psychodrama therapy's adaptation by david arthur walters

8/9/2019 Psychodrama Therapy's Adaptation by David Arthur Walters

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PSYCHODRAMA THERAPY’S ADAPTATIONBy David Arthur Walters

It has been to my great pleasure and high honor toengage in desultory dialogue with highly esteemed Dr. AdamBlatner, M.D., T.E.P., the world’s leading authority on and



foremost proponent of psychodrama therapy, apsychotherapeutic and analytic technique in whichindividuals are given roles to be extemporaneously playedwithin a dramatic context set up by a therapist.

Adam Blatner took his undergraduate classes at theUniversity of Berkeley in 1955 and graduated from medicalschool at the University of California San Francisco in 1963.He became interested in psychodrama, widely regarded as afringe therapy today, during his psychiatric residency atStanford University Medical Center – Dr. Blatner’s medicalcredentials lend some credence to the practice of psychodrama therapy: he is reportedly the only psychiatristin the United States who is a certified psychodramatist. Hetrained in child and family psychiatry in Los Angeles, and

served the United States as a child and adult psychiatrist ata military base in England before going into private practicein California, where he and his second wife Allee developedtheir ‘Art of Play’ techniques, which they elaborated on in1988 in their delightful book, The Art of Play: Helping adultsreclaim imagination and spontaneity .

Dr. Blatner served on the faculty at the University of Louisville’s School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatryand Behavioral Science for seven years, and worked as well

in clinics, hospitals, and his private practice. In 2001 heretired to an active life of writing papers and books, editingvarious journals, and expounding on his special interests inphilosophy and history to students in Texas. Among hismajor life goals, he lists popularizing practical psychology,propagating psychodrama, and integrating spiritual andpsychological insights.

In sum, Adam Blatner has led and still leads a long andproductive life. I encountered him in virtual reality during myfortuitous study of evolutionary psychology and the conceptof adaptation. Naturally, ‘adaptation’ was my primary searchterm. Google’s search engine responded in part with aparticular conference paper entitled ‘The TheoreticalFoundations of Psychodrama’, presented by Adam Blatner,M.D., T.E.P. at the IAGP Conference in London in 1998,presented again in 1999 at the American Society for Group



Psychotherapy and Psychodrama, and then revised andpublished on his website in 2006. Dr. Blatner asserts thereinthat people in general need to acquire “psychologicalliterary,” a set of communication and interpersonal problem-

solving skills he feels is “becoming as necessary foradaptation in a rapidly changing world as knowing how toread and write was in the last century.” Furthermore, “Wecan look at and play our roles, and much of actualadaptation involves the making of appropriate changes.”Wherefore he extols psychodrama at considerable length, asa methodic “training for greater health and adaptation.”

We have heard the refrain many times, most recentlyduring the stellar ascent of Al Gore’s astounding invention,the Internet: If we are to survive, we must welcome rapid

changes instead of resisting them. That is, we had betterbehave appropriately. Apparently we can do so in part byadhering to the principles adumbrated by series of numbersin Dr. Blatner’s authoritative paper, the foremost advantagesof which are set forth in a bulleted list of the “advantages of applied role theory.”

Although Dr. Blatner has devoted much of hisprofessional life advocating and practicing psychodramaticpsychotherapy, he claims that he is an eclectic – someone

devoted to no school in particular but rather to soundnotions and effective practices wherever they might befound. Therefore he would have us know that he does notoffer psychodrama as a panacea for humankind’s salvation;it is simply a tool in his psychotherapeutic kit and caboodle;obviously, given the hundreds of thousands of words he hasdevoted to it, the device is the most important tool as far ashe is concerned.

In any case, we are to adapt if we would succeed, andof course we want the optimum result. The etymology of theEnglish word ‘adaptation’ certainly fits psychodrama’sprescription, for the term derives from the Latin terms ad , or“toward”, and optus, “fit to play some role.” According toThe Oxford English Dictionary , adaptation is “to fit (a personor thing to another, to or for a purpose), to suit, or makesuitable, to alter or modify so as to fit for a new use, to



undergo modification so as to fit for a new use.” TheDictionary of Psychology by Raymond J. Corsini (2002)defines adaptation as: “Modification of either a bodilystructure or function to adjust to and survive environmental

changes; changes of attitudes toward external situationsresulting in better adjustment to those situations; Inreceptors, modification to sensitivity, to permit optionalfunctioning, such as a person recently blinded dependingmore on hearing; in Darwinian theory, survival of the speciesthrough natural selection by changing to fit in better with theenvironment.”

The notion of adaptation has been put forward, of course, as the most important key to the theory of biologicalevolution and its mental analogue, psychological evolution.

Universal Darwinism is the application of the theory of evolution to instances outside of the originally biologicalscope of the hypothesis: abstract evolution is a processindependent of the structures in which it is instantiated,basically in genes; adaptation is a learning process:adaptations are knowledge. Sociobiology is based on thepremise that social behavior and its mechanisms evolvefundamentally by virtue of natural selection; that is, byadaptation. Evolutionary psychology addresses the influence

of evolution on mental behavior, and explains mental traitsas adaptations; that is, the functions and results of naturalselection. The value of consciousness is downplayed oreliminated by the fundamentalist Darwinists among them.

The mechanics of the evolutionary mechanism can beexplained as a sorting function: a range of variations isgenerated and tested against the environment; specificvarieties or variants are “selected” or retained and thenregenerated as the set of variants or originators of the nextphase. In other words, variants are thrown into theenvironment; whatever survives is replicated in anotherround, so on and so forth.

We might naturally assume that Dr. Blatner, in hiscapacity as a psychodrama psychotherapist who citesadaptation as a main aim of his profession, would naturallyemploy an adaptive model to teach, educate, condition,



manipulate, or process his actors, that they might perform orbehave better once they are warmed up to acting out theirconflicts and improvising various alternative roles to play,discuss, and to select from for further repetition into good

habits.Somehow species evolve by virtue of the mysteriousnatural selection process that “acts by life and death, by thesurvival of the fittest, and by the destruction of the less well-fitted individuals,” observed Charles Darwin. Man hasconscious power over the selection of variations, as can beseen from his breeding of animals. “We can not suppose thatall the breeds were suddenly produced as perfect and asuseful as we now see them; indeed, in many cases, we knowthat this has not been their history. The key is man’s power

of accumulative selection. The great power of this principleof selection is not hypothetical.” The agriculturalist has amagic wand, so to speak, “by means of which he maysummon into life whatever form he can mold as he pleases.”

If adaptation is “to fit a person or thing to another, toor for a purpose, to suit, or make suitable, to alter or modifyso as to fit for a new use, to undergo modification so as to fitfor a new use,” anyone interested in adapting wouldrightfully want to know to what Dr. Blatner would have him

or her adapt, how that would be accomplished, and, mostimportantly, for exactly what purpose. A psychotherapyshopper in her right mind might want to see his magic wandbefore buying it. She would want to know if he has anoverarching theory for his practice, or if he operates by theset of his pants on the fly. She might want to know if he hashis patients adapt to the status quo, the social milieu thatmight very well be the foundation of their discontent.Ironically, evolution casts humans as rebels against theirconditions, or, as creatures whose defining, inheritedadaptation, the power to deliberate, allows them to adapttheir environment means to order. That is, the environmentis modified to fit the needs of the race, rather than the racemodified to fit the environment. Perhaps Dr. Blatner’s theoryof adaptation calls for radical reform or social and politicalrevolution in order to survive. Since anarchy can not stand



for long, the revolutionary patient would want to know whatDr. Blatner’s principles of change are.

WALTERS: Dr. Blatner, I have perused your paper,

published on the Internet, 'Theoretical Foundations of Psychodrama', with keen interest. I noted well yourstatements to the effect that "adaptation" is a primary goalof Psychodrama. Wherefore I am moved to ask, adaptationto precisely what?

BLATNER: Adaptation, just as a starter, is a way of coping, of responding creatively and effectively to thecircumstances of a changing world. Many people, faced withchallenge, respond habitually, according to what they feel

worked – and often without much intelligent assessment of how the present may not be the same as the past.

WALTERS: I understand. I have fit into a lot of thingsand I discovered that fitting in by adapting to circumstancesis not always for me. Consider the fellow who is sick andtired of adapting. When he is told he should welcomechange, he says he will not be a welcome mat for otherpeople's changes. I would like to know what you would adapt

to and if you have formed some habit of adaptation. Perhapsyou have a paper on your adaptation policy, or do you justgo with the flow in an unprincipled manner?

BLATNER: You know, David, I really don't know whatyou're trying to get at with this talk about adaptation. It's afuzzy word, and for some, it seems to mean "adjustment," orgo with the desires of the majority. That is a narrowinterpretation, of course. What really is your question? Thesewords should not be taken out of context, and I certainlyhave no formula for all contexts. So, for starters, reach downand search yourself a bit. And perhaps – or maybe not – thereason you're even reading about psychodrama is a clue?What possessed you to pick up my work?



WALTERS: I want to know what you would adapt to,what is your habit of adaptation, and I hoped you wouldconsider the reverse role, that of the fellow who doesn’twant to welcome change, to be a welcome mat for other

people’s change.

BLATNER: I certainly don't mean by adapting merelyadjusting to the norms and attitudes of the environment. Iplay many roles, being able to be pretty straight, andreceived and treated like a professional, high status,respected, et cetera. I don't fully achieve "gravitas," becauseI slip into playfulness a fair amount. In other roles, I'm moreplayful, at times a bit wacky, as you'll gather from looking atmy bio, especially the comments and links to cartoons, et

cetera At the bottom of my listing of papers are again moreplayful spiritual and myth-making papers. I adapt to thechallenges of living in a postmodern world, one that asksfrom me for a creative response so that the lessconventional roles may find optimal expression. I take careof business and then I have fun. There is no single out-there-reality, but a goodly number, many of which will play back – Ihave been given the great gift of finding a soul-mate who

joins me in adapting in many different roles. My wife can be

as playful as I am. Am I getting closer to what will meet yourrequest? Am I adapting to your still somewhat idiosyncraticmode of communication? How about laying more of yourcards on the table?

WALTERS: I can see that you know very well what I amreferring to, and in retrospect I can also see that I asked afair question in the context of your published paper,'Theoretical Foundations of Psychodrama,' - in sum: Whatwould you have your public adapt to? For example, wouldyou have them simply go with the flow in an unprincipledmanner, or do you have certain principles in mind for theirown good as you define it?

BLATNER: You interpret my responses, but cannot readmy mind. Actually, I'm a little bewildered, a little wondering



if you're playing with me with conscious or unconsciouscompetitiveness, but I’m not sure which, or something else.

WALTERS: You must know very well that you are

avoiding the question, which was well put:

BLATNER: Not well put in my perception, and noavoidance in my consciousness

WALTERS: You have been beating around the bush.

Precisely what do you mean by adaptation, that is to say,adaptation to what?

BLATNER: Precisely – adaptation to what context, what

role demand? Your desire to obtain precision is preciselywhat thousands of books and articles about philosophy,anthropology, psychology, postmodernism, et cetera, havebeen about. It is recognized that in a world where, asNietzsche pointed out, all knowledge is perspective, andsince there are many perspectives, getting the contextagreed on is part of the process.

WALTERS: You seem to be trapped in some sort of anti-

ideological ideology and nonjudgmental judgmentalism. I amstill certain, despite your assurances, that you know what Imean, in the sense that you have felt it, and I hoped thatyou yourself would look within, to the phenomenon of yourresistance to definition, which I believe is similar to mine,and clarify your good intentions, or at least shine up yourarmor a bit. This is, after all, a market, and I see some chinksthat need caulking.

BLATNER: I don’t know what you mean by market. Whatis it that you are driving at?

WALTERS: I asked if you just go with the flow, forinstance, without principles in mind, that is to say in anunprincipled manner, or do you have some ideal or goal in



mind and a way to get there, one that you wish all thoseinterested to adapt to.

BLATER: In some circumstances, I have more of an idea

of a goal than others, it's rather varied, with a range of strength of responses. Some principles are kept in reserve –more like driving, where the need to turn the wheel morethan a little may not be necessary except on occasion, on afreeway, or more active in city driving. A fair amount of timeI have few principles in mind, but they exist in thebackground. I may take a walk around the neighborhood,chatting with my wife, letting it flow, but there is a principleof not peeing on my neighbor's lawn operating, should theurge arise. Your either/or presentation is questionable: Why

are these the only alternatives? As for wanting others toadapt to a goal; that, too varies with the urgency, timeconstraints, et cetera. In many contexts, I'm quite open toplay and surprise...

WALTERS: Language of course is inherentlyambiguous, especially when words for general concepts aretaken out of concrete contexts. In the interest of the"psychological literacy" and "competence" in communication

skills you deem "necessary for adaptation," the "fuzzy" term,if used for other than bullshit marketing, wants more clarity,or at least wants clarification, and I have asked for yourquotable definition for your own good, and mine too if thesuit fits me.

BLATNER: What is your argument for that assertion:that the term "wants" more clarity? As for a quotabledefinition…whoa. I've had too many journalists andinterviewers misquote so painfully and foolishly that I havelittle reason to trust this... And why or how is doing this formy own good? That sounds ominous or intimidating. Did youmean it to be that?

I have quoted Dr. Blatner verbatim. Evidently journalistshave caused him some pain and have portrayed him as a



fool; but that was not my intention. It is not my purpose isnot to slander the good doctor or his calling, but to state mypersonal opinions forthrightly and as truthfully as I can,although that might punctuate his equilibrium and deflate

his gravitas. Dr. Blatner is not merely interested in themental health of particular individuals but in the salvation of the “people in general” whose linguistic competence is“necessary for adaptation in a rapidly changing word” Iwanted him to clarify the term for everyone’s good. Hisdiscourse on adaptation sounds good, but his answer isevasive, leaving us with the impression that he is skatingaround the subject after erecting it as a banner, or that he isprevaricating, or that he simply does not know what he isdoing in respect to the application of a concept purportedly

crucial to the progress of everyone concerned – CharlesDarwin initially refrained from using the term ‘evolution’ andemployed the phrase “descent with modification” because,in the common parlance of his day, ‘evolution’ wassynonymous with ‘progress’ or improvement; however, hedid give a bow to progress: “as natural selection works solelyby and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mentalendowments will tend to progress towards perfection."

Consumers want to know the purpose of a mechanism

or technique and the theory behind it; they want to believethat it will work for them because it has worked for otherslike them. Perchance Dr. Blatner is an evolutionist in thesense that he works in the same manner that evolution issaid to work; that is, blindly, without foresight into distanceneeds, without purpose or design. That is to say that he hasno theory or technique in particular. Maybe he just opens hisPandora-box of postmodern alternatives, and whateverseems to do the trick for his multicultural patients in termsof their mental health as he relatively defines it will donicely, thank you very much. We have no beef with that,providing that we can see the sacred cow beforehand. Andwhen he would put diverse people into the same ark of salvation, we naturally want to know where it is heading andhow it is going to get there.



Of course adaptation is not everything: it is not the onlyevolutionary factor. Dr. Blatner would no doubt enjoyStephan Jay Gould’s remark in ‘Creating the creators’(Discover, October 1996): “Precise adaptation, with each

part finely honed to perform a definite function in an optimalway, can only lead to blind alleys, dead ends, and extinction.In our world of radically and unpredictably changingenvironments, an evolutionary potential for creativeresponse requires that organisms possess an opposite set of attributes usually devalued in our culture: sloppiness, broadpotential, quirkiness, unpredictability, and, above all,massive redundancy. The key is flexibility, not admirableprecision.”

Still, we want to know what our psychiatrist is doing

and to what end, particularly when he puts adaptation inplay. Seldom do we hear glowing testimonials to the efficacyof psychiatry-at-large except for its efficiency in multiplyingthe classifications of mental illnesses and prescribingpsychotropic drugs for same, and in cooperating withbusiness and its political cabinet in making sure thatconsumers are “productive members of society” – adefinition of mental health lately promulgated by a SurgeonGeneral. At least classic psychoanalysis provided its

analysands with enhanced status and a scandalous theory tochat about, and they could converse at considerable lengthsince their evolution on the couch is Darwinian in itsgradualness. Many psychiatrists disavow uniform theoriestoday, preferring to resort to a case-by-case or pragmaticapproach to the presumably unique psychological-sociological situations of particular patients; the virtuallypriestly proceedings and results are confidential. Such anapproach is hardly scientific. It often accomplishes littlemore that pragmatic politics’ efforts at machine-tweakingreform when radical reform is needed: it results in thatstagnant stalemate known as the status quo. One wonderswhat possible good the early psychoanalysts whoimmigrated to America could really have done, given theirignorance of its culture, unless they were in possession of anoverarching theory of the workings of the machine



generating evolution, the sex machine, and a radical way of setting it on a more sublime track.

Practitioners of psychodrama psychotherapy, uneasyabout psychodrama’s reputation for being an unscientific,

“fringe” therapy, have tried to cull statistic evidence for theeffectiveness of their more or less uniform therapeutic ritual. Thus far the studies are fatally flawed. Positive results havein fact been reported – mostly in journals devoted to thepropagation of psychodrama therapy – from a fewpainstaking statistical studies involving a small number of subjects, conducted by enthusiastic psychodramatists.Objective studies of large numbers of subjects belie theencouraging anecdotal reports. Any scientific disproof isdeprecated as prejudicial, reductional, materialistic

“scientism” entirely contrary to the favored, fundamentallyincoherent mode of musing, with its irresponsible claim toabsolutely responsible multicultural integration; namely,postmodernism, an intellectual disease that is itself hypocritically prejudicial, reductionist, and materialistic.

Since so-called postmodernism is the symptom if notthe cause of the maladjustment malady, how can it be thecure? Does homeopathic therapy really work?Postmodernism is really nothing new in its irrational revolt

against the rationalization of mores, in its attempt to peelthe onion, to reduce the civilized man to a primitive, childlikestate that he might be reborn and spontaneously recreatehimself in partnership with god or god’s representative.

Dr. Blatner is a confessed postmodernist. Postmodernpsychotherapists espouse a sort of anti-theoretical theory-building that plays games with hypotheses but never arrivesat a theory. As we can easily observe for ourselves, non-linear, chaotic, fractal behavior is in vogue for thepostmodern homunculus. Notwithstanding the dynamicaversion to static logic, which implies that, either somethingworks or it does not work, now there is an attempt bypsychodramatists to hide psychodrama within a broadertherapeutic, or eclectic context, embracing, mostimportantly, cognitive behavior therapy, a therapy that isuniformly applied, studied, altered to achieve optimum



results, and which enjoys broad statistical verification of itsutility.

Alternatively, if the statistics are against your approachto helping people, the theory for your practice might

conveniently eschew statistics: “What is needed is a shiftfrom the statistical type of research (i.e. ‘nomothetic’) to amore case-study approach (i.e. ‘ideographic’),” Dr. Blatnerprofessed in his seminal conference address.

He has apparently not yet arrived at the synthesis thatdisposed of the nomothetic/idiographic dichotomy; to wit:Understanding (see Sombart & Weber). Natural science isnomothetic or “law giving.” Nomothetic: If a past set of factsare known, then a future set of facts can be predictedpursuant to a theory applied to the past set of facts. Many

theists also believe in cause and effect; they maintain thatdivine providence are the facts provided or caused by Godthe First Cause, and flow from his Wisdom; the preciserelation between cause and effect, the abstract deity and theconcrete facts, is inexplicable, is God’s mystery. Idiographic:History, on the other hand, was considered to be idiographic,related to events, each one unique in its particularity – theevents or facts might be laid out on a graph. The school of Historicism held that generalizations or theories about those

facts must all be false, that Scientism was a fraud –historicists however did not object to the notion that somegeneral form of spirit holds sway over history.Understanding: The synthesis called Understanding assertsthat man is most familiar with man and can thereforeunderstand and predict his conduct by utilizing rational,systematic methods; thus is common sense retained,superstition denied and natural science disposed of. Yet manremains the most unpredictable animal, and economists whoclaim to understand their ideographs and are notorious forfailing to predict the course of the economy. Theiridiographic models may be ideographs of facts that willnever definitely recur in accordance with any law capable of being understood. On the law of probability governing bignumbers may be relied upon in general, but the housealways wins in the end. A plea of ignorance would be more



truthful than being shifty, but it would not raise manyinvestors in our good works.

Furthermore, Dr. Blatner admitted that the definition of “role” in his “applied role theory” was “elusive.” Yet “actual

adaptation” requires us to observe the “roles” we play inorder to make the changes he deems “appropriate.”However, “Just because a term is hard to define doesn’tmean that it can’t be useful in many contexts.”

The same might be said of many generalities, whetherglittering or not. Many of them work simply because we haveblind faith in them, and believe (be-love) in the messengerno matter how much he contradicts himself – language shallalways be blessed or cursed by some degree ambiguity.Martin Luther insisted in his commentary on Galatians that

nothing really works to set a man right but faith; thereforenothing should be done. “Why do we then nothing? Do wework nothing for the obtaining of this righteousness? Ianswer: Nothing at all. For the nature of this righteousness isto do nothing.” In that righteousness “no sin is perceived, noterror or remorse or conscience is felt…. For there is no law,and where no law is, there can be no transgression.” Everyact is bound by law. Wherefore the saving faith is not in thenatural law, or in the law of evolution, or in the law of man,

but is in the grace of the highest power of all, as exercisedby the Christ, who, “according to his true definition, is nolawgiver, but a forgiver of sins and a savior.” The grandeurof this concept renders all our key terms pathetic.

Perhaps all the key terms of psychodrama advertisedby Dr. Blatner in his texts, such as ‘adaptation,’ ‘heuristic’,‘role’, ‘creativity’, ‘spontaneity’, ‘postmodern’, ‘flexibility’,‘playful’, ‘drama’, ‘self-expression’, ‘concretization’,‘sublimation’, ‘encounter’, ‘pluralistic’, and so on denoteelusive or indefinite notions designed to allure patients intosubmitting to his unwritten agenda behind the scenes. If hehas such an agenda, let the buyer be aware of it in advance.He ostensibly processes or changes people so they mightbecome more flexible in order to better adapt to or fit therapidly changing world – psychotherapy should “promote thepatient’s capacity to be flexible and adaptive,” he stated.



But to what end? Psychotherapists would either wittingly orunwittingly make the flexible and adaptive world over totheir own wanted moral order; if the world were already ingood order, it would have no use for them nor would they

feel a need to change it. Charles Darwin, incidentally,thought the natural world was perfectly beautiful the way itwas:

“How have all those exquisite adaptations of one partof the organization to another part, and to the conditions of life and of one organic being to another being, beenperfected? We see these beautiful co-adaptations mostplainly in the woodpecker and the mistletoe; and only a littleless plainly in the humblest parasite which clings to the hairsof a quadruped or feathers of a bird; in the structure of the

beetle which dives through the water; in the plumed seedwhich is wafted by the gentlest breeze; in short, we seebeautiful adaptations everywhere and in every part of theorganic world.”

As for the ‘adaptation’ of Dr. Blatner, which he declaredto be a “fuzzy word,” it might serve his purpose to delete itfrom his advertisements if he would not clarify it to suit hispractice. Geneticists have taken the speed out of theconcept: adaptation is “any relative change in gene

frequency.” Still, biologists ordinarily use the term to refer toa state or a certain characteristic of an organism at anygiven time and acquired over a certain history. Naturalhistorians believe that change takes place gradually overlong periods of time, a concept that casts doubt on theefficacy of brief therapy if psychology belongs to biology, asif it were a dog on a rope behind the wagon:

“Why,” asked Darwin, “on the theory of Creation,should there be so much variety and so little real novelty?Why should all the parts and organs of many independentbeings, each supposed to have been separately created forits own proper place in nature, be so commonly linkedtogether by graduated steps? Why should not Nature take asudden leap from structure to structure? On the theory of natural selection, we can clearly understand why she shouldnot; for natural selection acts only by taking advantage of



slight successive variations; and can never take a great andsudden leap, but must advance by the short and sure,though slow steps.”

But adaptation in the popular sense refers to the

immediate adjustments a person makes to circumstances. Those adjustments might be unintentionally or unwillinglymade; but we like to believe that we are making history, andnot the other way around; at the same time, we wantmanagement to make sure our history is ready-made, orready-to-wear, that it might suit us on the spot, that wemight be immediately gratified. The possible pace of adaptation has sped up to the point that a so-calledadaptation may be nothing more than a response to astimulus, an effect of a cause, a knee-jerk reaction. The

extended definition of a long, drawn-out natural history of small evolutionary steps has been collapsed into a fewmoments, or even into the much heralded gestalt of theNow, that the biological process might be immediatelyobserved, or that one’s awareness of the Now mighttranscendentally enlighten him.

Not all biologists are averse to the notion of the crucialimportance of current change. Biologists following in thefootsteps of the late Stephan Jay Gould could care less about

speculating on adaptation or how undersigned structureshappen to appear to be designed. Gould thought theadaptationist or selectionist hypothesis was a waste of time,a sign of “overzealousness” for untested interpretations, for“just-so-stories.” Explanations of traits in terms of immediatedevelopmental or physiological causes – proximateexplanations –are more useful than evolutionaryexplanations based on adaptive values. Knowledge of theimmediate process eliminates the need to speculate on theremote history of adaptations, the evolving results of processes. “Speculation about the adaptive significance is afavorite, and surely entertaining, ploy among evolutionarybiologists. But the question, ‘What is it for?’ often divertsattention from the more mundane but often moreenlightening issue, ‘How is it built?’”



Indeed, a great deal of criticism has been leveled at theconcept of adaptation and natural selection as those virtuallysynonymous concepts of classic evolution have been appliedto human behavior. Again, people want to be free from

determination by natural history, or to at least bend theprocesses to their own ends. We think Dr. Blatner uses whathe calls a “fuzzy word” as a buzzword; a buzzword that lendssome credence to fuzzy hypotheses because the term isassociated with evolutionary science. As we have seen, theconcept of adaptation can be simply defined, as variation-selection-inheritance, and the mechanical model for long-term modifications can be currently applied, in order toimmediately alter behavior. The logic of evolutionaryadaptation is rather simple, so simple in fact that many

people are still offended by it. It takes the designer out of the design and reduces overarching theories and “totalizinggrand narratives,” which professedly postmodernreductionists such as Dr. Blatner generally despise, tocapitalistic competition between depersonalized individualsor sociometric atoms. As Gould’s associate Richard Lewontinput it, "Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection isobviously nineteenth-century capitalism writ large," andattempts to press it into the service of psychology are "pure

reification."Since Dr. Blatner uses the term, adaptation, a term that

is so essential to the “law” of evolution, I believe myquestion was well put, and that it would behoove him to ridhis text of his adaptation of the word adaptation, or to clarifyit, in which case we might better know if he knows what he isdoing, and if that might do us any good.

psychodrama therapy's adaptation by david arthur walters

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