Healing of Communities and Societies in Action: Utilizing the social Atom in an Organizational Setting
Özge Kantaş, PhD., CP/PAT
.
For Moreno, psychotherapy was never to target individual psychopathologies but also to address societal disparities or organizational dysfunctionalities that cause these mental health outcomes. During World War I, when Dr. Jacob Moreno circled up the sex workers in Vienna, he was able to witness the transformative power of bringing people together despite all the difficulties life was bringing to them. These sex workers, oppressed and faced numerous injustices, lacked social support and security in terms of their health. Dr. Moreno’s innovative approach of circling them up, allowing them to help each other by leveraging their weaknesses and strengths through play was a shine of hope in a dark time.
Since then, many other therapeutic approaches and perspectives in psychology, sociology, psychiatry, and business utilized many aspects of his triad as psychodrama, sociometry, and group psychotherapy in practice that Moreno initiated (Marineau, 1989). The seeds that Moreno planted became a baseline and laid the foundation for many therapy approaches other than psychodrama and group psychotherapy, such as for Maslow, Berne, and Perls (Ridge, 2007; Moreno, 1953).
The way he used sociometry to create unity and a group with them based on their creative and spontaneous freedom to choose was a game changer in many settings. Sociometric interventions developed by Moreno helps measure social relationships and dynamics within a group, often used to identify and improve group cohesion and function. (Marineau, 1989). One of these sociometric action methods is called “social atom”. The social atom has become a key tool for understanding the dynamics of relationships and groups. Moreno developed the concept of the social atom as a way to understand the complex interactions between individuals and groups. One of the basic concepts of sociometry is that of the social atom (Moreno (1948) which is utilized in clinical, educational and organizational settings. This essay will explore how business students xplored their roles, relationships and things they are attracted to within a business setting in a classroom environment. As one sees, there is consistency, structure and change (Moreno 1948) exploring an individuals role in an organizational social atom. It is clear, according to (Moreno 1948) that roles do not emerge from the self, but the self emerges from the roles we play. This applies to individuals and groups equally. An individual’s social, spiritual, physical, psychological, and transcendental roles come together and make up a person’s personality organization. Similarly, an organizational culture is the company’s personality. How they relate is more than the sum of the employees merely coming together. What is critical are their interactions and tele based on various roles. By trying out new roles, we can change our personality, culture, nation, product, and services. A very effective tool to use in practice is the organizational social atom. It is a diagram that represents an individual’s significant relationships, illustrating the various roles and connections that influence their social world. (Marineau, 1989)
I share with you an example of how we created organizational social atoms from my students at the beginning of the semester. I asked students to introduce themselves, and they initially shared their names or job titles. However, this is only a one-dimensional aspect of who they are. By instructing them to draw a social atom, they first placed their names, job titles, or nicknames in the center, but nothing else. Then, I asked them to expand on their roles and relationships with others, adding components such as “I am a dog owner,” “I am a mom,” “I am a dad,” “I’m a lacrosse coach,” “I am a believer,” “I am a shopping buddy” as examples. The biggest takeaway is that co-workers, neighbors, friends, and family members are not one-dimensional. They have complex roles within them.
As it doesn’t look like a traditional or boring organizational chart anymore, this realization is their first “aha” moment. The social atom diagram reveals more about their relationships, similarities, differences, and their potential for co-creation. By the end of the 14-week semester, they recognized additional roles through sociometric and psychodramatic exercises for example: on a scale of 1 to 10 what seems more important ‘focusing on perfectionism towards higher achievement or having fun with their dog? Or playing golf as leisure before organizing your ‘to do list’ for the next day.
Since space is limited, I am sharing one student’s social atom(s) as Pre-semester and post-semester outlined below.
Figure 1Organizational Social Atom: The roles at the beginning of the semester are in white shapes, additional roles are in yellow sticky notes as they are realized at the end of the semester.
Students also realized that within an organization, one person’s weakness can in fact be another’s strength, fostering mutual support. Something that one student hates (let’s say, data or details), another student loves it and can help with it. Therefore, students understand the group is meaningful and contains human values that members need. I often use ‘role reversal with students to show they need not fight over who is right or who is wrong. Rather, our differences and diversity bring that resourcefulness to one’s personality and/or to the group.
Activities aimed at enhancing workplace flourishing, psychodramatic skill building on themes such as spontaneity, creativity, adaptation, positive relationships, co-creation, mutual responsibility, role repertoire, character strengths, act hunger, flow, and engagement shows empirical evidence on psychodrama in the workplace and suggests practical applications through various activities that can be incorporated into workplace intervention programs (Orkibi, 2023).
Even AI works better if you treat AI as your co-worker and colleague in a playful way. How many of you love using AI? If you do so, you have most likely realized the best practices using AI come when you give playful prompts to it, such as “pretend you are this and that”, “acting as if this and this is happening,” and you describe the relationship, describe the context, explain the dream outcome! The way of relatedness that you want to convey while creating that content while AI creates that content for you is mirror-like! It is pretty much how doubling works in psychodrama.
In conclusion, the playfulness of psychodrama and sociometry is not therapy, yet it helps business people and leaders to capture the human aspect of therapeutic co-creation and the psychodynamic effect of a healthy ecosystem.
More is coming on the psychological and neurological mechanisms of how and why psychodrama works in the next issue, along with psychological safety in trauma-informed communities. Stay tuned!
References
Ridge, R. M. (2007). The body alchemy of psychodrama: A phenomenologically based qualitative evaluation of a training manual for trainers and practitioners of psychodrama and group psychotherapy. Union Institute and University.
Marineau, R. (1989). Jacob Levy Moreno, 1889-1974, Father of psychodrama, sociometry, and group psychotherapy. New York, London: Tavistock/Routledge.
Maslow, A. H. (1968, Aug. 2). Letter to the Editor. LIFE magazine, 15.
Moreno, J.L. (1948). The Sociometry Reader. The Free Press, Glencoe, Il.
Moreno, J. L. (1953). Who shall survive? Foundations of sociometry, group psychotherapy and socio-drama (2nd ed.). Beacon House.
Orkibi, H. (2023). Positive psychodrama in organizations. In Handbook of Organizational Creativity (pp. 361-376). Academic Press.