MUDs: Sociodramatic Conflict Resolution

Multi-User Domains: Sociodramatic Conflict Resolution

by Yosef Salvay

Psychology 235, Section 001H, Honors Professor Joseph Matthew Pirone Spring 2002

This paper has been prepared according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) Fifth Edition, 2001.

The immediate future has never been at risk as it is today. Regional conflicts are now global; nuclear and biological weapons posing as protective shields threaten the destruction of the world. As technology connects the continents, culture, religion, and past conflicts divide the planet. For the world to survive, individuals must see themselves first as members of the planet and then as members of their national, religious, ethnical, racial, communal and familial groups. However, group-oriented barriers have been erected over many millennia and are deeply rooted in the human consciousness. Metaphorically speaking, we must develop spaceships that would allow us to traverse the light years that separate groups from relating to each other. Psycho-drama, was defined by J.L. Moreno as “The science which explores the ‘truth’ by dramatic methods. It deals with interpersonal relations and private worlds” (Moreno, 1953, p. 81). Sociodrama, an offshoot of Psychodrama, creates a virtual reality in which the intangible aspects of the collective unconscious of a group are placed into concrete form. Role reversal allows the participants to stand in the shoes of another and comprehend and even sympathize with the perspective of an antagonist. This is Moreno‘s concept of ‘tele.’ Role playing in Multi User Domains (MUDs) shares many similarities to that of the Psycho-dramatic space. By synthesizing the concepts of Psychodrama with MUDs, we can create a virtual stage for anyone with an Internet connection to act out a group’s collective unconscious. Role reversal in this virtual space will lead to world-wide tele and global consciousness.

As we tend to the pressures of our lives, the future world is at stake. We worry about our families, careers, and appearances. Rarely, however, do we dwell on the direction we are headed in as a planet. Through major advances in science and technology we have become “the first species in natural history that has achieved the capacity to eradicate itself and destroy in the process all life on this planet” (Grof, 1996, Online). As citizens of this great and dangerous world, “we cannot continue to live according to the same assumptions with which we have lived blithely for the past several hundred years” (Tarnas, Online). Citizens of first-world countries, who have the power to effect change, cannot ignore “the social, economic, and political dimensions to the crisis” we are facing (Tarnas, Online).

As the pace of technological progress accelerates, “more of us are living in the fast lane - many in overdrive” (Russell, Online). We are forced to live “in the present” (Russell, Online) because the future is uncertain. “The faster the world around us changes” the more it becomes increasingly difficult to “predict with any degree of certainty how things will be in a year’s time, or even six months’ time” (Russell, Online). Yet as the world spins out of control, most people “have their heads in the sand” (Adzema, Online). This is because “the idea of evil is always subject to avoidance and denial, our greatest coping mechanisms” (Zweig and Abrams, 1991, p. 168). Thus, we have learned to accept it as “a part of our daily lives. . . we hardly give it any thought anymore” (Adzema, Online).

“When we look foursquare into the face of the global crisis and its accompanying denial, we find that these unprecedented global factors contribute to a unique and unprecedented human condition and psychology” (Adzema, Online). Though it is true that “we need to take care of our biological selves,” (Russell, Online) those of us in first-world countries do not need to spend much time or energy to fulfill these needs. Police and military forces keep us safe from danger while running water and heat are brought into our homes at a minimal cost. However, “we have been conditioned since birth with the belief that satisfaction of these inner needs comes through our interaction with the world” (Russell, Online). Therefore, greed “is the meme that governs so much of our thinking and behavior” (Russell, Online).

“In the past, violence and greed had tragic consequences for the individuals involved in the internecine historical events and for their immediate families” (Grof, 1996, Online). From the Spanish inquisition and the Crusades - committing murder in the name of God - to the conquest of Alexander the Great and Great Britain's colonialism, one need not search too deeply to find the destructive effects of greed and violence in human history. In the past, however, violence and greed “did not threaten the evolution of the human species as a whole and certainly did not represent a danger for the ecosystem and for the biosphere of the planet” (Grof, 1996, Online).

In the last hundred years “we have often witnessed more major scientific and technological breakthroughs within a single decade, or even a single year, than people in earlier historical periods experienced in an entire century” (Grof, 1996, Online). Though they have brought enormous prosperity to many people, these same technological advances have also “brought modern humanity to the brink of global catastrophe” (Grof, 1996, Online). This is because “they were not matched by a comparable growth of emotional and moral maturity” (Grof, 1996, Online).

“Part of the problem is that we are looking for fulfillment in a world that is constantly changing -- and changing ever more rapidly” (Russell, Online). From a young age we begin to “learn from the example of our elders that it is important to be in control of things, that material possessions offer security, and that doing and saying the right things is the way to gain another person’s love” (Russell, Online). The fact of the matter is, one who achieves financial security through wealth is subject to the whims of the fluctuating economy, while one who conquers new land lives in fear of a revolution and further insecurity. “Consequently, any satisfaction we do gain is likely to be impermanent” (Russell, Online). However, this realization does not help mend the problem, and is a denial of basic biological needs. Instead, “Our error lies not in seeking inner peace, fulfillment, happiness or joy, but in the ways we set about finding it” (Russell, Online). Correcting our misguided attempts calls for a new form of consciousness; an understanding and awareness of those inner hungers.

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, Freud's vision of “human beings as creatures whose primary motivating forces are bestial instincts,” (Grof, 1996, Online) and Desmond Morris’s (1967) depictions of the human as a “naked ape" are “suggesting that the human tendency to violence simply reflects our animal origin” and are therefore “inadequate and unconvincing” (Grof, 1996, Online). Even “Psychodynamic theories” that try “to explain the specifically human aggression as a reaction to frustration, abuse, and lack of love in infancy and childhood” are too narrow in scope (Grof, 1996, Online). They fail to explain many cases of violence such as “serial murders of the Geoffrey Dahmer type. . . crimes committed by gangs and criminal groups. . . and particularly mass societal phenomena like Nazism, Communism, bloody wars, revolutions, genocide, and concentration camps” (Grof, 1996, Online). To understand these phenomenon, then, we must delve into the “unexplored places” of our psyches “where frightening and elusive creatures dwell” These are the creatures that “have the power to project uncontrollable emotions, such as acute anxiety, rage, panic, shame or just plain stubborn pride directly into our everyday personalities, often at the worst possible times” (Emotions Anonymous in Golding, Online).

Though most of us can keep these possibly destructive emotions under control, “there are times” however, “when these dark dwellers of our psyche are no longer content with the game of hide and seek. Instead they burst out onto the surface of our consciousness and our life plummets into an emotional chaos” (Golding, Online). A growing number of people are experiencing a “crisis of consciousness” (Russell, Online) or “spiritual emergency” (Grof & Grof, 1995, p. 41).

Transpersonal Psychology addresses this global spiritual crisis by “trying to integrate spirituality with the new paradigm emerging in Western science” (Grof, 1996, Online). This discipline points to the need for a better understanding of “human nature and of the psyche, . . . the roots of malignant aggression and human violence, . . . the nature of insatiable greed, . . . personal transformation and consciousness evolution” (Grof, 1996, Online).

To understand the origin of these human complexes, we must delve into the collective unconscious of the human species to a time and space that Darwinian and Freudian theories do not take into account. Though most Freudian Psychologists believe that trauma begins after birth, even Freud conceded that "the act of birth is the first experience of anxiety” (deMause, Online).

It is not coincidental that wars are described using “images of pregnancy” (deMause, Online). In fact, “wars are felt to be life-and-death struggles for ‘breathing space’ and ‘living room,’ . . . as though nations were reliving the growing lack of space and oxygen common to all fetuses just prior to and during birth” (deMause, Online). Prior to engaging in war, paranoia causes a nation to “resort to violence in order to get out of what appears to be a choking womb and birth canal” (deMause, Online). One need only examine the use of “perinatal language in connection with the explosion of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. The airplane was given the name of the pilot’s mother, Enola Gay” while “The atomic bomb itself carried a painted nickname, Little Boy” (Grof, 1996, Online). Even “the agreed-upon message sent to Washington as a signal of successful detonation was, ‘The baby was born’” (Grof, 1996, Online).

By examining the slogans and metaphors used in war, it is obvious that “malignant aggression is connected with traumas and frustrations in childhood and infancy” (Grof, 1996, Online) In fact, through the use of slogans, we “have exteriorized in the modern world many of the essential themes of the perinatal process” (Grof, 1996, Online). This is the aspect of human nature “that a person involved in deep personal transformation has to face and come to terms with internally” (Grof, 1996, Online). Understanding these archetypal images is key to getting at the roots of aggression that lie in our collective unconscious.

Indeed, every type of conflict, including war, resembles the process of birth very closely. Before the conflict begins, there is a period of relative calm and tranquility. The conflict is induced when an individual, group, or nation state begins to put a stranglehold on that freedom. Feeling choked, the protagonist fights back, and will either die or emerge into freedom. These four states (tranquility, choking, struggle, and emergence) can be traced to the process of birth which all humans experience (Grof, 2000, p. 302-303).

The fetus lives in a relatively peaceful womb for the greater part of a year. This is the first stage in the Basic Perinatal Matrix (BPM I). This stage of birth “corresponds to. . . societal periods of ‘prosperity and progress,’ which. . . are accompanied by feelings and fears of being ‘soft’ and ‘feminine’” (Adzema, Online). During labor, the fetus is strangled by uterine contractions and is limited in its freedom of movement because it is up against the closed cervix (BPM II). This is accompanied by “experiences and feelings related to the time of ‘no exit’ in the womb and claustrophobic-like feelings occurring to nearly all humans in the late stages of pregnancy” (Adzema, Online). Then, as the cervix dilates and the fetus is pressed through the birth canal, it struggles to break free of this stranglehold (BPM III). The fetus either dies, or emerges from the birth canal into freedom (Grof, 1975). The roots of human aggression and greed can be traced back to these stages of birth (or BPMs). During struggles, individuals, groups, and countries relive these perinatal processes and either die or are born into freedom (deMause, Online).

Thus, when a nation or group is attacked, it is forced out of its state of freedom and tranquility (BPM I) into a state of being strangled (BPM II). The ensuing battle is a struggle to regain freedom (BPM III). Winning or loosing the struggle leads to either the death of that freedom or a rebirth into freedom and calm (Grof, 1996, Online). The members of the groups who are in conflict are acting on a “complex” (Jacobi, 1959) that is rooted in the human condition as a result of the birth trauma (Pirone, Lecture). When a nation feels squashed, it acts upon the BPM II complex by struggling against the stranglehold of the aggressor (BPM III). Since the object of the struggle is to achieve freedom and calm (BPM IV,) the nations or groups that are in conflict are acting in self defense. However, at the same time, they are blind to the suffering they are perpetrating on the other group or nation. This is because “Complexes have not only an obsessive, but very often a possessive, character” (Jacobi, 1959). This being the case, “we do not have complexes; they have us” (Pirone, Lecture). In other words, we do not control our actions when we are in a complex; the complex controls them. Thus, it is possible for a group to look away from, or to be completely blind to the suffering that they are causing others because their actions are governed by the ‘freedom fighting’ (BPM III) complex. We will now examine how it is that humans can close their eyes as they express their hate through violence and bloodshed.

Generation after generation, we find ourselves with the most mature-sounding political rhetoric. And we refuse to admit the obvious. We human beings are homo hostilis, the hostile species, the enemy making animal. We are driven to fabricate an enemy as a scapegoat to bear the burden of our denied enmity. From the unconscious residue of our hostility, we create a target; from our private demons, we conjure a public enemy. And, perhaps, more than anything else, the wars we engage in are compulsive rituals, shadow dramas in which we continually try to kill those parts of ourselves we deny and despise. (Keen in Zweig and Abrams, 1991, p. 198).

Those that are thought of as ‘freedom fighters’ by one group, are considered ‘terrorists’ by another. The average American citizen is proud of the “valiant, brave, and courageous” men and women that serve in the armed forces of the United States. The same service men and women are considered ‘terrorists’ by nations the U.S. attacks. Likewise, a suicide bomber is considered a brave freedom fighter by some, while the victims of the attack consider the bomber a terrorist. This is one example of how nations label each other as ‘terrorist’ while referring to themselves as courageous freedom fighters.

Still worse, is the dehumanizing of an entire racial, ethnic, or religious group. Though most people only accuse Nazis of such inhumane labeling, it occurs constantly within every group that is in conflict with another group. Rabbis, Priests, and Mullahs preach that those who do not believe their set of beliefs are not on the same level of humanity as those who do. On a smaller scale, individuals marginalize the political, moral or social beliefs of others if they do not agree with their own. More dangerously, entire ethnic groups or nation states are held responsible for the evil actions of a few of their members. This is what is generally referred to as racism; dehumanizing the enemy. Thus it is understandable when members of a group, having internalized propagandist hate, cannot be as sympathetic to the pain of the enemy as they are to the pain of members of their own group. We see ‘them’ only for the evil they represent, and only see in ourselves the good that ‘we’ are (Pirone, Lecture).

The reason why individuals and groups create enemies is because people need to project the evil that is inherent themselves - and in all human being - onto others. This evil is the ‘shadow’ of the good aspects of human nature that “makes us human. Much as we would like to deny it, we are imperfect. And perhaps, it is in what we don’t accept about ourselves - our aggression and shame, our guilt and pain” that we can find out that we are human. (Zweig and Abrams, 1991, p. 3). However, it is far easier to hate others than to face the fear of what we might be. The contents of the ‘shadow’ are far more innocuous when left in the dark. Therefore, we make enemies through “a transposition of shadow onto others who, for often complicated reasons, fit our image of the inferior. We need only to think of the people whom we judge or dislike or against whom we hold secret prejudices to find ourselves in the grip of our darker nature” (Zweig and Abrams, 1991, p. 195).

In order to allow for the senseless killings that goes on in war, we engage in a “process of dehumanizing the enemy,” thereby converting “the act of murder into patriotism” (Keen in Zweig and Abrams, 1991, p. 199). To do this, we “project our shadows” onto ‘them’ so that we “remain unconscious of” our own “paranoia, projection, and propaganda” (Keen in Zweig and Abrams, 1991, p. 199).

Of course, there are dissimilarities between people of different nations, religions, racial, and ethnic groups. Culture, beliefs, color are the most obvious ones. Yet these variations are not reason enough for humans to engage in conflict with each other. Instead, it is our “refusal to recognize those differences, and examine the distortions which result from our misnaming them and their effects upon human behavior and expectation” (Lorde in Zweig and Abrams, 1991, p. 212) that allows for systematic projection of our shadow onto them. It is not the obvious differences that make us different, but rather, it is those differences that we create in our minds because of our own fear and paranoia that separate us. Therefore, it is imperative for every individual to “extract those distortions” (Lorde in Zweig and Abrams, 1991, p. 212) which allow us to create enemies from our minds. This process begins with diversity education. Instead of viewing our differences as “insurmountable barriers,” we should devote more energy toward “recognizing and exploring differences,” using them as “a springboard for creative change within our lives” (Lorde in Zweig and Abrams, 1991, p. 212).

The school of therapy developed by J.L. Moreno addresses these issues which are integral to the human condition. Moreno developed Psychodrama in 1921 “as an approach that was integrated in his mind with a vision of interactive group dynamics and a philosophy of creativity, all of which were refined over the next few decades” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 2).

Psychodrama is based on the fact that “we can create what happens in our minds, that experience is malleable” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 46). Indeed, anyone who has ever watched or played a game of any sort knows how real they can be for both players and spectators, and how real the emotions are in wining and loosing. Psychodrama, unlike conventional psychotherapeutic techniques, is focused on the “here and now” rather than on “there and then” (Holmes, 1992, p. 12 - 13). In other words, psychodrama is ‘where the action is,’ while psychotherapy is concerned with recalling past action. The problem with analyzing the past and trying to figure out why something happened is that “the desire to find determinants for every experience and for those determinants further determinants further back, and for these determinants still more remote ones and so forth, leads to an endless pursuit after causes” (Moreno 1946, 1977, p. 102). Thus, psychoanalytic techniques that analyze and attempt to explain the past, “deprive the present moment in which the experience has its locus of all reality” (Moreno 1946, 1977, p. 102).

No matter what occurred in the past, it is the ‘here and now’ that determines how that occurrence is experienced by the individual at this moment. By delving into the past and trying to resolve the trauma, the psychotherapist may solve the problem for the ‘child’ that experienced it, but does focus on how the ‘adult’ experiences that childhood trauma in the present (Holmes, 1992, p. 12 - 13). Therefore, Psychodrama was developed in a manner that “constantly focuses on the individual’s experience. . . . Psychodrama is more like a form then a system, and a form is more like a dance. It’s features are expressed by change, reinterpretation” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 47) and anything that reflects the continuous flux integral to being human. With this premise, Moreno developed the “theatre of spontaneity,” (Moreno, 1947) which facilitates expression of the ‘here and now.’

Moreno believed that “lack of creativity was one of the central problems in modern culture, contributing to both personal and social psychopathology” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 45). He was also bothered by the “retreat from responsibility” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 45) which began to spread during the second half of the twentieth century. Irresponsibility began manifesting itself in people through “addictive behavior, anomie, values diffusion, and general stress disorders allied to a sense of personal helplessness” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 45 - 46). These two elements of human nature are crucial to the evolution of the planet; creativity is essential to “the process of growth and change,” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 47) and development must be “matched by a comparable growth of emotional and moral maturity” (Grof, 1996, Online).

The use of Psychodrama entwines creativity and responsibility: “The capacity for responsibility is developed through the practice of a number of component abilities, such as initiative, improvisation, and a fearlessness to question conventional limitations or traditional modes of thought” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 47). These are aspects of human nature that call for spontaneity and creativity.

Using ordinary people as actors to create their own dramas, Moreno demonstrated that he “viewed each person as a composite of the roles he or she plays” (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 5). An individual might, during the course of a day, play the role of parent, student, employee, consumer, and lover. He considered the roles of an individual as “the actual and tangible forms which the self takes. We thus define the role as the functioning form the individual assumes in the specific moment he reacts to a specific situation in which other persons or objects are involved” (Moreno, 1961, in Fox, 1987, p. 62). In order for others to perceive us the way we want them to, we adopt a ‘role’ that will portray us in the desired fashion. Individuals will adopt the ‘parent role’ when dealing with their children and will switch to the role of a child when facing their own parents.

In a psychodrama, there are five fundamental components (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 2). Firstly, there is a “protagonist, who is usually the patient,” and a “director, who is usually the therapist” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 2). Then there is “the auxiliary,” which is “a role played by either a co-therapist or another patient who helps the protagonist explore the enactment” of his or her problems (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 2). “The audience,” consists “of other patients or staff members” who are “not directly involved in the enactment,” but are essential to the facilitation of psychodrama (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 2). Lastly, there is “the stage, which in most cases is simply a space in a room large enough for some physical movement, perhaps 50 to 79 sq ft in area” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 2).

At the onset of a psychodrama, the director must “warm up” the group, as “group members often” arrive “at sessions tired, preoccupied with issues from work,“ and are “anxious about the evening ahead” (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 148). A ’warm up’ might begin with informal socialization between the members of the group. Also included in ‘warm up’ are “the learning of group members’ names, the increasing of group cohesion, the raising of spontaneity and creativity, and” helping “people focus on issues on which they might like to work in the session” (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 148).

Once the group decides on a protagonist and his or her issue, the director helps the protagonist choose a setting for the enactment of a psychodrama. Enactment is not specifically “a feature of psychodrama” (Blatner 1988 and Kipper 1985 in Holmes, 1992, p. 90). It is also a part “of family therapy (Minuchin and Fishman 1981, in Holmes, 1992, p. 90). In family therapy, enactment occurs “when the therapist gets the family members to interact with each other, transacting some of the problems that they may consider dysfunctional and negotiating disagreements” (Minuchin and Fishman, 1981, p. 78).

Likewise, in the Psychodramatic setting, there is a “here and now” interaction between people (Holmes, 1992, p. 91). “Such a situation. . . has the same reality-based psychological significance for the participants as those interactions that Moreno described as ‘encounters.’” (Holmes, 1992, p. 91). An encounter occurs when individuals interact with each other in their “shared space” and “treat each other as real and equal. The relationship can be though of as symmetrical, and in Moreno's terms their communication is modulated by tele, involving the reciprocity of attraction, rejection, excitation, or indifference (Moreno 1966 in Fox 1987: 4)” (Holmes 1992, p. 91).

During the enactment of a psychodrama having to do with the protagonist’s family, the protagonist “presents his family situation in an improvised dramatic enactment” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 3). The first thing he or she does is set up the scene, which could be described as easily as “breakfast in the dinning room” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 3). Members of the audience would be chosen to play auxiliary roles, such as those of the parents and siblings of the protagonist. The auxiliaries would assume their roles after the protagonist “demonstrates a little of each family member’s behavior, including nonverbal styles of communication and a few typical sentences, or at least some (fantasized) inner thoughts about the situation” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 3). When the director has established the scene to be enacted, the protagonist and auxiliaries act it out, usually in an improvised manner. “The patient is transported back in time, as it were, and begins to interact with his various family members as if the scene were occurring in the present moment, the here-and-now” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 3).

One of the most crucial techniques used in psychodrama is ‘role reversal’. This occurs when the director tells the protagonist to switch roles with one of the auxiliaries. In the example mentioned above, the protagonist would assume the role of one of the family members, “portraying a deeper level of feelings of” the auxiliary role (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 3). Since “it is therapeutic to go beyond the patients tendency to caricature others,” the protagonist “is encouraged to sense into and experience empathetically what that point of view might be” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 3). It also allows for the warming up of an auxiliary” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 175) role for the individual who will be playing that role. When “the protagonist reverses roles and demonstrates how the other person in the scene behaves,” he is supplying “nonverbal cues to the auxiliary so that the scene is played relatively close to the protagonist’s experience” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 175).

Directors employ the use of ‘role reversal’ in a number of situations. One reason to have the protagonist shift roles is so that he or she gains a new perspective (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 57). When the protagonist or an auxiliary is not able to view the situation from another perspective, “they neither see nor will entertain any other possibilities. The director calls for a role reversal to allow the enactor to look at his or her situation in a new light” (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 57). By reversing roles momentarily, the enactor is forced to assume the other role and see through those eyes, thereby developing a new view.

“One of the most important uses of this technique” is for the director to reverse the roles so that enactors can answer their own questions (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 57). When an enactor is placed in the opposite role after posing a question, he “must search himself for” the “answer to the question” (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 57).

Sometimes “an enactor will play a role in which he cannot express his feelings comfortably,” (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 57) or is unable to argue a point or answer a question well. “In calling for a role reversal with a character who easily expresses himself, the enactor can often have a catharsis” (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 57). A catharsis occurs when an enactor is liberated from not being able to express his or her feelings (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 5).

Catharsis is helpful to participants in that they may acknowledge and express feelings that are hidden either from themselves or others. They have an opportunity to vent pent-up emotions. This venting gives immediate relief, and has an even greater value. When one’s emotions go unexpressed, a person frequently finds it difficult to deal with a particular situation. It is as if those dammed up feelings stand as a barrier to one’s full understanding of the matter and to one’s spontaneity in responding to the people involved. Therefore, when one expresses one’s emotions fully through catharsis, the barrier is removed, providing a starting point for viewing difficult situations in alternate ways. (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 5).

Moreno believed that “every role is a fusion of private and collective elements. Every role has two sides, a private and collective side” (Moreno, 1961, in Fox, 1987, p. 62). In other words, within each role, there are “both collective (shared) and private (individual) components. The collective components are those roles that people share in common,” (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 5) while the private aspects are those that are specific to the individual. Everyone who plays the role of a mother will feed, clean, and care for their child. However, individuals have “unique styles of performing these functions” (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 5). These “unique styles” represent the “individual” components of the “collective” role of mother (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 5).

Psychodrama was created for resolving the conflicts inherent in the private elements of roles. It “focuses on private role aspects and on the individual’s personal problems” (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 6). In order to resolve conflicts between collective roles, Moreno developed Sociodrama. “Sociodrama refers to a psychodramatic exploration of the problems inherent in a role relationship, apart from the other role-dimension specifics of the people involved” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 7). It is effective in resolving group-oriented role issues. Sociodrama could, for example, be used to examine and resolve conflicts “involving encounters between policemen and young people, blacks and whites, Catholics and Protestants, men and women, and so on” (Blatner and Blatner, 1988, p. 7).

As in Psychodrama, the director of a Sociodrama would have to warm up the participants to its enactment. This can be done cognitively or affectively (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 16). “Examples of cognitive warm-ups include lectures or discussions in which either the director or group members give the group information on a particular topic (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 16). An affective warm up, which “speaks directly to our emotions and our bodies. . . gets us moving and adds liveliness to seemingly lifeless groups” (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 16 - 17). An example of a structured affective warm-up is, separating the group into two groups, and forcing them to agree on the division of an object. This sparks heated discussions and debates among the participants, thereby warming them up to the forthcoming enactment.

The enactment of a Sociodrama closely resembles that of a Psychodrama, focusing on group or collective role aspects, rather than on private ones. “As an educational modality,” Sociodrama “directs its attention to human growth and interaction by attending to collective role aspects. It also promotes human development in a global manner” (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 7). Thus, Sociodrama can be used to resolve conflicts that are of a global nature, such as territorial disputes between nations, racial discrimination, and group hatred.

For some reason however, neither Sociodrama nor Psychodrama are widely taught or practiced in the United States. It is also “interesting to note that there is no entry for Moreno. . . or psychodrama in the index to the full standard twenty-three volume edition of Freud's works” (Holmes, 1992, p. 91).

However, games are a huge industry in this country, and should therefore be employed for their Psychodramatic abilities. Also, people would rather play a game then spend their time in a group session that is designed for therapeutic results. Instead, a game which masks the intent of conflict resolution behind the interface of would attract many more individuals, especially young ones. If designed properly, games could facilitate conflict resolution the world over. Internet games, Like MUDs, have the greatest potential for Socio-dramatic conflict resolution. Role playing in Multi User Domains (MUDs) shares many similarities to that of the Psycho-dramatic space. By synthesizing the concepts of Psychodrama with MUDs, we can create a virtual stage for anyone with an Internet connection to act out a group’s collective unconscious. Role reversal in this virtual space will lead to world-wide tele and global consciousness. An introduction to these games will follow. Throughout, illustrations of how these games can be used as virtual stages to enact Socio-dramatic encounters will be suggested.

Multiple User Dungeons, also referred to as Multi User Domains, evolved from a famous fantasy board game of the 1970’s called ‘Dungeons and Dragons.’ In this game, “a dungeon master creates a world in which people take on fictional personae and play out complex adventures” (Turkle, 1995, p. 180). Thereafter, the term ‘dungeon’ continued to mean virtual space. Hence the term Multi User Dungeons refers to “virtual spaces... that many computer users... share and collaborate within” (1995, p. 180). This ‘space’ can, in fact be considered a virtual stage.

MUDding is not, as one might think, uncommon in today’s society. Howard Rheingold reports that “By July 1992, there were more than 170 different multi-user games on the Internet, using nineteen different world-building languages” (Rheingold, 1993, p.145). Amy Bruckman (1993) exposes the exponential growth that occurs in the MUDding community. “As of April 16th, 1993, there were 276 publicly announced MUDs based on twenty different kinds of software on the Internet” (Bruckman, 1993, online).

MUDs are not just computer games created for fun. Rather, asserts Rheingold (1993), they are objects to think with:

MUDs are living laboratories for studying the first-level impacts of virtual communities-- the impacts on our psyches, on our thoughts and feelings as individuals. And our attempts to analyze the second-level impacts of phenomena like MUDs on our real-life relationships and communities lead to fundamental questions about social values in an age when so many of our human relationships are mediated by communications technology (Rheingold, 1993, p. 146).

According to Bruckman (1992), “While every MUD is different, there are two basic types: those which are like adventure games, and those which are not” (Bruckman, 1992, p. 5). In the adventure type MUD, the object is to “kill monsters and obtain treasure in order to gain experience points. As a character gains experience, he/she/it becomes more powerful” (1992, p. 5). In non-adventure type MUDs, sometimes called ‘social MUDs,’ the object is to have fun, interact with other players, and in some cases, “help build the virtual world” (Turkle, 1995, p. 181). Players ‘build’ the virtual world by creating “objects, and rooms, and write programs to make objects function in interesting ways” (Bruckman, 1992, p. 5). In both types of MUDs, the fascination is in operating one’s personae and interacting with other personas (Turkle, 1995, p. 182).

The first thing a player does when logging on to a MUD is create a personae. Bruckman explains that “The person selects the character’s name and gender, and writes a description of what the character looks like. It is possible for a character to be male or female, regardless of the gender of the player” (Bruckman, 1992, p. 4). Most people will not give their true names when creating a persona (Reid, 1994, online). Instead, reports Reid, “Most choose to manifest themselves under a name that forms the central focus of what becomes a virtual disguise” (1994, online). These names range from conventional ones to those that are borrowed from characters in books and other media. Still other names “such as Love, funky, Moonlight and blip, reflect ideas, symbols and emotions, while many more, such as FurryMUCK's felinoid Veronicat and LambdaMOO's yudJ, involve plays upon language and conventional naming systems” (1994, online). By creating an online persona, explains Rheingold, “you help create a world.... identities affirm the reality of the scenario” (Rheingold, 1993, p. 148).

MUDs have introduced new concepts of body and gender. With a few lines of text, “It is possible to by-pass the boundaries delineated by cultural constructs of beauty, ugliness and fashion” (Reid 1994, online). A character can be male or female regardless of the player’s actual gender. Bruckman (1992) reports that “In many MUDs, a character can also be... plural. A plural character could, for example, be called swarm_of_bees or Laurel&Hardy” (Bruckman, 1992, p. 4). Another, initially confusing gender orientation is a neuter, or gender-neutral character, referred to by some as an ’it’ (Turkle, 1995, p. 210).

Employing socio-dramatic theories, MUDs can be designed to house the staging grounds for encounters between specific feuding groups. There could, for instance, be a MUD designed solely for the exploration of racial bias and discrimination between whites and blacks. In this MUD, players would have to adopt either a white, black or neutral persona. This MUD would then become the staging ground for white - black encounters. Once people log on to a MUD, they are inside a virtual room. When players log on to a popular MUD named LambadaMOO, they are ‘in’ a coat closet (Turkle, 1995, p. 182). The description of this virtual room reads, “The Coat Closet. The Closet is a dark, cramped space.... you keep bumping into what feels like coats, boots and other people (apparently sleeping). One useful thing you’ve discovered in your bumbling about is a metal doorknob set at waist level into what might be a door...” (Turkle, 1995, p. 182).

Reid (1994) insists that the coat closet serves an integral purpose (Reid, 1994, online). “It may be small and cramped, but it provides an initial point of reference in the LambdaMOO world and it furnishes the newcomer with a host of information about the cultural nature of the world he or she has entered” (Reid, 1994, online).

By typing the word ‘out’, the player ‘exits’ the virtual closet and enters the virtual living room. A description of a nice, homely living room appears on screen (Turkle, 1995, p. 183). The living room, the anteroom in many MUDs, is important for a number of reasons. Reid (1994) explains that “Along with virtually physical centrality, the living room provides social centrality. It is the main meeting place for LambdaMOO inhabitants” (Reid, 1994, online). Once in the living room, players are free to socialize with other people who are in that virtual room (Turkle, 1995, p. 183).

MUDs could be designed with rooms that resemble hypothetical scenes for Sociodramatic encounters. An Israeli - Palestinian MUD, could, for example, contain a room or stage set in an Israeli town where a suicide bombing just took place. Virtual Israelis and Palestinians entering the room would see a description of the carnage. This would serve as the ‘warm- up’ for their encounter.

There are no rules regarding how players on a MUD should interact. “The MUD system provides players with a stage, but it does not provide them with a script. Players choose their own actions within the context created by the MUD,” reports Reid (1994, p. 26). Commands such as ‘say,’ ‘emote,’ and ‘whisper’ allow players to interact in a realistic manner (Turkle, 1995, p. 183). Turkle (1995) illustrates this idea with an imaginary conversation between her character ‘Turk’ and a player named Dimitri. “If I type ‘say Hi’... the screens of the other players will flash ‘Turk says Hi’.... If I type ‘emote whistles happily,’ all the players’ screens will flash ’Turk whistles happily.’ Or I can address Dimitri alone by typing ‘Whisper to Dimitri Glad to see you,’ and only Dimitri’s screen will show ‘Turk whispers Glad to see you’” (1995, p. 183). In a MUD, facial expressions are conveyed through “typographical conventions known as emoticons... For example, :-) indicates a smiley face and :-( indicates an unhappy face” (1995, p.183).

MUDs provide anonymity that causes people to feel freer than they do in Real Life. According to Reid (1994), this makes the players feel safe because they are “Protected by computer terminals and separated by distances of often thousands of kilometers... the likelihood of any of their fellows being able to affect their 'real lives' is minimal” (Reid, 1994, online)

This loss of inhibition in MUDs manifests itself in different people in divergent ways. Players are allowed to act out their deepest fantasies and explore their curiosity. While some males present themselves on MUDs as females to explore what it feels like to experience what it’s like to be perceived as a female, others are acting out their sexual fantasies (Curtis in Rheingold, 1993, p. 166). Pavel Curtis (1993) postulates that, “...such transvestite flirts are perhaps acting out their own (latent or otherwise) homosexual urges or fantasies, taking advantage of the perfect safety of the MUD to see how it feels to approach other men” (Curtis in Rheingold, 1993, p. 166).

The lack of inhibition in MUD games means that there is less anxiety present than in an ordinary Sociodrama. Also, players would not be afraid to assume roles that are contrary to the values that their friends or family expect them to hold. Thus, MUDs would allow for anxiety-free expression of divergent roles.

Many players on MUDs use their anonymity to explore their human drives. One such case, reports Turkle (1995), explains his aggressive personas as, “something in me; but quite frankly I’d rather rape on MUDs where no harm is done” (Turkle, 1995, p. 185). Online personas allow people to explore parts of themselves that cannot be explored in Real Life. As another case reported by Turkle (1995) asserts, “I’m not one thing, I’m many things. Each part gets to be more fully expressed in MUDs than in the real world. So even though I play more than one self on MUDs, I feel like my self when I’m MUDding” (1995, p. 185). Turkle describes this aspect of MUDding as “what the psychoanalyst Eric Erikson called a psychosocial moratorium” (1995, p. 203). The moratorium, which is a time for experimenting “facilitates the development of a core self... This is what Erikson called identity” (1995, p. 203).

In this non-violent space for conflict resolution, players might be given the power to act out their hatred toward a specific group. For instance, Americans might be given the power, within a MUD, to beat up on or kill a ‘virtual Usama Bin Laden,’ thereby releasing their pent-up aggression and anger toward him.

The ability to have more than one online persona raises questions regarding the multiplicity of the self and MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder). The use of multiple personas as a means for self exploration is making us reconsider our view of the self (Turkle, 1995, p. 260). Turkle explains that when people create a new persona, “Some feel an uncomfortable sense of fragmentation, some a sense of relief. Some sense the possibility for self-discovery, even self-transformation” (1995, p. 260). However, this fragmentation of the self is not to confused with Multiple Personality Disorder, argues Turkle (1995), for in cases of MPD “The parts of the self are not in easy communication” (1995, p. 261). In sharp contrast, there are no communication barriers between the multiple online personas that a player creates. Thus, the idea of multiple personas has introduced us to the concept of a healthy fragmented self (1995, p. 261).

Indeed, as Moreno asserts, each person is a composite of the roles he or she plays (Garcia and Sternberg, 1989, p. 5). Therefore, playing more roles in a Sociodramatic MUD game should lead to a more coherent sense of the roles that make up one’s ‘self’.

While in some MUDs players must choose a gender of ether male or female, there are MUDs that let players choose from “many genders--male, female, plural, neuter, hermaphrodite, and several unearthly genders lifted from the pages of science fiction novels (Reid, 1994, online). Paraphrasing West and Zimmerman (1987), Jodi O'Brien (1999) exposes how MUDs separate biological gender from the gender of the mind. Since players do not have the ability to see what people in a MUD look like in real life, they must create new ways of conceptualizing and categorizing gender (O’Brien, 1999, online). Despite the wide array of gender orientation that is available on some MUDs, Lori Kendall (1997) contends that “the view of gender as a strict polar binary persists” (Kendall, 1997, p.23).

Bruckman (1993) shows how integral gender categorization is by citing a series of comedy skits performed on Saturday Night Live. In these skits, a character named Pat seems to have no gender. In an episode where Pat gets a haircut, the audience tries to guess Pat’s gender by the price of her haircut. A sign tells us that men’s haircuts are $7 and women’s are $9 (Bruckman, 1993, online). “The audience waits in suspense: when Pat goes to pay, his or her true gender will be revealed. The humor of the series lies in the fact that those hopes are constantly foiled; in this instance, Pat leaves $10 and says to keep the change” (Bruckman, 1993, online). With this anecdote, Bruckman (1993) points out how essential it is to people to classify people by gender (Bruckman, 1993, online).

Translated into Socio-dramatic MUDs, players would be allowed, within certain MUDs, to create ethnic, racial, religious, or gender oriented identities that do not exist in real life. The creativity that is already evident in MUDs could lead new ways of conceptualizing the collective roles that we play.

Although gender deception is so widespread in MUDs, Turkle reports that when she encounters characters in a MUD, she habitually checks their gender (Turkle, 1995, p. 211). O'Brien (1999) explains this common preoccupation with gender by citing social psychologists who claim that “we are unable to interact with someone else until we have been able to categorize them in a meaningful way. Before we can position ourselves, we must first ‘name’ the other” (O'Brien, 1999, online).

The notions of gender swapping, and virtual cross dressing, while disorienting at first, are safe mediums for different for self exploration. Men who gender swap learn what it’s like to be perceived as a woman, while women learn what being a man is like by playing male characters in MUDs. Men who play female characters come to realize just how much attention women get (Bruckman, 1993, online). Bruckman (1993) explains that “Unwanted attention and sexual advances create an uncomfortable atmosphere for women in MUDs, just as they do in real life” (Bruckman, 1993, online). Turkle (1995) reveals that playing a male character appealed to her because men are not expected to be active participants in MUDs, whereas women are (Turkle, 1995, p. 210). Turkle (1995) postulated that “...playing a male character might allow me to feel less out of place. I could stand on the sidelines and people would expect me to make the first move. And I could choose not to” (Turkle, 1995, p. 210).

Within a Sociodramatic MUD, players could explore many issues including how members of different ethnic, religious, racial, and national groups relate to each other. Players could analyze these reasons, and realize that they are not built on sound reasoning.

Virtual sex, also referred to as Tinysex, “consists of two or more players typing descriptions of physical actions, verbal statements, and emotional reactions for their characters” (1995, p. 223). Much like phone-sex, players describe - in lines of text - what they are ‘doing’ to the other player. The practice of Tinysex demonstrates the truth of the idea that ninety percent of sex takes place between the ears (1995, p. 21). According to Reid (1994), Tinysex, which is very common online, “falls into a realm between the actual and the virtual. Players can become emotionally involved in the virtual actions of their characters, and the line between virtual actions and actual desires can become blurred” (Reid, 1994, online).

What would occur if members of different groups assimilated on a MUD? What if a member of one group develops an emotional attachment to a member of a group that he or she used to despise?

A most interesting phenomenon occurs when players who are pretending to be of the opposite gender engage in virtual sex. Though it is not that common, there are women who pose as men and have sex with men (Turkle, 1995, p. 223). Turkle reveals that “In the ‘fake lesbian syndrome,’ men adopt online female personae in order to have netsex with women” (1995, p. 223). Bruckman (1993) declares that although extreme, gender swapping is an “...example of a fundamental fact: the network is in the process of changing not just how we work, but how we think of ourselves - and ultimately, who we are” (Bruckman, 1993, online).

Throughout, it is obvious that online personas are tools that can be used to investigate and explore the idea of self. The emergence of our identity through online personas, Turkle (1995) insists, is like the construction of the self that is formed in psychoanalysis (Turkle 1995, p. 256). “It too, is significantly virtual, constructed within the space of the analysis, where its slightest shifts can come under the most intense scrutiny” (1995, p. 256). Kenneth Gergen argues that in this new age, technology is exposing people to many more ideas, perspectives, and ways of living (Gergen, 1991, p. 6). The thoughts of a whole society “...become part of us, and we of them. Social saturation furnishes us with a multiplicity of incoherent and unrelated languages of the self” (Gergen, 1991, p. 6). Rheingold declares that in the world of MUDs the ‘saturated self’ is free to express itself by exploring all the facets of its constitution (Rheingold, 1993, p. 170).

Having analyzed the different ways MUDs make us think about our identity, it is clear that MUDs are not just games. Instead they are tools with which we can think about and re-conceptualize our ideas of the ‘self,’ ourselves, and others. Being able to create a persona that does not resemble that of its player allows for exploration of the self that would otherwise never be revealed. The anonymity enjoyed on the internet allows players to explore their sexuality, and aggressive drives. Multiple online personas are forcing us to reconsider our traditional notion of the healthy person as centered. Neuter and plural characters are adding to the range of genders that we are used to, thus forcing us to redefine our categorization of gender. Playing a character with the opposite gender allows us to explore what it is like to be perceived as such. Engaging in virtual sex gives players the freedom to explore their sexual fantasies in a safe manner. MUDs support the idea that the self is saturated with the minds of society, and allow for exploration of those parts of the self. MUDs are not simply games, or even objects to think with; rather, they are the spaces, where identity and roles can be toyed with to achieve a coherent sense of self. Role playing in MUD games shares many similarities to that of the Psycho-dramatic space. By combining the concepts of Psychodrama with MUDs, we can create a virtual stage for individuals to act out a group’s collective unconscious. Role reversal in this virtual space , which could be incorporated in the design of the game, will lead to world-wide tele and global consciousness.

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