DYNAMICS OF ROLE REVERSAL
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Undoubtedly the most singular aspect in the spectra of man is his capacity for growth; to be alive, a thing must grow; when it ceases to
grow, it ceases to live. Life is essentially development and growth; conversely, to develop and grow is to live.
"The self, as that which can be an object to itself, is essentially a social structure, and arises in social experience," wrote G. H. Mead.' In order to engage in this self-aware process of social interaction, the individual can never be a mass-man, he must think first. Mead perceived thinking as preceding the act in an intelligent relationship where the mode of action is based on the individual's total picture of the social process. Thinking was "inner conversation" to Mead and formed the basis for significant "social intercourse."
References
1 G. H. Mead, Mind, Self and Society, Chicago University Press, 1934, p. 140.
2 Ibid., pp. 141-142.
3 Abraham H. Maslow, "Psychological Data and Value Theory," New Knowledge in Human Values, edited by Maslow, Harper & Brothers, 1959, p. 123.
4 Ibid., p. 127.
5 Ibid., p. 130.
6 Jacob L. Moreno, The First Book on Group Psychotherapy. Beacon House, 1932. Also: Robert B. Haas, Editor, Psychodrama and Sociodrama Education, Beacon House, 1948.
7 Gordon Allport, In Psychodrama, Vol. II, Beacon House, 1959.
8 M. S. Shaw, Spontaneity Training, in Role Playing in Business and Industry. Free Press, 1960.
9 Jacob L. Moreno, "Behaviour Therapy," The American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 120, No. 2, August, 1963, p. 195.
10 Henri Ellenberger, Existence, "A Clinical Introduction to Psychiatric Phenomenology and Existential Analysis," p. 39.
11 Rollo May, Existence, Basic Books, 1958, p. 69
12 Gordon Allport, Becoming, Yale University Press, 1955, p. 51.
13 Carl P. Rogers, On Becoming a Person, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1961, p. 109-110.
14 Thomas Wolfe, The Story of a Novel, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936, p. 17.
15 Gardner Murphy, Human Potentialities, Basic Books, Inc., 1958, p. 23.
16 Ibid., p. 32.
17 Katherine D'Evelyn, Meeting Children's Emotional Needs, p. 31.
18 Rollo May, The Meaning of Anxiety, The Ronald Press Company, 1950, p. 229.
19 1Bonaro Overstreet, Understanding Fears in Ourselves and Others, Harper Brothers, 1951, p. 95.
20 Helen Merrill Lynd, On Shame and the Search for Identity, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1958, p. 20.
21 Ibid., p. 258.
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