Dan, I also learn from you and acknowledge you for the intention in your
practice. What I take from Johannes comment re: intention can describe the
faciliatator's need to help rather than their client's need to go deeper. That
clearly was not the intention in your case. I do share with you the difficulty
of not having any others doing constellation work in my state.
I think Johannes makes several very good points about different kinds of
traumas and the skills that facilatators and psychotherapists need to maintain
themselves and their work.
Ellen Pillard
________________________________
From: Dan Booth Cohen <danbcohen@xxxxxxx>
To: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sat, April 3, 2010 7:51:00 AM
Subject: Re: AW: [ConstellationTalk] Research on Constellations
Dear Johannes -
Your response provokes a lot interesting thoughts. Of the many gifts
from my trainers was encouragement to find my own way of using
Constellations. Here in Boston, there are 4 facilitators who trained in
the Bert Hellinger USA training in 2001. Since, no others have launched
successful practices. Three-quarters of my work is by telephone/Skype
for individuals around the US and in other countries. This is partly
why Constellation Talk is so important for me as I find my own way to
serve and heal.
You write, "I see too much healing intention" and "I am very careful
with the intention to heal." I understand that your perspective comes
from Germany where there are thousands of therapists and healers using
Constellations.
Recognizing that I cannot properly orient myself in the context of your
"too much," I do carry a very strong intention - what I call
"determination" to provide profound and lasting benefits to my clients.
If I have no intention to change the client's issue, what am I being
paid for?
Because there is no awareness of Constellations in Boston, about 3/4 of
my work is by telephone/Skype for people throughout the US and around
the world. Clients come to me with issues, problems, or situations -
something in their lives that is a source of discomfort and suffering.
I ask them, "What would a good result look like?" This provides the
target at which I aim. My intention is to provide an experience that
profoundly impacts the problem and leads toward the desired outcome.
Facing the target, I apply all my focus and determination. There is
always a financial transaction (except in prison and the like). I am
being paid to heal and it becomes my intention to do so.
Recently in a group, a man presented his issue as feeling completely
isolated. He exists in a bubble of solitude. He lives by himself in a
small trailer in the woods. He works occasionally for a temp agency
cleaning offices at night, just enough to pay for food and basic
necessities. When I asked about his family, he described decades of
harrowing circumstances and experiences - from having met his mother
only one time for 2 minutes as a young teen to being a veteran of the
Vietnam war. Of his 4 grandparents, one was a full Native American who
died in childbirth delivering his father, one was African American, the
descendant of a Black slave broker from the Deep South, and two were
European Jews who died in Nazi Concentration Camps.
I set up a Constellation- as-Ceremony. Four representatives stood in a
line as his grandparents. Behind them stood four representatives of the
ancient ancestors of the Jewish, African, and Native American lineages.
He stood silently in front of these 8 for several minutes. Then I asked
him to go to each of them and encounter them personally. For some, I
offer a sentence or two of context (e.g. with the grandmother who died
in childbirth I offered, "This may be the worst trauma in human
experience.. ."). For others, he and the representatives created the
moment without guidance. This took about 45 minutes and included some
other elements. By the end, he was overcome with emotion, seemingly
both laughing and crying and repeating many times, "I am blessed!"
A little while after the Constellation concluded, he asked me how to
maintain the feelings of joy and relief he experienced. I said that
these ancestors, once in his heart, would stay with him. They would be
his companions and bestow him with their blessings from now on.
This is an illustration of my intention. Without it as a guide, the
grandparents may have overwhelmed him with their immense tragedies. A
purely non-verbal encounter with these 4 carries the risk of an
unbearable avalanche of grief, loss, and torment. It is my intention to
uplift and relieve him of his great burden that guides the process to
remain safe.
I am very interested to know how you understand such use of intention.
I do not doubt the value of your observations. Nor do I mistrust how I
understand and use intention for safety and guidance. Most likely we
are speaking from different cultural and professional contexts.
Thanks for your contribution to my learning and our international
collective.
Dan
Johannes B. Schmidt wrote:
Dear Kay,
I have read your account below. And what touches me is the focus on shock
trauma and the idea of healing as well as the intentional quality of
intervention.
I have been working with trauma for several years and have been teaching
trauma trainings in several countries now. Therefore, I would like to
add a
few remarks:
1. Could it be that many people show distinct trauma signs also they
have never experienced a distinct shock trauma? In fact, early
developmental
trauma often develops not by what is done to us but by what is NOT done to
us. Neglect can be subtle and the response-ability of a child's
organism to
the psychoemotional environment may be limited. Even well-intended
breast-feeding can leave a child with the feeling of abandonment depending
on where the mother's intention is during the nurturing.
2. I see sometimes too much healing intention in trauma processes. The
facilitator' s intent to heal can severely block in-depth processes of
self-relating in the client that makes in-depth healing impossible. I am
very careful with the intention to heal and very interested how
facilitators
can deepen their ever subtler listening and discerning skills to meet the
client where (s)he has never been met.
3. In my experience, healing shock trauma is a late step in the
healing process of individuals which requires more often than not many
prepatory skills and a gentleness that I have hardly ever found in any
therapist. Are we getting "trained" enough in gentleness,
non-invasiveness,
non-intentionality, self-love, non-doing, deep listening, being with what
presents itself without any intention to change it?
4. Sometimes more relevant than healing the trauma is to find a way to
deal with the residue of trauma that defies all healing attempts. What
kind
of holding can we offer for those trauma imprints that do not change? What
do we have to offer where our healing intent and technique comes to its
limits?
5. What are the limits of constellation work with regard to trauma. My
experience is that constellations have to be used in almost the
opposite way
than family constellations to effectively meet a traumatized person.
As this
statements exceeds what I can write here I refer you to my book: "Inner
navigation -- traumahealing and constellational process work as
navigational
tools for the evolution of your true self", Chapter 6
6. What are we in touch with? With a healing system? With
constellation work or GNM or the often very delicate, fine, fragile inner
situation of an unheard or invaded client? Can we hold our own
suffering as
facilitators? How do we regulate ourselves in the face of traumatic
dysregulation, overwhelm, despair, or panic?
7. What are the risks of resolving trauma via trance? What skills does
a facilitator need? Don't we rather need a faculty of de-trancing the
client
into the here-and-now? What are the risks of regression?
Just some additional thoughts to your sharing.
