Terminology

Concretise
Role reversal

Criteria
This is the basis for group members making choices in any network exploration, or group development. The criterion is chosen precisely for the purpose of the exploration and what the group want to know about itself. A criterion is a question you ask yourself, and others, to which the response is specific people.

There are four elements to classical criteria for group explorations:
It is person specific – Who in the group….
It is time connected – ‘currently’, ‘for the next three months’
The activity is specified – ‘problem solve with’, ‘ to lead a team’,
It has qualifiers – ‘who hasn’t lead a project so far’, or ‘contributes to consistency in our group’,  

Kinds of Criteria
General versus specific criteria: general criteria – e.g. ‘who in the group do you share information with’ provides more protection for group members than ‘who in the group do you trust to review your budget to identify savings’ or ‘who do you trust to solve work problems with you’. The latter two increase vulnerability and are more likely to lead to spontaneity and development of group relationships.

Personal versus social criteria: Also referred to as psychotelic and sociotelic criteria. Psychotelic criteria embody psychological qualities i.e. trust, openness, approachability. The criteria might be ‘who in the group do you confide in?’  Sociotelic criteria focuses on social roles, e.g. ‘who in the group would you choose to lead our next project, so we enjoy our work together and ensure we complete the project on time’.

Action versus diagnostic criteria: Action criteria are chosen with the purpose carrying out the implied activity, usually. ‘choose two people who lead their groups in a different way to you and have a 40 minute consultation with them on one of the matters on your current agenda’. ‘Choose the people from this group, who you want to be in a productive work group with for the next three months’.

Diagnostic criteria enable the structure of the group to be studied. ‘How many of you here are the eldest child in your family.’ Criteria form the basis of many group directions assisting group members work with those they might not usually choose to work with. “Those of you who are interested to learn more of tele and its applications, meet over here”.

Social atom
Moreno describes the social atom as involving an individual and the people, near or distant to whom he/she is emotionally related at the time. If the social atom of an individual is depleted (significant people move away temporarily or permanently) and an emotional connection is lost, the ability of the individual to function in a spontaneous way is depleted. They can become isolated. For people to be spontaneous, and therefore be learning and alive, they need to be in emotional relationship with various others around them (companions), which support them and provide the range of roles necessary for life. It is the strength of these relationships, which enables role development.

Each of us has two types of social atoms: the private and personal, and the work or vocational. Instrinsic to the social atom is the cultural atom which includes the people and the role relationships - the patterns of behaviours between each dyad.

Our original social atom usually comprises family members or carers. People grow and develop as a result of significant experiences and interactions with those around them. New behaviours are learned and formed with both new and repeated experiences, and with new members entering and leaving the individual’s social atom.

The social atom of each person makes up the larger patterns of social networks in groups, organisations and societies. The mix of role relationships of central individuals and groups form the culture and behaviours within organisations.  As individuals move to new organisations, membership of the social atom of those involved alters, however, research shows the role relationships are recreated and the behavioural patterns persist, particularly under stressful conditions.

Significant moments and experiences within the original family unit define progressive, coping and fragmenting behaviours, which form our responses throughout life.

Social atom repair, the process of change and development occurs through altering patterns of relating in the social atom. This creates change in the cultural atom. Examples of changes to the social atom includes expanding the number of people in the social atom, generating new experiences, building capacities to build relationships on a range of criteria (emotional expansiveness), learning new behaviours through training, practice and experimentation.

The social and cultural atom
Changing behaviour and role relationships amongst those in our personal networks, is the core of organisation change and development through increased spontaneity; enabling people to bring greater vitality, creativity, originality, adequacy, and flexibility to both existing problems and new obstacles.

Each individual is born into a social network. At a time when Rutherford was defining the atom in chemical life, Jacob Moreno (1889 – 1974) was defining the social atom as the smallest unit of society each of us has. The social atom comprises the smallest number of emotionally significant people and their inter-relationships around an individual in order for him or her to be alive and learning.

Tele was first identified by JL Moreno as the flow of feeling from one person to another. Tele has qualities of attraction, drawing people closer together; rejection, moving away from; or neutral/indifferent. Tele is both a fact and a concept, and can be measured using distance, and can be identified by using lines and colours. Tele is a two-way flow of feeling having both an outgoing flow and a flow received by the other. For groups to work well, there needs to be a number of mutually positive relationships amongst group members.

The psycho-social networks formed by the tele relationships of attraction, repulsion and neutrality, can be mapped and made visible to group members. These networks form the emotional and psychological geography of a community and greatly influence what occurs in families, and within and between groups, organisations and societies. 

Sociograms
These are maps of relationships, displaying the connections between people. They can be live and in the moment, or hand or computer generated. Some examples of our work are here:

Sociometry
Sociometry is a science, which enables us to explore and display the informal relationships between people. The term sociometry relates to its Latin etymology, socius meaning companion, and metrum meaning measure.

Spontaneity
Moreno’s classical definition is ‘a new response to an old situation or an adequate response to a new situation’ (JL Moreno Who Shall Survive, 1953 p336). ….the results must be in some way new and useful for some purpose”

Spontaneity has five elements:

• Vitality
• Adequacy
• Originality
• Flexibility
• Creativity