Читать книгу The Creative Arts in Counseling - Samuel Gladding T., Samuel T. Gladding - Страница 98

What was the family dance like in your family of origin? What patterns kept repeating themselves?

In family choreography, different members of the family stage a moment in time in the family’s life. Then specific movements are given to each player and repeated until members of the family get a feel for the multiple interconnectedness of their lives. This approach is well illustrated in the work of Papp (1982), in which married couples were assisted in acting out their patterns of behavior in this manner. The exercise resulted in a change in the couples’ present actions and a potential metaphorical memory trace of what movements could be positive in the marriage.

In enactment, the counselor directs the family members to do a dance movement representing what they are stuck in, such as an inability to resolve arguments, and to show what happens during each step. This type of direction takes the involuntary nature away from the action in which the family members are stuck and places it in the hands of the counselor. Therefore, even if the family members do not resolve their disputes, their relationships with one another change. They have to try another (more positive) way of settling their disputes because of the power they have given the counselor to direct their old, nonproductive patterns.

In paradox, a type of reverse enactment takes place. The counselor basically tells the family they cannot do something, such as change, or the counselor instructs the family to go slow. The result is that the family either obeys and moves differently under the counselor’s direction or rebels and changes to resist the counselor’s instructions. Change in patterns and movement within the family is the end product.