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Issue 22, June 2013

£ 15.00

Contents

  • Barbara Morgan: Editorial

  • Bert Hellinger: Taking our Leave

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

  • Don Opatrny: In Conversation with J. Edward Lynch

  • Barbara Morgan: In Conversation with Verónica Menduiña

NEW DEVELOPMENTS

  • Julie Roberts: The Integration of Family Constellation Work & Energy Psychology

  • Antje Rickowski: The Pangarden Game: A Systemic Tool to transform and answer Life Questions

CONSTELLATIONS & RITUALS

  • Don Paglia: Leaving Home: A Ritual for Engaged Couples

  • Diana Douglas/Marilyn Hamilton: Knowing Cities: The Knowing Field and the Emergence of Integral City Intelligence

  • Gloria Davila: Will someone please represent his blanket? A Family Constellation in Costa Rica

  • Harrison Snow: Déjà vu all over Again

  • Harrison Snow: Tuttie’s Place

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS

  • Dan Booth Cohen: Constellations and the Inherited Mind: Yes, the Ancestors are Real

  • Max Dauskardt: Systemic Constellation Work and “It’s the economy, stupid!”

  • Kate Regan: The Role of Exclusion in the Movement towards Belonging

  • Gary Stuart: A Complementary Modality using Constellation Healing for Depression

  • Indra Torsten Preiss: Loyalty, Sub-conscious Beliefs and Religion

  • Nancy Kehr: The Back-Story of our Lives

  • Sneh Victoria Schnabel: Translating the Truth

BOOK REVIEWS

  • Francesca Mason Boring: Encounters with Death by Thomas Bryson & Ursula Franke-Bryson

  • Colette Green: The Disorderly Soul by Jan Crawford

  • J. Edward Lynch: Health, Happiness & Family Constellations by Michael Reddy

  • Rosalba Stocco: Integrating Psychodrama & Constellation Work by Karen Carnabucci & Ronald Anderson

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR  

  • Franz Ruppert

  • Vivian Broughton

POETS' CORNER

  • Janos Szabo: The Snowflake

  • Geoff Mea: Zoëtrope

  • Sharon Ruvan: A Beginning Facilitator’s Prayer

  • Anu Azrael: Black & White

  • Pam Saunders: Inside

Extracts

Bert Hellinger: Taking our Leave

There are stories that act like fences – they close some things in and keep other things out. When we submit to them, they offer us security and when we want to move on, they block the way. Sometimes we tell ourselves stories of this kind and call them memories. Often we tell ourselves about what was bad and injured us back then, but not about those things that could free us. Memory then becomes a tie and our room to move remains limited.

Anyone who wants to go on this journey must look for a local person to serve as a guide. In this way they may arrive at the place where their memories are re-awakened – memories of great pain. So, here may be found what it was that had shaken them so deeply before, that even today they can hardly re-visit it. However, now the sun seems to shine on the deserted city. Where life once throbbed with all its rush and violence, calm now prevails, almost peace.

Together the visitor and local guide wander the streets and find the house where it all happened. The visitor still hesitates and wonders if he wants to risk entering it again. His companion guide offers to go first to check out that the place is safe now and that nothing hurtful still remains there….and so Bert Hellinger leads us on a journey ……..to the place where it can be said ‘ It feels as if we have come home and have found the depth of truth that reaches beyond justice and revenge.’

Don Opatrny In Conversation with J. Edward Lynch

Don: How did you first come to know about Family Constellations?

Ed: I had been a professor at Southern Connecticut State University for 35 years. I was teaching all the theories of family therapy, Gestalt therapy, and other methods. I was beginning to wonder what new therapies might be coming along in the field. I researched, questioned, and soon found out about this thing called Family Constellations. A friend of mine at University in Vermont recommended I go to a two-day workshop being held in that state. I met Gabrielle Borkan at her workshop; I was sceptical on the first day and completely won over to the method on the second day.

Don: What so caught your attention at the workshop that led you to become involved in the work?

Ed: Primarily what caught my attention was the work I did in my own Family Constellation. I experienced a depth of love, healing, and a resounding ‘Yes’ to life which I had never before experienced. I had been angry with my parents for many years. My father was lost in alcoholism and my mother was lost in desperation and broken dreams. I remember once saying to her: “You have never said ‘I love you’ to any of us kids,” and she yelled: “I cook and clean for you don’t I!” That was how they showed it in those days. So, it was in my family constellation that I learned of the still present, deep connections that they both had for their homeland of Ireland and for all that they left behind, never to see again. I finally understood why they could only be unavailable parents to me and my siblings, as in a big way a lot of their hearts were still in Ireland. I felt such compassion and love for them that I did not know was there. The feelings took me by surprise and changed the direction of and enhanced my life in many ways. This was my introduction to family constellations.

Don: How does constellation work differ from other healing work you have been involved with?

Ed: The Constellation work differs from other healing work primarily by its use of the ‘field’ and the phenomenological position. Gestalt therapy uses the phenomenological with emphasis on the here and now and data. In family reconstructions the facilitator uses the why/because approach. And family therapy works with the system not the field, so Constellation work is a unique creation that accesses a deeper sense of who people are and how they are shaped and moulded by their ancestors.

 

Dan Booth Cohen: Constellations and the Inherited Mind: Yes, the Ancestors are Real

Having now been a facilitator for more than 10 years, something that stands out for me is how much constellation experiences continue to be mind-blowing and life altering. By necessity, I am fluent in talking about constellations, to those who are not familiar with them. I can describe the process itself in its various formats, discuss their history and evolution and explain how they are capable of healing problems and issues that do not yield to more familiar approaches. However, these descriptions and explanations are conveyed in plain language, whereas my actual experiences take me far beyond the realms of ordinary knowing.

Everyday problems that resist being solved have their roots submerged in that flooded country. Depression, anxiety, a sense of being stuck, financial hardships, alienation, loneliness, a feeling of not belonging, of being lost inside one’s life, all these symptoms and more can be understood as after effects of traumatic events that occurred before we were born. For me, there is more to a constellation than freeing oneself or connecting to spirit, as beneficial as those can be. The vine connects us to the people who made us. They are still present with us. Cultivating a living healthy relationship with them is what is missing from the peacemaker’s toolkit.

Max Dauskardt: Systemic Constellation Work and “It’s the economy, stupid!”

‘As someone who had been brought up in a traditional nuclear family, every one of Bert’s insights made total sense to me and brought relief, so it was far more important to practice what had been triggered by his teachings, than worry overly much about any historical ramifications. Nonetheless, while confirming the value of Bert’s insights through my own application of them, the greater picture has continued to knock at the door of my awareness.

This is particularly so recently, in the context of discussions about the shift in western society’s attitude towards what constitutes marriage and family. Gay marriage is becoming a reality in more and more countries. The divorce rate in traditional marriages is on the rise, leading to an increase in single-parent households. Traditional nuclear families are in decline. Historically speaking, we are in the midst of enormous changes as far as the ‘building blocks’ of society are concerned.

What is the driving force behind such fundamental changes in our western society which is moving us into the postmodern phase?

Postmodern communities of the future, shaped by the growing awareness of our global interconnectedness, supported increasingly by the cutting edge research in many areas of human endeavours, as well as some global, social and political movements around the planet, can be envisaged. Such structures would help to bring our focus back, almost for the first time, to ‘We’ rather than ‘I’. Such structures would give the ancient Orders their due appreciation, making it more possible to live by them in harmony.