Dear Dan,
Thank you for telling this story. I admire your willingness to not bow to the
group conscience. Not doing so has been dangerous throughout history and will
continue to be so until humans get better at seeing beyond group identities and
tribalism.
All the best,
Thomas Bryson
On Oct 2, 2011, at 3:35 PM, Dan Booth Cohen wrote:
Vinay -
Your story and question and brings up insights on many levels. It has drawn
out some valuable responses. There's one aspect to it, that calls up an
association for me.
One of the most challenging settings I have encountered as a facilitator was
as a guest presenter in a graduate course for psychology students. The
professor who invited me was friendly towards Constellations and the program
was progressive for the US, concentrating on humanistic and transpersonal
psychology.
I started with a brief intro and then asked for a volunteer to present a
question and set up a Constellation. In the interview, the client disclosed
she had had an abortion; that was the catalyst. I treated this with a very
light hand, but did not bow to the group conscience that this was a benign
and irrelevant medical procedure.
The Constellation went beautifully. However, as it was proceeding, a few of
the students began to rebel and vocally object. One woman stormed out,
followed by another. Three others stood up and set up their own ritual as an
antidote to what I had on the floor. After the Constellation, I was
barraged with criticisms. This is the only time I have had a group rebel
like this in the hundreds of groups I have led.
In reflecting on it afterwards, my sense is the university setting
contributed. Universities have a powerful collective conscience and academic
philosophy. Constellations are inclined to shatter the bonds of conscience
and challenge such philosophies.
Your coordinator's suspicion that the Constellation caused the destructive
behaviors may be his reaction to a process that opens spaces that the
university strives to keep closed.
Dan
On Sat, Sep 24, 2011 at 4:33 PM, Steve Vinay Gunther
<spirited@xxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
**
Hi folks
This discussion interests me in terms of understanding something I have
have quite worked out.
In my constellation work I very rarely hear back that someone left it in
some way that didnt work for them. The exception was something that happened
when I worked with some aboriginal students in a Masters of Indiginous
studies and Trauma Healing, at a local Uni. I worked with the class on a
number of occasions, using both Gestalt and constellations work. Everything
went really well - the class really appreciated the approaches, and the
therapeutic work was particularly poignant. When it came to doing the
constellation work with them, it seemed perfect. Within a cultural frame,
they could of course immediately recognise the nature of the work, and they
took to it readily. Because of the extremely complex intergenerational
trauma that has resulted from government policy (removing children from
their families), the constellation work seemed to be highly effective in
being able to embrace the largeness of the trauma, and work with it.
So, everyone was pleased, moved, and reported positively.
Because of the nature of the course, the subject of trauma was something
they were familiar with, and the coordinator of the course spent time with
them talking about it, looking at healing modalities etc. However, what
happened afterward the constellation work I did with them is that over the
course of a number of months, a number of people in the course started to
really act out in quite destructive ways. ALthough none of the students held
a negative impression of the constellation work, the coordinator suspected
that it was the trigger for a flood of trauma which was too much, and hence
the acting out. As a result, I did not get a chance to go back and continue
the work or do any followup.
It seems that the resources of the course, and the individuals, were not
enough to handle what got opened up, even though within the constellations
themselves it appeared a great deal of healing took place. I had recommended
followup work, both individual and collective, but the resources of the uni
and the structure of the course were such that that level of work was not
available.
I continue to wonder about that experience, and what to learn from it.
Reading this thread makes me think that this was a situation where the
PTSD/complex trauma was bigger than what the course, or I could offer. It
makes me wonder about what I could have done differently, or whether theres
instances where I need to somehow slow the constellation down, so not too
much gets opened up. This is a strange thought, as I generally just have a
sense of serviing the field in front of me, as it opens up, in its own
rhythm.
Interested in people's comments.
Vinay
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