Flow

Two weeks ago I attended the annual swedish roleplaying convention, GothCon. I organize Indierummet, an event we've ran the past five GothCon's now, where we demonstrate indie roleplaying games. I played/GM:ed/demonstrated Berättelser från Staden of my own design (I'll get more into that game later on), and Lady Blackbird by John Harper. Go ahead and check it out, it's brilliant. A very interesting read whether you're a seasoned roleplayer or just curious of what the hobby is like. You can read it in, like, five minutes anyway.

Playing these highly collaborative and creative games, we got into a real flow, something I've experienced doing impro (In a previous post I described it by linking to Higher Love by Depeche Mode) but never really in roleplaying games, I think.


Discussing this with my two co-organizers, the pieces started to fall into place, and I began sketching up a model for understanding this feeling through impro theatre theory, and that's what I'm writing for this blog right now.


Just wanted to drop a little background ahead and a link to Lady Blackbird.

Expectations

Expectations are huge. Once you have your sense of security and a sense of coherence, I'd say expectations is the one big deal in life. Take a look at expectations in these subjects:

Life happiness
Our overall life happiness and satisfaction is not primarily determined by actual life conditions, but rather our expectations, comparisons and outlook on life. Did we expect more? Then we are disappointed. Did we expect less? Then we feel lucky. It is interesting how having a monetary windfall will make us happier, but having a lot of money does not make one happier, our expectations soon adjust to our newfound wealth. The book "The Art of Happiness", written by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, explores this idea further.

(A friend of mine poignantly pointed out that she felt truly happy in the moments you cannot compare to others, moments of strong community together with friends, or meaningful moments)

Therapy
In Psychological Therapy, Klaus Grawe describes positive expectations, or hope, as one of the most important things to establish in psychotherapy. Thereapy must change expectations to the better, and positive expectations on the therapy and a trust in the therapist energizes the client, giving a positive effect very early in psychotherapy, and this is can in turn strengthen the positive expectations.

Cognitive behaviour therapy can, in a way, be said to work entirely with faulty expectations, since it works with our inner assumptions such as "If I get up on stage in front of people, I will make a fool out of myself" or "I will never, ever find true love". - The models and answers to life issues.

What is interesting is that my model of mental health is based on sense of security, and a sense of security is just about the same thing as positive expectation on the future, based on experiences in the past.

Impro
In impro theater, we spend a lot of time to be obvious. Stay within the circle of expectations! Do what you could expect from this scene! Be obvious! What is neat about this is, what is obvious to us will seem genius to others, just because it fits so well. It doesn't have to be mundane and boring - Maybe to you it is obvious that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father, for instance - So you go with that! Others will think it's genius and go "Of couuuurse..." (because it is obvious)

Since the scenes I've done impro on is always without props or the background of previous scenes, a improv scene really is built out of nothing else than the actors assumptions (or expectations) of what objects are present, the mood of the scene, the characters and their relations... When all the actors share these visions, act on the imagined objects and relationships, the scene becomes tangible, alive - It's only in the mind of the actors and the audience, but it becomes an entity of its own. This generates a great sensation of presence, and community with the other players. It lifts you higher! (Remember my last post?)

Roleplaying
In roleplaying games, I'd say expectations... are king.

Conflict when playing invariable spawns from differing expectations and visions, or from real life issues played out in the context of the game. Different players can have different expectations on how the fantasy world should look, how it should work, what a character should be able to do, what style of play should be pursued, etc.

This can be almost completely avoided by carefully adressing just what kind of expectations the players has on the game, instead of just making assumptions.

The opposite is true as well: When all players share expectations, when their visions come together, the same high and immersion can be achieved as the one i described in impro.

Myself
What's interesting is, I've primarily analysed my expectations as something negative: I can charge something or someone with expectations, only seeing one possible route which will end in either success (yay!) or failure (gaaah!). When my expectation doesn't match up with others, this can be a very painful situation.

Conclusion
I think the conclusion to be drawn is that expectations are powerful forces pointed towards others and towards the future. When expectations are open, positive, and shared by others, energy and success is almost inevetable. A sense of security can provide these positive expectations.

But when expectations are negative, the energizing charge of positive energy is lacking.
(Another friend of mine described how she used the strategy of pessimism when she was a child, so she would never be disappointed. It worked, but how can you invest and actually succeed, if you always assume you will fail?)

When expectations are stiff and forced, you will be too, pre-occupied with how things must turn out, rather than taking in, and adapting to, how they are right now.

When different people have different expectations, someone will be disappointed or frustrated. These expectations set you up for failure.

Lifted higher: Improvision Song Contest 2010

This is Siv-Britt Turesson, from a small Swedish village no-one remembers the name of. She has always loved listening to the radio stars, dreaming she could be like them, to sing like them. After winning a small contest of three participants, she got the chance to perform at the Improvision Song Contest of 2010.

She enters the stage nervous with anticipation, and she takes the microphone and sings to us how she wish she could be among her music idols, pausing to look at us excited, hardly believing she is here, and then unleashing a full opera chorus of how she can't sing like them, but oh how she wishes for it, and the lights go on, and she is there, the place she's dreamt of, and we're with her, clapping and cheering, the entire stage is lifted to a higher place.

Siv-Britt Turesson is a persona played by Karin Fjellander, opera singer, one of the participants of last sundays Improvision Song Contest 2010. Each participant came to the event with a prepared persona to portray, but the song, the music, the lights and background choreography were all improvised. Audience members provided the titles of the songs and a random genre was picked for the band to improvise from. Choreography and lights were improvised as well, everything coming together in the moment.

We all watched as the artists entered the stage, climbing up and standing on the cliff of impossibility, and then, without fear, throwing themselves forward, not falling, but soaring, singing.

The winner was not Siv-Britt, but Arne Brun, played by Michael Blomqvist. Arne Brun was a similar concept, a nobody, vulnerable and ordinary. Arne Brun had ended up at the competition by accident, but completely blew us away. Here is his act.

Notice how the audience is melting with laughter in the end, not because the act is very, well, witty funny (Impro actors are never trying to be funny) but because it is exhilarating funny: What we saw was something genuine, vulnerable, real, happening right now and right before us, and thus very hard not to be swept away with, to emphasize with the singers and be a part of it all. To be lifted up along with the soaring artists, to a higher place.

Impro can be a rush of freedom, to shake off the fears of failure and make them something insignificant and harmless, something funny to laugh at. It touches a place we dream of reaching, self-actualization. A psychological idea that it is in our nature to seek to be all we can be.

I'll end this with another song from Depeche Mode's album "Songs of Faith and Devotion", expressing my emotions of elevation when doing impro acting:

http://www.myvideo.de/watch/1145957/Higher_Love

Man will survive

 Remember the song I posted? After the first verse, Martin Gore sings just that, man will survive. And pauses. The sentence seems to hang in the air on it's own, complete in it's message, before it is concluded with the harshest conditions

The fact is, those words do stand on their own. They convey an idea I've heard before, in the classes of psychology - The belief that I will survive this. And not only in the prosaic way of living on, but this concept also encompasses not losing hold of yourself, becoming lost - My ego will remain intact.

The storms of life will be difficult, and sometimes you have to risk breaking your heart... but you can still have this sense of security, have faith in that you won't be overpowered, disintegrated. The storm might end in heartaches, but not in uncontrollable catastrophe.

This is important when growing up.

- A child with a sense of security uses hir parents both as a secure port to find solace in and a safe base to explore the world from. When the storms come, mother and father will come to you, hold you, and put you together again.

- My lecturer describes the difficult development tasks (life issues, we might call them!) and how a difficult task (like separation from our parents, for instance) that we manage to master works like a vaccination, strenghtening us the next time something like it turns up (when breaking up with our loved one or losing a relative) – But a much too difficult task leaves us bewildered and feeling overpowered, frightened of it and certain that we cannot handle it the next time it turns up.

- Also, let's look back at Antonevsky's model Sense of Coherence. Antonovsky said that everyone meet stress in their life, but it is whether you find life manageable, understandeable and meaningful that decides whether you handle it successfully. Belief would have man survive.

- In the same way, when going through therapy you will call the storm to you, go into the dark and difficult places of yourself. You must have faith in that this won't destroy you - Grawe describes hope in the therapy and trust in the therapist as the most important components of successfully therapy.

My next post will be on hope.

Writing this, I'm at Kulturhamnen once more.
A woman is reading her poems to us. She is visibly nervous, restless, her swedish grammar falls short at times, but her words ring true to us. Before reading the third poem she tells us ”This one, I haven't practiced at all”

But she goes through with it, with heartfelt applause. Goes into the storm.

Man will survive.

Triforce

I think my triforce is Courage, Sensitivity and Hope. These are my three strengths, my greatests assets in life and as a psychotherapist-to-be.

I have Courage when exploring myself, trusting others with my serets.
I have Sensitivity when I'm listening to others, being careful with their inmost feelings.
I have Hope when finding joy in humanity, putting trust in my fellow humans, believing in them.

But they are also my vulnerabilities.
Too much courage, and I force myself to be self-revealing rather than open, exposing myself and alienating others.
Too much Sensitivity, and I put guilt on myself, project others' disapproval upon myself, closing myself up rather than opening up to others.
Too much Hope, and I charge my life with expectations rather than optimism, I put great expectations on what I will accomplish, what heights I shall reach in my relations to other people, becoming rigid rather than open, anxious of failure rather than hopeful.

One force is balanced by the other two.
Courage needs sensitivity to feel and stay in touch with reality, and when sensitivity recognises a difficult place, it needs courage to actually go there. They both need hope to tell me that, "Yes, people do like you just the way you are, you don't need to be strong or compliant". Hope needs a moderation of courage and sensitivity when meeting reality.

...

Notice how I define my healthy self as balanced and open, in line with the model of mental health I've posted here. Open to and in touch with the inner and outer world.

Notice how this coincides with good impro: A good impro actor should dare to let out hir inner impulses, stay sensitive to and pick up hir fellow actor's ideas and stay open and trusting, rather than rigid and planning. To stay open.

Notice how psychotherapy could describe these attributes as life problems, but I have decided to describe them as strengths.

...

Do you have a Triforce of your own?

Meaning, story, understanding

I've been reading a book on school psychology. (Psykolog i skolan, Schad 2009) This is what Leif Strandberg has to say about learning (my translation and emphasis):

"Letters, symbols, thoughts and knowledge are the tools of freedom and creation of meaning: The freedom to move beyond the world they [the pupils] occupy right now; the freedom to visit strange places and visit people they otherwise never could reach; the meaningful experience that the air they breathe, the water they drink and the stars glittering above are not only wonderful sensory impressions - they can be understood (!), and when they understand one thing they will discover that there is still more to understand, there is always another step to take, and then yet another one..."

And it struck me like a bomb. No, not the point he was trying to convey, but a different idea made up with the same images:

Meaning = Story = Understanding

We can imagine early humans, gazing up into the sky and conjuring stories of what the stars were, from where they came, what their names were... For man must understand the world.

Understanding
In his book Psychological Therapy, Grawe cites Epsteins four basic human needs, the need for orientation and control being the most basic one. (The other ones being increasing pleasure and avoiding pain, the attachement need and the need for self-enhancement) This makes sense - What point would there be to all your mental processes if you couldn't use them to predict and exert control of the world?

So man conjured stories to explain and predict nature, and at the same time gave meaning to nature.

Story
Today we can explain and predict nature through science, but science cannot provide meaning. Meaning is the sign of storytelling, the idea that there is a point to what we just heard - Things doesn't happen for no reason in a story, they happen because there was a lesson to be learnt, symbolism we could recognise or themes we could relate to our own lives. Back in the day, the Pleiades were not just a random configuration of stars, they were seven sisters, transformed into stars for a reason; Zeus had put them there to protect them and comfort their father Atlas, and the reason one of them doesn't shine quite as bright as the others is because she is shamed eternally for having an affair with a mortal. Now that's a story, there is a point to it, and it relates to us  humans, our lives and our emotions.

Meaning
Humans are meningsskapande, (creators of meaning) that is, we seek to understand things in terms of what they mean to us, what emotional significance they carry for us. Events in our life must be interpreted in terms of meaning and emotion to be fully understood and integrated into our psyche. Thus, it can be said that every person has not only their own mental models, but also their own narrative (or story) of their life and the world around them. Psychologist Erik H. Erikson stresses our need to string our history of life events and choices together to make a coherent narrative. If we are unable to make sense of our actions and thoughts, predict them, find a meaning in them, this is a very distressing situation indeed - Our life doesn't make sense anymore!

Sense of Coherence
There is a questionnaire for measuring this in psychology, called Sense of Coherence, or SoC. It measures to what degree your life is characterized by comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness. Sociologist Aaron Antonovsky, who designed the model argues that everyone encounters stress in their life, but it is those with a sense of coherence that pull through and manages it, choosing to focus on health rather than disease in his model.

Our lecturer told us that SoC is a good asset when measuring therapeutic progress - Oftentimes other measurements and tests doesn't show improvement: There might be slight improvement on all symptoms and life issues, but no single factor has changed enough to provide statistically significant differences. With SoC you could show that that all these small improvements have lead to a point where the client now feels sie has control of hir life, can understand what's going on in hir life, and that there is a point to hir life - And in the end, that's the one most important thing.

Psychology, sociology, philosophy
In general, therapeutic psychology and psychological qualitative research stress understanding someone's narrative and and their feelings for the world, rather than the cold, hard and objective facts. To be understanding is to know what another person feels, to see things from their perspective.

I suppose this is obvious stuff to students of sociology, but this was the moment things fell into place to me - I suppose you could say I went from knowing it to understanding it, a process sought after in psychotherapy: When the client process something not only intellectually, but also emotionally, it becomes a real process. You need to activate the emotions and work with them to really make a difference. (Process activation)

I think you could also make a parallell to existentialism, the philosophy where mankind must find meaning in a world where science has replaced stories.

I don't really know much about narrative psychology or related sociology, but I think I should check it up. Anyone suggestions for good reads?

Oh, and I picked up Play Unsafe yesterday. Looking forward to it!

Färgen Sisu

I just have to tell you about last night. I was visiting Kulturhamnen where a friend of mine were playing and singing.

A small, nondescript door in a brick building by the water, with an old sign reading "Greek restaurant" hides the world's most secret music stage. Some people under the banner Färgen Sisu have taken this place and made it their own, a tiny little house of culture. Cramped together on odd, worn couches and chairs, munching on home-made chocolate balls, we sat and listened to David Bergkvist singing of the big human issues of existence - of love, regret, dreams and revenge in a way that felt ancient and new in the same time, to an audience completely captivated. (Sorry, I didn't have the presence to bring out my camera until at the end of night) Yliari, a band made up of eight young friends separeted by life conditions, played reggae full of love. There was a rock band called Fake Snakes as well, not my kind of music, but I was happy to see them there, nevertheless.

And I sat there, in a place people had made their own, listening to musicians singing their own songs and their own words to us (well, except this one, that was a cover), as I wrote of the healthy person seeking hir own way, actualizing hirself on another path than that of norms.

It was genuine, and the audience were with them all the way. It was magical, and when their time was up they didn't want to part with us. The singer said "Since you've all been such good listeners, we would like to play a song that just the two of us made". Just the singer and the guitar player stayed on the stage, singing a song very different from the rest of their program. This is that song. (In norweigan, not swedish)

When you give people your full attention, when you give them empathy, genuinity and acceptance, they will find the safety to show their true selves. To bring it out for you to see, to let it grow.