sits with a pad and pen ready to take notes on the
session.)


Collective
Therapist: How’s it going?

Fred
Newman: Good.

Silence

Collective
Therapist: What’s new?

Silence

Fred
Newman: I had a new soup today.
(Dialogue begins about the soup.)

What kind?
Was it good?

(The collective Therapist struggles with the awkwardness and the silences.)

Collective
Therapist: How’s your acting going? (Fred Newman is performing in a play that
he has written.)

(The patient and his therapist begin a soft and intimate dialogue about his
experiences in the play. The Collective Therapist keeps trying to find out more about
the particularities of his experience in a role he has not performed in a few years. The
patient speaks with a different focus. He loves the cast. He loves making a play with
his friends. The Collective Therapist has some difficulty in going where the patient is
and continues a line of questioning about his historical relationship to past
performances.

A shift occurs...
One of the leading voices of the CTx speaks eloquently about what an interesting
patient FN is. How anxious she is for him to get help.
She’s excited to see him.)

Collective
Therapist: Talking with you Fred Newman HELPS THE COMMUNITY DO
WHAT WE DO MAGNIFICIENTLY.
I have anxiously waited for your return to the couch

Fred
Newman: Here I am

Collective
Therapist: (Builds on FN’s conversation about the cast.)
Are they all from our family? (laughter)


Collective
Therapist: The collective TX. Is it a family? (Jokes are made about “ The
Godfather”)

Fred
Newman: Yes, the cast is from our community. I love being with them.

Collective
Therapist: It’s great you can have that.

Fred

Newman: It’s a treat.

Collective
Therapist: You deserve a treat!

(The environment is transforming. Therapist and patient are more relaxed. The
therapist continues to do a giving performance. The therapist is leading from behind.
They follow the patient and work to give what they can. The stage revolves and
exposes a new scenario. The lights are low. Dinner is over. Family members move
from the table into the living room. Everyone has known each other for many years.
They’ve built and continue to build the historical space they call their home. With
their long histories, they work together, lovingly, to create an environment where they
can go somewhere new together. The new place is HERE – in the moment, together
creating the moment.)

(They are relaxing in their living room, before retiring to bed. The voices are soft.
The faces relaxed. Even without hearing all the words of this performed conversation,
one can experience the intimacy. The CTx is now going where the patient is.
Together, side-by-side they move forward.)

Collective
Therapist: Look at all you give us –
The radio show
Books
How you live your life
It’s been fun
Differently from what I used to think was fun – being nasty and abusive
Look I’ve grown!
You’re all these things to so many different kinds of people.
What goes on for you?



Fred
Newman: I am who you are. I am eager to live my life as you are. I don’t see
myself rigidly – such as THIS IS ME – so everyone needs to fit in. I
feel an emotional need to be emotionally available to other people’s
lives. Leaders often make emotional demands on people. I don’t like to
impose myself on people.

Collective
Therapist: I was suspicious of you when I first met you.

Fred

Newman: I’m as least as suspicious of me as you are.

Collective

Therapist: Do you care how this all turns out?

Fred
Newman: I don’t know that things turn out at all. I’m interested in tasting the next
mouthful of life. I don’t know that it all ties together that well.

Collective
Therapist: I’m having the experience of meeting you again. I’m not sure if it’s
what we’re talking about or how we’re all doing tonight.



Act Two: THE UPSIDE DOWN FAMILY

(This scene opens with Fred Newman sitting to the left of psychology.)

“Home is the theater where ‘the Family’ play runs, all day and all night long. It’s also
the rehearsal space where children are prepared for the roles they will assume as
adults.... It’s here that we first learn the limits of who we are, as societally
defined....”

Fred Newman, “Let’s Develop” 1994

(The social therapist performing ahead of herself circles the stage. The societal
institution of the family sits stage right. They are frowning at the social therapist, who
is talking to Fred Newman about how doing therapy with young children and the
community group doing therapy with him are interestingly similar. They are both
revolutionary activity – changing totalities. They are patients without problems. The
societal institution of the family looks on conflictedly finding the conversation
disturbingly incomprehensible.)

Social
Therapist: Five-year-olds do not relate to themselves as having problems. They
play, storytell and perform ahead of themselves. They are rarely into
the truth of the matter at hand, more often into improvisation.

Doing social therapy with young children and their families is the
activity of creating what family is – the family as self-defining. What’s
critical here is not the family as an ever-preserved institution unto
itself, but as a particular fluid organization that is being continuously
changed. The family and the therapist work to ever expand, rewrite,
recreate the family play as we learn to philosophically challenge the
roles and rules of what it means to be the child, father, or mother and

not leave out the rest of the world/communities that we all participate
in.

The upsidedownness of family life often resides in the conflicts that
arise because kids know more about the world than the adults around
them (including their therapists!). Children are living in a different
culture. As a nine- year-old patient of mine lovingly blurted out in
frustration as he realized I knew nothing of the computer games and
Internet jokes he loved “You’re a cultural freak—you’re a weird
person. How are we ever going to do this therapy thing together?” My
client’s methodological challenge was welcomed.

(The historical chorus joins the social therapist’s voice)

Ode To Who We Are Becoming

How do diverse groupings of people come together and create something new?
How do we create family?
How do we continue to organize who and how we are together?
How do we create culture together?
What is our performance?


Social
Therapist: We get out from under THERAPY
We perform non-ruled governed, nonsystematic development plays
We are non-authoritarian as we ruthlessly challenge role-defined
behavior
We help the family to build their relationship to the broader
community.
We create weird and powerful juxtapositions that are pointless

(The social therapist speaks to the institution of the family. She enthusiastically
begins to tell them a story. It is a story of possibilities.)

Social
Therapist: David, a four year old, came into therapy upon the recommendation of
his nursery school teacher. He was biting and hitting his peers on a
regular basis. He would have extended tantrums and then fall apart
emotionally, feeling badly, for hours after an incident. His parents
were reluctant to bring a four-year-old into therapy but were unable to
impact on what was happening with their son. When David began to
hurt his infant brother, the parents called for an appointment.

Upon meeting David and his mother, we began to collectively create a
series of performances related to the family play they were currently
starring in. David had been cast by himself and his family as the
“difficult child”. Mom, a professor at an Ivy League university, was
overwhelmed and frustrated with caring for her two children and
maintaining her academic career. Dad was a pediatrician and was
working long hours. He had limited contact with the family due to a
demanding research and teaching schedule.


The Family Play begins:

First session:

(David’s mother drags him into the office. They sit down.)

David: You can’t help me. All your ideas won’t work, so don’t think you’re so
smart. You can’t stop me from biting. He sticks out his tongue. (His
mother is embarrassed by his hostility.)

Mother: David, you’re being rude and inappropriate.
.
Social
Therapist: I am really glad to meet you. And you know something, it usually takes
people months, sometimes years to learn that I can’t stop them from
doing anything. You are quite right. I can’t fix you because you’re not
broken. You knew that right away.

(David smiles and appears to be quite proud of himself. David’s mother begins to
correct him and asks him to apologize for his rudeness. The mother begins her
monologue of what is wrong with David.)

(The societal family rushes to her side and sings)

He doesn’t listen.
He’s rude to people
He is hurting his little brother.
He hits his mother.
What did I do to deserve this?

Social
Therapist: What’s the title of this play? Is David the only one starring in it?

David: NO. Everyone is in it. Mom is mean to me. She’s always yelling and
hurting my feelings. Victor, my brother, breaks all my toys and ruins
my clothes.

Mom: That’s not true David. He’s only four months old. He doesn’t even
touch your things.
Why are you lying? This is what I mean. He makes up stories all the
time.

Social
Therapist: Do you like this play. It seems really angry to me. What you think?

David: I hate it.

Mother: I hate it too.

Social
Therapist: Maybe we can do different one. I can see you’re both good at telling
stories. I have a game that you might like. It’s making up stories
together.

(David lights up. Mom and David play collective story. An improvisational theater
game that requires the storytellers to build off of what each other creates. It
minimizes the activity of negating or correcting each other. Mom has more difficulty.
She keeps trying to incorporate “true facts” into a silly and pointless activity. The
therapist supports her to go with pointless activity of the game. The session ends with
David and his mother laughing together at the ridiculousness of the story we’ve
created.)


Second Session:

(David enters stage left in a Batman costume with a toy doctor’s bag. He asks to play
with the therapist without his mom. The therapist agrees. They play fight with
imaginary swords. Play doctor. David takes out a leash and asks the therapist to walk
him as if he were a dog.)

The social therapist begins to talk to the historical chorus: I feel somewhat conflicted
about walking my patient around on a leash. I know I need to go where he is. I need
to join his play in order to create a new one with him. If I am teaching David and his
family how to perform, I can’t hedge at this point due to my own uncomfortability.

The historical chorus responds:

We want comfortability but comfortability isn’t necessarily developmental. How do
we deal with our vulnerability to keep things the same?
How do we keep shaping and reshaping who we are?

Social
Therapist: What’s the title of this play?

David: “A Dog Named Spot”

(The play begins. Spot is loving, cooperative, and responsive to what I, the social
therapist, might want or need as his owner. The Spot performance is antithetical to
David when he is performing himself. After 45 minutes of “Spot”, organized as a
performatory scene, David says: I think you’re a good friend.)

The session ends.

The social therapist continues to tell the story.

Social
Therapist: The “Spot” play has a two-month run. David creatively works on
cooperation, support, learning new tricks from his “owner”. He insists
that his parents be excluded from the game. I am instructed, however,
that I may tell them about it.

After the two-month process, I suggest that Mom be added to the cast.
David agrees and rehearses the invitation. I meet with both parents to
include them in David’s play. David’s mom decides to fully participate
in the therapy. David’s dad is not accessible. I work to create an
environment where they can work on their reactions, conflicts and
embarrassment of their son’s choices.

Collectively, therapist and patients work on the value of joining David’s play rather
than coercing him to join their existing one. The current family play has as its
presuppositions that David is the problem. They are concerned that they have failed.
His behavior in school is atrocious. How could he hurt his baby brother? How come
the therapy isn‘t focusing on correcting the problem?

In the cultural performatory approach of social therapy, we work collectively to
rewrite the play. Recognition is given to the co-creation of the play. David’s
“character” is part of a complex process where the characters are interdependent. The
play cannot continue, if one of the performers changes how they are doing their role
or even adds nuances of change in existing ways of relating. Perhaps the mother could
perform her frustration differently. She could work to have a new response when
David slams his toys around the house. The play of remediation and correction has

failed all of them. The family itself needs to grow and develop. They need to create

something new. Their instrumental methodology of trying to get David to behave has
produced more and more anger and frustration. They have successfully have created a
power struggle par excellence. And they are all losing.

Mom: I can see how you respond to him differently. You don’t get into
reacting to what he’s saying or trying to change his behavior. I want to
learn how to do this. I think I’m bad at it.

Social
Therapist: I work very hard to relate to what David’s saying as a line in play that
we are creating together.

Mom joins the next session. David decides she should be the therapist’s friend and
next-door neighbor, “Jane”. Jane cannot believe how loving Spot is. He sits on her
lap. He talks to her in soft voices. He’s relaxed. He sits at the kitchen table, folds his
napkin, does chores and takes the new puppy (a recent addition to the cast) out for
gentle walks in the park. She sees no trace of the hostility and aggression that David
exhibits at home.

Mom: I can’t believe this. I’ve never seen him this way, except for a few brief
moments. It’s like I don’t know him or maybe I only know him one
way. I can see more of what you’ve been saying about helping our
family create and define who we want to be. He’s doing that. I think
we need to follow him.

The next three months of therapy are variations of the Spot play. David and his mom
are performing together – being who they’re not. Mom takes on the challenging role
of the non-reactive performer. She can relax, be silly or engage David in new ways.
She’s no longer trapped in the role of mother with a capital “M”. Throughout the
scenes we work on how to be a good friend and ask Spot for help. Spot is a very
good friend. At home David has stopped hurting his little brother and the school
reports that his behavior has improved. In one session, David barked for a good 30
minutes at “Jane,” his mom. He then asked the therapist to translate what he was
saying. I took a risk here and said that he was having some trouble because he felt
that family members favored the new puppy in the house. David started to cry and
said, “See Mom. See what I mean.” The mother responded lovingly and said she had
been unaware of how that was happening. She asked him to tell her. He did. There
was an openness and radical acceptance in their dialogue. They were creating
conversation together not doing the same old scripts.

At the end of the session. Spot announced that this play was over. It was getting
boring. The therapy was terminated.

A month later David insisted that his mother call for an appointment. They came in
together. He was quite upset and said that he was having trouble in school. He was

fighting and not getting along with other kids. The therapist suggested that he perform
Spot in those kinds of tough situations. He didn’t have to just be himself. He could
perform our play and continue to create some new ones. Mom discussed her struggle
to listen to David, including his request for a session. She hadn’t thought it possible
that he might know what he needed in this way. She was doing a new performance
herself.

David tried out some possible scenarios in the session. He returned the following
week to say the session had helped him and he was doing better. Therapy was no
longer an hour a week. It was how David and his Mom were living their lives. It was
David’s final session.

(The societal family exits stage right. They are unrecognizable, hand in hand with
their conflicts, in the process of transforming how they see.)


Act Two, Scene One: The Play Within A Play

(The supervisor sits center stage. Stage left is a large picture of Freud hanging from
the ceiling. There’s a desk, a few other props that make up a theater set for Castillo’s
new play “Lenin’s Breakdown”. The set resembles a therapy office. As the collective
therapist enters, jokes are made with the supervisor.)

Collective
Therapist: Is that your new guy? (Pointing to the picture of Freud)

Supervisor: (Looks up and smiles) Actually we stopped dating in 1976! (laughter )

(The session begins with the historical chorus writing a love letter to themselves. It is
a review of some of the work from the previous week’s session.)

Collective
Therapist: Love makes the therapy work
Love is not located in the object
The alienated object of love is ME
Love is activity
The collective therapist is no longer fixated on how unlovable We are –
now we are freed up to be more loving
Our work is a challenge of how we are supposed to live
Therapy is our life; not two hours in our week

Collective

Therapist: We’re loveable now; we didn’t use to be.

Supervisor: Actually, you were always loveable but you made it really hard to love
you.

Collective
Therapist: I need some guidance on how to talk to our patient tonight. It’s about
the play, “Lenin’s Breakdown”. I see the play about Fred – how he
came from the lower strata. I’m not sure if I should talk to him about
this.

Other
voices: We’ve been working on going somewhere new with Fred. I don’t think
we need to plan where we’re going.

The play gives us things we can be highly attentive to. We don’t need
to impose ourselves “Hi, Fred we saw the play and...

I’m glad we’re asking the collective therapist’s opinion on how to
proceed. We don’t need to be over-determining.

Let’s congratulate him on the play!

Supervisor: How many of you have done that? (many hands go up) Maybe then, it’s
more your need to say it and it has little to do with your patient. I
wouldn’t go with your need to talk.

(The patient enters stage left.)

Collective
Therapist: How are you?

Fred
Newman: Good. We’ve opened the play. It’s interesting.

(A dialogue develops about the patient’s experience of the play. He speaks about the
movement of his character as what fascinated him the most. The collective therapist
self-consciously participates.)

Silence

Collective
Therapist: It’s really weird you sitting there tonight. The set is up. The play is
about a therapy session for Lenin, whom you perform. The picture of Freud. Us sitting here as your therapist.

Fred
Newman: (Laughs) yes, multiple levels of reality.

Act Two: Scene Two: THE FIRESIDE CHAT

(The family members sit around the fire in the living room. One collective member
begins to tell a story of far away lands. His voice is quivering.)

Collective
Therapist: War has broken out in Kosovo. We know people there. They are our
friends and colleagues working as apart of our international
development community. We hear they are all living in shelters. They
are planning on going out into the streets to be of help to people. And
here we are. A long relationship to revolutionary activity. The
revolutionary activity of social therapy. The revolutionary history of
Lenin. His strengths , his limitations. Our conversation zigs and zags,
fluid, comfortable and non-linear. The American Left, the great
depression. What about Roosevelt? He was sitting on top of a country
with the greatest resources in the world. As bad as the depression was
the country didn’t unravel. No one wanted it to, even the American
Left. Independent politics, postmodern psychology, political theater.
Our conversation twists and turns. It is a sophisticated, fascinating
political dialogue filled with passion, contradiction, unbelievability and
ordinariness . Our faces are relaxed, smiling, interested. The embers are
fading. It’s getting a little chilly. Maybe it’s time to retire.

It’s been a pleasure to talk with you this evening. I look forward to
seeing you in a few weeks. We have to stop now.

(The lights dim. The session ends.)

The Therapy’s the Play

(The social therapist is continuously building the developmental stage. Her toolbox is
open. She and the historical chorus putter about creating new tools that are
particular to this moment in history, particular to the moment of the therapy session,
the therapist and the client. She begins to tell a therapy story. The historical chorus
is fascinated by the human capacity for the telling of stories.)


Social
Therapist: Nancy, a five year old, arrives for her Saturday morning therapy
session. I ask her how’s she’s been. I also tell her about a
conversation I’ve had with her school. The teacher is reporting that
Nancy is better after a long difficult time in kindergarten. She does feel

that Nancy has been wired lately and wanted to check in on how she’s
doing overall.

Nancy’s mother had brought her into therapy because she was having great difficulty
getting along with her peers. The school she was attending for kindergarten
suggested that Nancy needed to look for a different educational setting. Nancy had a
reputation among her classmates and teachers for being “exceptionally mean” to other
children. She often plays by herself. This therapy play has been running for five
months.

Social
Therapist: What’s new, Nancy?

Nancy: I had a pizza luncheable today.

Silence

Social
Therapist: Was it good?

Nancy: Yes it was great.

Silence

Social
Therapist: I wanted to let you know that your teacher called me today.

Nancy: Was she complaining about me? I have been kissing boys you know.

Social
Therapist: No. It was a check-in kind of conversation. She did mention the
kissing thing but she seemed fine with it.

Nancy: I love kissing boys secretly when the teacher isn’t looking.

Social
Therapist: Really. What do you like about it?

Nancy: I have more boyfriends than anybody else. (Yells) WE’RE TALKING
TOO MUCH. LET’S DO A PLAY.

Social
Therapist: OK. What’s the title?

Nancy: It’s called “I’m Better Than You.” Your name is Nilka and my name is
Callie. I am smarter, prettier and have more boyfriends than you.
You’re five and I’m five and a half.

The play begins in the school gym. Callie is a top gymnastic student. Nilka keeps
making mistakes and is reprimanded by Callie. “You know, you just don’t listen hard
enough. You don’t try hard enough. You could do better but you just won’t. I am the
best.”

Nilka: (the therapist performing) I am trying. Maybe I’m just not that good at
this.

Callie: (Nancy performing in a stern voice) Listen Nilka, you are never going
to be popular like me. Face it.

Nilka: (crying) I hate this school.

Callie: Pay attention. The boys will always like me better.

Nilka: I‘m going home. I hate this school. Everyone is so mean. I am going to
go to a new school where people are willing to teach me instead of
putting me down.

Callie smirks and walks away. The scene ends.


The therapist suggests that Callie come to a new school with Nilka. The teachers and
children at the new school are better at creating different kinds of environments. They
work hard and include each other and don’t put each other down. Callie agrees to play
herself. The title of the play stays the same.

Callie: Hi Nilka. Welcome to our new school. I am the most popular
girl. I am prettier, smarter and have more boyfriends than anyone!

Nilka: Hi Callie. Can you help me out? The boys are really teasing me today.

Callie: Listen Nilka you’ve got some stuff to learn ok? Boys do not listen to
girls. You have to get a boy who’s your friend and get him to tell them
to stay away from you.

Nilka: That’s really smart Callie. Will you help?

Callie: Yes I’ll speak to one of my boyfriends and tell him what to do. And, by
the way, here’s some candy.

Nilka: Thanks Callie.

Callie begins a variety of activities and includes Nilka in them. She does remind her
that she is the most popular. Nilka says she knows that but having Callie include her
and show her the ropes. --- having Callie be giving to her--- makes a big difference.

Nilka: You know, Callie. I get jealous of you. But I feel like you’ve been a
good friend. You’ve been really giving to me in this new school. There
are ways you’ve better than me but you’re not rubbing it in my face
anymore.

Callie becomes emotional. She cries a little and asks the therapist to sit next to her.
She offers her a piece of candy.

Nancy
(as Callie): I think we should end the play now.

Social
Therapist: Fine. Why don’t you finish up?

Callie: Nilka. We’re good friends now. I like our new school. I want you to be
part of my family. You could come live with my mother and father and
baby sister and me.

Nilka: That is such a lovely invitation. You’ve taught me a lot. I feel very
close to you.

Callie lies down on the floor, curled up in a fetal position and sucks her thumb and
cries. The therapist is silent. After five minutes Nancy stands up and says the session
is over.



Act Three, Scene One

Community Group

(It’s early morning and the development community is sitting on the front porch
having a cup of coffee together.)

Collective
Therapist: Doing good therapy is being close to our patient. It makes demands on
us that are not clinical. That is non-evaluative. What do we do with our
emotional responses to our patient?

Not knowing drives us crazy.
How am I doing?
How do I look?
Do I look good in his eyes?
I can’t sit still.
I reach my limitations as a therapist. I’m over determined and predictable.
I’m having new experiences not knowing what to do with old and new emotional
responses to our patient.
I’m sitting still and not knowing.

How do we go further?
I’m angry with some people in here. I want to mess them up, hurt them but I’m not
doing it. When I’m not doing therapy it’s harder for me. I keep going back to old
behaviors. I want to be nasty and mean again. I’m no longer doing that here.
What do I do?

Supervisor: Here’s the solution. Do therapy all the time. Figure out how to do it in
all the contexts of your life. Keep contributing to everything. Keep
reorganizing our failures. That’s what growth is – the continuous
reorganization of failure.

(The patient enters stage right.)

Collective
Therapist: How are you? What’s new?

Fred
Newman: Good. What’s new?
What’s new?
Something must be new?

Silence

I enjoyed the beginning of the play last night. I enjoyed it so much I didn’t want it to
go on. I wanted to leave with my friends and have a cup of coffee. It felt so good. I
was particularly connected. It felt so right. It was particularly beautiful, particularly
connected to everyone. I like the silence of it. As a performer and writer I sometimes
find language intrusive. I like moving in slow motion, being connected to people on
the stage. It’s like a slow moving painting.

Collective
Therapist: Is there anything else that’s new?

Fred

Newman: My daughter keeps sending me pictures of my granddaughter.

Collective
Therapist: How is it being a grandfather?

Fred
Newman: It’s getting pictures. Those are the clearest indicators. (Laughter)

Collective
Therapist: Do you feel like a grandfather or parent in our community?

Fred
Newman: I don’t feel parental in the community. It’s not an experience that I
have. I have closeness with people but it’s not familial.

Collective
Therapist: Do you want to have that with your granddaughter?

Fred
Newman: It will be whatever it turns out to be. I don’t have something I need to
have happen. It doesn’t need to look a certain way.

Collective
Therapist: Are you close with your daughter?

Fred
Newman: Yes. We’re very close She’s close to a lot of people in the community.
I think she’s a very nice person. I like her very much. There are
virtually very few people who don’t do things that I occasionally find
offensive. She’s one of them.

Collective
Therapist: That’s a value of yours. You get things from your parents. Has she
gotten that from you?

Fred
Newman: NO. I’ve gotten that from her. People find me offensive. They have
conflicted responses to me. I’ve learned to be inoffensive from her. I
think she given me that! I’m easier going now. I’ve become less
offensive with people that I am close to. My daughter is tolerant and
open. I’ve learned from her.

Collective
Therapist: It seems particularly nice to have someone like that in your life,
particularly in the family.

Fred
Newman: My family is not so unusual. It has the usual family intrigue. Who’s not
talking to whom? It wears on your nerves. My daughter is not into that.
We talk the language of family with the same accent.

(Enter Alex, age six, stage left. He is howling. He’s come into social therapy because
he was showing signs of stress at home and in school. He’s retreated into fantasy
characters and become suicidal. There are a multitude of changes in his life. After
living with his father as the primary caretaker, his mother decided to become more
directly involved in his life. His mother was about to remarry. Alex was referred to a
psychiatrist who diagnosed him as atypical pervasive developmental delay. Alex’s
mother brought him into therapy to work on their relationship. Alex began social
therapy as he was having a breakdown. He was unable to function in his classroom
setting. The family is in a crisis.)


Alex: The aliens are here. There’s good ones and bad ones. Do you want me
to kill them for you?

Social
Therapist: Well I ‘m not sure. I guess I’m concerned about you doing it by
yourself (he interrupts)

Alex: I can do it. I’m so strong and you could watch.

Social
Therapist: Let’s slow this down a little. I need something from you if we’re going
to move ahead with this. I need to know that I don’t have to worry.
That you’ll be ok. I need to feel more confident that you won’t get hurt.

Alex: Don’t worry about a thing (he pulls up a chair for me). You can relax
(shows his muscles) I’m really very strong. (pauses)

Silence

Alex: You don’t like it when I’m only one way, do you?

Social
Therapist: I don’t really think it ‘s so great for anybody to only have one way to
be. I think it’s more helpful to create some new choices – some new
ways to be.

Alex: What could I add to being strong?

Social
Therapist: How about vulnerable? Do you know what I mean by that?

Alex: Yes. I do .You mean gentle? But how do I add vulnerable?

Social
Therapist: I’m not sure.

Alex: (comes over and caresses Tx’s face) See, you have nothing to worry
about. Just sit here and relax. I’ll be more than one way.
(Alex fights the alien , finishes and sits on TX’s lap.)
You know the aliens stole my fantasies.

Social
Therapist: Really! How did that happen?

Alex: The aliens took away CATBOY, TACK, and SNAKEBOY.... ( starts
crying) We need to get them back. They’re very important.

Social
Therapist: What’s important about them?

Alex: Promise me you’ll help me get them back. Promise me you’ll never
take them away from me.

Social
Therapist: I promise. We can always decide together what to do with them.

Alex: (fights with aliens again) I got them back now. Can we put them in the
closet so we can take them out when we need them?

Social
Therapist: That’s a great idea!

Alex: (now speaking as one of his fantasy characters, Tack.)

Tack: Alex is going to camp tomorrow.

Social
Therapist: Yes he told me. How's he doing with it?

Tack: He doesn’t care.

Social

Therapist: He doesn’t care? I think he gets nervous when he meets new people and
goes to unfamiliar places.

Tack: OK, OK. He just says he doesn’t care, but he really does. Do you think
I need to worry about him?

Social
Therapist: I don’t know. I think we could let him know that we want to be there
for him. That he doesn’t have to do it alone anymore.

(Alex returns as the speaker. He opens the closet door and goes inside. He comes out
smiling.)

Social
Therapist: We have to stop now Alex.


Scene Four:

(The Therapist/ Performing as Writer Works to Deconstruct and Reconstruct the
Practice of the Community Group and Family Therapy and Fails)

Social
Therapist: Now is the moment when I feel an enormous pull to summarize,
explain and detail some comparison between the community group and
working with children and their families. It would be a mistake. Yes,
social therapy relates to all patients as revolutionaries. The struggle as
the therapist is to create environments where what is relevant is the
creative activity of the patient and therapist together – not the content,
explanation, or truth of either. I am not a theoretician or a writer – I am
a performing-ahead-of-myself therapist in search of a method to write
about my experience of life in doing social therapy.