Susana Bloch

Susana Bloch Arendt (born 1931[1]) is a German Chilean research psychologist whose focus is in neurophysiology and psychophysiology. She is known for creating Alba Emoting, a psychophysiological technique that allows a person to consciously induce, express, and change in and out of basic emotions.[2]

Susana Bloch
Born1931 (age 91–92)
Berlin, Germany
Other namesSusana Bloch Arendt
Education
OccupationExperimental psychologist
Organizations
Known forAlba Emoting
Websitealbaemoting.cl

Early life and education

Susana Bloch was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1931 and emigrated with her family to Santiago, Chile in 1936.[1] She studied at the University of Chile in Santiago and was graduated in 1960 with teaching degrees in psychology and English.[3] She then pursued graduate studies at Harvard University and Boston University.[4]

Research and career

Bloch began her career as a visiting professor in experimental psychology and neuroscience applied to the study of animals, at Harvard University and Boston University, as well as at the University of São Paulo. By 1970 Bloch was a full professor of neurophysiology in the department of psychology at the University of Chile in Santiago. She also was a research associate in the department of physiology at the University of Chile Faculty of Medicine.

When the department of theater at the University of Chile invited Bloch to teach a psychology course to their students, she proposed an experimental research workshop in emotions instead. The workshop moved forward, and drama professor Pedro Orthous and neurophysiologist Guy Santibáñez joined her.[4] During this collaboration they discovered "emotional effector patterns" and named their work the "BOS Method" (after their surname initials).[5] The Chilean coup d'état on 11 September 1973 brought an end to their studies. Bloch moved to France, Santibáñez moved to a different country, and Orthous died the following year.[6]

In 1974, Bloch became director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris, France. She created her laboratory at the Pierre and Marie Curie University, where she worked for 23 years.

In her ongoing research in the psychophysiology of human emotions, Bloch reworked and refined the BOS Method. While collaborating with filmmaker and writer Pedro Sándor, she renamed the method to "Alba Emoting". The new name evolved after they worked together on Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba while using the method.[7] "Alba" was chosen because in Spanish it means both "dawn" and "white", by which Bloch says the ideas of "aurora" and "purity" are reflected. The choice of "Emoting", from the English verb "to emote", was selected by Bloch during collaboration with an American colleague.[4][8][lower-alpha 1] The refined method and collaboration with Sándor enabled Bloch to bring her discoveries beyond the laboratory and into the theater.[9]

Bloch eventually returned to Chile, where she continues to teach, develop new practical applications, and write.[10]

Alba Emoting

Alba Emoting allows a person to induce, express, and modulate in and out of six basic emotions using posture, facial expression, and breathing patterns.[2]

In a 2020 scientific journal article, Juan Pablo Kalawski, a clinical psychologist trained in Alba Emoting, writes that recent theoretical and empirical work suggests that anger, fear, sadness, joy, eroticism, and tenderness "are distinct emotions and that each includes a specific respiratory, postural, and/or facial pattern".[11]

Bloch explains in her book, entitled The Alba of Emotions, that her process allows a person the ability to recognize emotions "accurately, without confusion, and to express them genuinely, just as children do".

Each emotion has its own set of bodily responses that Bloch calls "emotional effector patterns". By reproducing these patterns through breathing, posture, and facial expression, a person can experience and express genuine emotion at will, without having to recall personal memories or images.[12]

With a seventh pattern called a "step-out", a person can exit any emotion and return to a neutral state. This ability is considered central to safe emotional practice.[9]

By 1995, Bloch had certified the earliest Alba Emoting trainers to teach independently. She organized the training into six levels. Levels 1 (self-use/practitioner) and 2 (teaching apprentice) as student level; while levels 3, 4, 5, and 6 graduate to certified teaching levels.[8]

Certified instruction by Bloch grew organically, then organized as the group, Alba Emoting North America. It is currently certified by the Alba Method Association.[13]

Alba Emoting and actors

Primarily, Alba Emoting has been a tool for actors and directors, introduced through private lessons, theater workshops, and becoming part of the applied skills curriculum for some drama teachers. For them, it is a purely physical alternative to emotion memory and other psychological techniques for releasing, maintaining, and controlling emotional states on stage.[7][14][15][16] "Actors can learn to control the levels and intensities of these emotions, enter and leave an emotional state at will", the description of a workshop advertised for actors in 2012 explains, "all without the use of personal memories to trigger the emotional state".[17][18]

Illinois Wesleyan University theater professor and director, Nancy Loitz became a certified teacher after training with Bloch during a 1992 sabbatical in South America and has used the technique with casts of plays she directs.[19]

Australian actress Louise Siversen described her experience with the method in a 2014 radio interview. "You can step in and out of it incredibly quickly", she said, "[s]o it's protecting the psyche of the actor. Because actually the seventh primary state is called step out, and... This is the neutral state: breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth, looking towards the horizon line, softening the eyes, you can get out of any state that you're in, regardless of how intense it may be. And you're completely free of it, because it is purely a physical state."[20]

The principles of the method have begun to interest people in other fields. Computer graphics animators have started to recognize how acting skills can enhance emotional states and responses in their animations. In those crossover studies, some texts teach animators to combine understanding of Alba Emoting with the likes of Bioenergetic analysis, essences, Laban Effort Shapes, classic training in voice-over acting, lip sync, foundations of Commedia dell'arte, and Michael Chekhov and Konstantin Stanislavski methods. As the authors of the 2009 text Action! Acting Lessons for CG Animators say, "Countless acting theories have been developed to capture, control, and maintain emotion. For the animator, this trouble is compounded by the fact that they must create the sense of emotion in an inanimate object, imbuing something nonliving with the subtle signs of human emotion."[21]

Bloch says in her 2017 book, entitled Alba Emoting: A Scientific Method for Emotional Induction, that beyond science, theater, film, and visual arts, she believes "there is a large new world open for exploration" in other possible applications of her method. Some examples she gives of how it might be used are in publicity, organizational development, and psychotherapy.[4]

Published works

Journal articles

Bloch is the author of more than 100 scientific publications on topics such as visual perception, the role of the cerebral cortex in learning, and the psychophysiology of human emotions. Articles include:

  • Bloch, S.; Silva, A. (1959). "Factors involved in the acquisition of a maze habit, analyzed by means of tranquilizing and sedative drugs". Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology. 52 (5): 550–554. doi:10.1037/h0043560. PMID 13801512.
  • Bloch-Rojas, S.; Toro, A.; Pinto-Hamuy, T. (1964). "Cardiac versus somatomotor conditioned responses in neodecorticated rats". Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology. 58 (2): 233–236. doi:10.1037/h0043193. PMID 14215395.
  • Bloch, S.; Rey, J; Martinoya, C. (1981). "Visual acuity as a function of distance for frontal and lateral viewing in the pigeon". Sensory Functions: 471–476. doi:10.1016/B978-0-08-027337-2.50059-6. ISBN 9780080273372. S2CID 126852092.
  • Bloch, S.; Martinoya, C. (1982). "Comparing frontal and lateral viewing in the pigeon. I. Tachistoscopic visual acuity as a function of distance". Behavioural Brain Research. 5 (3): 231–244. doi:10.1016/0166-4328(82)90031-6. PMID 7115567. S2CID 13328073.
  • Bloch, S.; Martinoya, C. (1983). "Specialization of Visual Functions for Different Retinal Areas in the Pigeon". Advances in Vertebrate Neuroethology. pp. 359–368. doi:10.1007/978-1-4684-4412-4_18. ISBN 978-1-4684-4414-8. S2CID 117271601.
  • Bloch, S.; Rivaud, S.; Martinoya, C. (1984). "Comparing frontal and lateral viewing in the pigeon. III. Different patterns of eye movements for binocular and monocular fixation". Behavioural Brain Research. 13 (2): 173–182. doi:10.1016/0166-4328(84)90147-5. PMID 6487407. S2CID 9549452.
  • Bloch, S.; Lemeignan, M.; Martinoya, C. (1987). "Coordinated vergence for frontal fixation, but independent eye movements for lateral viewing, in the pigeon". Eye Movements from Physiology to Cognition: 47–56. doi:10.1016/B978-0-444-70113-8.50009-6. ISBN 9780444701138. S2CID 130201419.
  • Bloch, S.; Lemeignan, M.; Aguilera-T, N. (1991). "Specific respiratory patterns distinguish among human basic emotions". International Journal of Psychophysiology. 11 (2): 141–154. doi:10.1016/0167-8760(91)90006-J. PMID 1748589. S2CID 4293802.
  • Lemeignan, M.; Aguilera-T, N.; Bloch, S. (1992). "Emotional effector patterns: recognition of expressions". Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive. S2CID 151606857.

Books

Books authored by Bloch include:

Recognition, honors, and awards

In the history of Chilean psychology, the pioneering role of women during the second half of the twentieth century has only begun to be recognized. At the University of Chile, Bloch was part of a team of researchers that included Vera Kardonsky, María de los Ángeles Saavedra, and Teresa Pinto, as well as Carlos Descouvieres and Guy Santibáñez. In a 2015 article, one interviewee remembered: "I think that all of that little group are the ones who transformed the vision of biology and psychobiology in the school." (Translated from Spanish)[31]

Honors and awards Bloch has received include:

  • National Psychology Prize awarded in 2010 by the Chilean College of Psychologists [32]
  • Life Care Award given in 2016 by the IST Work Safety Institute in Chile [33]

Notes
  1. The term "emoting" also is used in the title of a film directed by Sándor about research of emotional effector patterns.

References
  1. "Mujeres en nuestra historia: 5 pioneras para recordar en este mes de Marzo". Blog da Rede Iberoamericana de Pesquisadores em História da Psicologia. 9 March 2015. Retrieved 28 May 2021.
  2. Bloch, S; Paulet, S.; Lemeignan, M. (1994). "Reproducing emotion-specific effector patterns: A bottom-up method for inducing emotions (Alba Emoting®)". In N. H. Frijda (Ed.), ISRE '94, Proceedings of the VIIIth Conference of the International Society for Research on Emotions. Storrs: ISRE Publications: 194–199.
  3. "En homenaje a las mujeres psicólogas pioneras en Chile 08/03/2016". Colegio de Psicólogos de Chile. 8 March 2016. Retrieved 28 May 2021. El Colegio de Psicólogos de Chile a través del departamento de Bienestar felicita en el día Internacional de la mujer a todas las mujeres y psicólogas por el valioso aporte que cada día realizan en diferentes áreas de la vida. ...También queremos mencionar a grandes profesionales como: (1960) Susana Bloch quien dirigió el primer taller experimental en Chile para el estudio de las emociones y su correlato fisiológico con actores (La Tercera 2001)
  4. Bloch, Susana (2017). Angelin, Patricia; Townsend, Elizabeth (eds.). Alba Emoting: A Scientific Method for Emotional Induction (2nd revised edition of English translation ed.). CreateSpace. pp. 93, 158–165. ISBN 9781542548847.
  5. Bloch, Susana; Orthous, Pedro; Santibañez, Guy (January 1987). "Effector patterns of basic emotions: a psychophysiological method for training actors". Journal of Social and Biological Structures. 10 (1): 1–19. doi:10.1016/0140-1750(87)90031-5. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  6. Alba Method Association, History of the Alba Method / Alba Emoting, Origins, accessed June 19, 2021
  7. Beck, Jessica M. (21 September 2010). "Alba Emoting and emotional melody: surfing the emotional wave in Cachagua, Chile". Theatre, Dance and Performance Training. 1 (2): 141–156. doi:10.1080/19443927.2010.504998. S2CID 194087729. Archived from the original on 19 April 2021. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  8. Baker, Angela Katherine (2008). Alba Emoting: A Safe, Effective, and Versatile Technique for Generating Emotions in Acting Performance (MA). Brigham Young University - Provo. Archived from the original on 19 March 2021. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  9. Rix, Roxane (September 1993). "Alba Emoting: A Preliminary Experiment with Emotional Effector Patterns". Theatre Topics. 3 (2): 139–145. doi:10.1353/tt.2010.0026. S2CID 191492037. Archived from the original on 2 June 2018. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  10. Bloch, Susana. "Susana Bloch Biography". www.albaemoting.cl/biografia. Alba Emoting. Archived from the original on 19 April 2021. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  11. Kalawski, Juan Pablo (December 2020). "The Alba Method and the Science of Emotions". Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science. 4 (54): 903–919. doi:10.1007/s12124-020-09525-4. PMID 32212066. S2CID 214643985. Archived from the original on 19 April 2021. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  12. Bloch, Susana; Lemeignan, M.; Aguilera, N. (August 1991). "Specific respiratory patterns distinguish among human basic emotions". International Journal of Psychophysiology. 11 (2): 141–54. doi:10.1016/0167-8760(91)90006-j. PMID 1748589. Archived from the original on 19 April 2021. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  13. "AMA Certifications". Alba Method Association. Archived from the original on 25 November 2020. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  14. Geer, Richard Owen (September 1993). "Dealing with Emotional Hangover: Cool-down and the Performance Cycle in Acting". Theatre Topics. 3 (2): 147–158. doi:10.1353/tt.2010.0035. S2CID 145232089. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  15. Zarrilli, Phillip B. (2002). Acting (re)considered: a theoretical and practical guide (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. pp. 197–210. ISBN 9780415263009. OCLC 252974019. Archived from the original on 19 April 2021. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  16. Krasner, David; Pamela D. Chabora (2009). "Ch 16, Emotion Training and the Mind/Body Connection: Alba Emoting and the Method". Method Acting Reconsidered: Theory, Practice, Future (2nd ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780312223090. OCLC 541704794. Archived from the original on 29 March 2020. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  17. "Arts News - Alba Emoting Workshop". Allentown, Pennsylvania. The Morning Call. 8 July 2012. pp. GO7. Archived from the original on 19 April 2021. Retrieved 13 March 2021. Alba Emoting is a non-psychological acting technique developed by neuroscientist Susana Bloch. With this technique, actors learn specific breathing patterns, body tension states and facial expressions attributed to six basic emotions.
  18. Laxer, Michelle (15 January 2012). "Lander professor finds educational success upon discovering theater". Greenwood, South Carolina. The Index-Journal. pp. 1D, 3D. Archived from the original on 19 April 2021. Retrieved 13 March 2021. Sacay-Bagwell is also trying to become certified to teach a relatively new acting technique called Alba Emoting. Made popular by research psychologist Susana Bloch, it teaches actors how to generate emotions through breathing techniques, posturing and facial expressions.
  19. "Wesleyan troupe debuting plays". Bloomington, Illinois. The Pantagraph. 29 January 1997. p. B7. Archived from the original on 19 April 2021. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  20. Lobel, Thalma; Yates, Mark; Louise, Siversen (21 September 2014). "What the body knows". The Body Sphere (Interview). Interviewed by Amanda Smith. Australia: ABC Radio National. Archived from the original on 19 April 2021. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  21. Kundert-Gibbs, John; Kundert-Gibbs, Kristin (2009). "9". Action! Acting Lessons for CG Animators. Indianapolis, Indiana and Canada: Wiley Publishing, Inc, Sybex Imprint. ISBN 9780470596050. Archived from the original on 19 April 2021. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  22. Maturana, Humberto, and Susana Bloch. 1996. Biología del emocionar y Alba Emoting: respiración y emoción: bailando juntos. Santiago de Chile: Dolmen Ed. OCLC 43951232. Retrieved 27 May 2021 – via WorldCat.
  23. "Alba emoting: biología del emocionar, Susana Bloch A. Uqbar Editores 2014". Bibliometro Metro de Santiago. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  24. Al Alba de las emociones/ The Dawn of Emotions By Susana Bloch · 2002. Random House Mondadori. June 2002. ISBN 9789562581318. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  25. "Bloch, S. (2011). Al alba de las emociones : respiración y manejo de las emociones : Alba Emoting. Uqbar Editores". Biblioteca Digital de la Universidad de Chile. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  26. Morris, Terry (13 August 2006). "Science, emotions share stage". Ohio. Dayton Daily News. pp. D15. Archived from the original on 19 April 2021. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  27. "Bloch Arendt, S. (2002). Alba emoting : bases científicas del emocionar (1a. ed.). Editorial Universidad de Santiago". Biblioteca Digital de la Universidad de Chile. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  28. Conrad, Hyrum (2003). "The Development of Alba Emoting (2003)". Google Books. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  29. "Bloch, S. (2008). Surfeando la ola emocional : reconozca las emociones básicas y comprenda sus emociones mixtas . Uqbar". Biblioteca Digital de la Universidad de Chile. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  30. Bloch, S., In Angelin, P., & In Townsend, E. A. (2017). Alba Emoting: A scientific method for emotional induction. OCLC 1065522790. Retrieved 27 May 2021 – via WorldCat.
  31. Winkler, María Inés; Reyes, María Isabel (May 2015). "Historias de Mujeres en la Psicología Chilena: Contribuciones de Lola Hoffmann, Héliettè Saint Jean y Vera Kardonsky (Serie Historia de la Psicología en Chile)". Psykhe (Santiago). 24 (1). doi:10.7764/psykhe.24.1.658.
  32. "Dr. Jorge Catalán recibe premio en 42º aniversario del Colegio de Psicólogos de Chile (13/12/2010) Fuente: Comunicaciones Colegio de Psicólogos de Chile". Universidad de la Serena, Chile. Retrieved 28 May 2021. En la misma ceremonia, se hizo entrega del Premio Nacional Colegio de Psicólogos de Chile, una tradición en el gremio desde 1977. Este año, la distinción recayó en la psicóloga Susana Bloch Arendt (U. de Chile).
  33. "IST premió a empresas adherentes por su compromiso con el cuidado de la vida en sus Distinciones Anuales 2016". Instituto de Seguridad del Trabajo (IST). 7 December 2016. Retrieved 28 May 2021. En relación a las premiaciones, la destacada psicóloga Susana Bloch, especialista en psicofisiología y creadora del método Alba Emoting, recibió el Reconocimiento al Cuidado de la Vida, por su aporte en la investigación de las emociones y las derivaciones que éstas han tenido en el ámbito del trabajo.
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