Issue 16, June 2010

£ 12.00

Contents

• Barbara Morgan: Editorial

• Bert Hellinger: The Light

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

• Sadhana Needham in conversation with Sophie Hellinger

• Vivian Broughton in conversation with Franz Ruppert

• Marianne Franke in conversation with Stephan Hausner

• Francesca Mason Boring in conversation with Sneh Victoria Schnabel

• Barbara Morgan in conversation with Raquel Schlosser

THE HISTORY OF NATIONS, CULTURES & RELIGIONS

• Brigitta Mahr: From Shallow Water to Deeper Water – FAB Project

• Tanja Meyburgh: Starting at My Own Back Door

PERSONAL STORIES

• Claudio and Helen Celestino: Tell Me Your Story

• John Whittington: Finding My Place

CONSTELLATIONS

• Amenah Kern Halwani: The Man with the Great Heart

• Zohara Shalev: Mother and Daughter

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

• Andrea van der Waag, Robbert Timmermans & Amanda Langenburg: Systemic Constellation Work has Entered the University

• Yildiz Sethi: Does the Process of Family Constellations improve Relationships & Well-being?

PERSONAL RELFECTIONS

• Freida Eidmann and Gerald Hüther: Constellation work & Natural Science

• Anna Magee: Female Destructive Power & Feminine Rage

NEWS FROM GERMANY

• Various Contributors: Reports on Bernried Intensive/ISCA Gathering

BOOK REVIEWS

• Kari Drageset: From Pain to Violence: The Traumatic Roots of Destructiveness by Felicity de Zulueta

• Dimitrina Spencer: In the Presence of Many: Reflections on Constellations Emphasising the Individual Context by Vivian Broughton

• Colette Green: Family Constellations: A Practical Guide to Uncovering the Origins of Family Conflict by Joy Manné

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

• Various Contributors

Extracts

Bert Hellinger: The Light

The light as such we cannot see. We only see what it falls on and we see what reflects the light; for instance a beaming face, a light from inside. Enlightenment and insight are lights from inside.
Some light is so glaring, so bright that it dazzles us. It makes us blind rather than seeing. It veils instead of revealing. We close our eyes to it.
The softest light shines for us when the day makes way for the night, at dusk. The sun has set and night falls. The day sends its soft pastel blessings into the coming night. Day and night are nearly melted into one.
Then inside us another light begins to shine. This light flares up briefly in the dark, sometimes all of a sudden, and short like lightning. Sometimes bright, in spite of the night, when the moon lets the suns light shine back to earth, even though the sun has already gone down. At first, barely noticeable, then waxing and waniing, until its light fades away also and only the far away stars sparkle in the night.
There is no darkness for us, without a light still shining in the far distance, without a glimmer of lght.

Vivian Broughton: In Conversation with Franz Ruppert

FR: Yes, the more I understood this symbiotic trauma and all the strategies that the child uses to try and get in contact with the traumatised parent, the more I began to suspect that with the traditional constellations way of working, we were supporting the continued attempts by the entangled child to get into contact with the mother. This was not the real mother in the constellation of course, but her representative. I wouldn’t do this now. It colludes with the client staying in the illusion that they can reach the traumatised parent and in fact can heal the parents, the grandparents and the whole system. This is part of the symbiotic illusion that we all have when we have truamatised parents, that if we just try someting else we will be able to heal them and have good constact with them.
VB: So this takes me to another point of interest, because we have for instance, practitioners who do think that the present person can have a task for the system that actually does affect people, some of whom are dead. But I think what you are saying is that to think that I could heal my mother of her trauma is an illusion. This is a very hard-hitting thing to say.
FR: Yes the more I work with trauma, and I’ve been doing so for about ten years now, the more convinced I become that the only person who can make the step of coming out of their trauma is the traumatised person himself.

Francesa Mason Boring: In Conversation with Sneh Victoria Schnabel

SVS: In our three-hour workshop with about 150 people in the room, I remember we did a big constellation regarding the persisting frictions between some of the tribes on the Colville Confederated Reservation. It became what one could describe as a chaotic situation. At some point we had about 90 people in the constellation; some of the representations were highly emotionalyl charged (11 tribes and 8 people for each tribe, plus a person for the US government and another for a good spirit). At first I thought it was chaotic, there were too many people in the constellation but later, when looking back after a time, I got feedback and learned that it had indeed not been only chaos. For instance, one participant who had stood a little on the outside and on a chair, pointed out that he observed that many of the people in fact had been moving in the shape of a perfect spiral. That I found interesting.

Marianne Franke: In Conversation with Stephan Hausner

SH: My main focus in constellation work was and is working with ill people. I can look back to over 200 workshops that I’ve facilitated for patients with physical and to a lesser extent, mental illnesses. As a therapist I’m interested in the question: What contributes to healing when the healing processes are initiated or activated by constellation work?
Over the years, I’ve met many of my patients again, and judging from my experience, the assumption becomes more and more plausible that one of the driving forces of illness and even entanglement – insofar as there is personal responsibility involved – comes from the primary love of children for their parents and their need and longing for closeness with them. At least it is this longing for closeness to parents and family that motivates the patient to hold onto his or her entanglement and symptoms.
This appeared to me to be one of the essential aspects involved in the work with patients. That changed my approach to constellation work. Rather than going back to the origin of the entanglement or problem, I interrupt the constellation as soon as I recognise the longing of the patient; in other words, what could also be seen as the uncoscious benefit of being ill or rather the illusion of what is gained from the illness. Then I work in a condensed way. I confront the patient directly with the person or persons toward whom the longing is directed, most often the mother and/or the father and then I observe what happens in this context.