Patricia,
Why don¹t you ask Bert Hellinger himself?
That to me sounds appropriate.
Zaquie C Meredith
www.zaquie.com
zaquie@xxxxxxxxxx
São Paulo, Brazil
www.facebook/com/zaquie.meredith
Linkedin.com/in/zaquie
youtube:zaquiemeredith
twitter:zaquiemeredith
From: <ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of "Patricia Robertson
pkrobertson22@xxxxxxxxx [ConstellationTalk]"
<ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: <ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Friday, March 4, 2016 at 12:20 PM
To: <ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [ConstellationTalk] Ancestry of Hellinger's Family Constellations
Hello to the Systemic Constellation community,
I have been researching the ancestry of Bert Hellinger¹s Family
Constellations and looking at the context in which the work developed. It
felt like an appropriate thing to do in my doctoral studies as I have been a
genealogist since childhood and now I am working with client¹s as a body
focused systemic constellation facilitator. I want to understand the long
ancestral line behind Hellinger¹s Family Constellation. Honouring the
ancestors is integral to my work and has been a lifetime practice for me.
The short version of my question is to anyone with deep roots in the
development of Hellinger¹s Family Constellation work: Was the early work on
Family Constellation by Walter Toman in 1961 and the Family Systems Theory
of Murray Bowen in 1976 influential in Hellinger¹s work?
The longer version:
At the back of Love¹s Hidden Symmetry: What Makes Love Work in Relationships
(pp. 327-330), Hellinger with Weber and Beaumont list many of the major
influences in the work of Hellinger and the development of family
constellations. Included on the list are influences such as Martin Heidegger
and Richard Wagner, the complete works of Freud, and the Zulu peoples of
South Africa, from whom he gained the ³awareness of the relativity of many
cultural values,² ³perceiving systems in relationships,² ³human commonality
underlying cultural diversity,² ritual as ³common human experiences,² ³the
goodness of cultural and human variety,² and ³the validity of doing things
in different ways² (pp. 327-328). From the field of psychoanalysis
influences mentioned are the group dynamics and psychoanalysis of Primal
Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, Transactional Analysis of Eric Berne; the Family
Therapy and Family Reconstruction of Virginia Satir; whose work was greatly
influential for the development of the Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) of
Richard Bandler and John Grinder, also an influence, the invisible bonds of
Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, the hierarchy of families of Jay Haley; Hypnotherapy
of Milton Erickson, Provocative Therapy of Frank Farrelly, the Holding
Therapy of Irena Precop, and others (pp. 327-330).
Walter Toman and Murray Bowen are not mentioned as influences. I do not come
out of a background in psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, or psychology, rather
my work flows through peacebuilding and conflict analysis and management in
the world, and I¹m interested in the work of Albrecht Mahr, Hellinger, and
others using systemic constellations in peacebuilding.
Since training in Hellinger¹s Family Constellations in 2011, I have never
heard anyone mention the Family Constellation work of Walter Toman in 1961
as an Associate Professor of Psychology at Brandeis University. I have his
book on Family Constellation: Theory and Practice of a Psychological Game,
published by Springer Publishing Company in New York. His book includes a
great amount of information on family dynamics including 8 sibling
positions, 64 relationships with parents, portraits of family
constellations, intermediary sibling positions, and other symbolic notation
and quantitative treatment of ³major aspects of family constellation.² Toman
states that he spells out how all individuals will recognize themselves,
their families and friends in the book, including relationships and
conflicts, and how we do think of these things, however, it tends to be done
³tacitly, implicitly, and without much order.²
While his work does take a different direction and emphasis on sibling order
in relationship, it does not seem totally unrelated to Hellinger¹s work
either.
Toman¹s work has been revisited many times over the years with American and
German editions. Toman, Walter. (Fall/Winter 1994). Family constellation
theory revisited: Part 1. Family Systems. Georgetown Family Center. Dept of
Psych. University of Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany. (4th American edition and
4th and 5th German editions). (Publication years 1968, 1977, 1978, 1979,
1988a, 1989b, 1991a).
My assumption is that Toman¹s Family Constellation work was available in
Germany during the development of Hellinger¹s principles.
As well, I am also looking at the pioneering work on Family Systems Theory
of Murray Bowen (1976) and others such as Assagioli (1972) and Framo (1982).
Bowen developed the Family Diagram or early genogram expanded upon by
McGoldrick and Gerson in 1985.
Kerr, Michael E. (2000), (One family¹s story: A primer on Bowen theory. The
Bowen Center for the Study of the Family), a long-time colleague of Bowens,
describes the Family Diagram developed byMurray Bowen and how it ³symbolizes
a living organism, the multigenerational family emotional system. More than
any other symbol, the diagram announces the necessity to shift paradigms, to
move beyond an individual cause-and-effect model to a multiperson systems
model in understanding human behavior. The diagram represents much more than
genealogy; it represents the profound emotional connections between the
generations. People are born and die, but a family¹s past lives in the
present.² ³Diagrams are read chronologically from left to right: the oldest
child in a family appears furthest to the left. Males are represented by
squares, females by circles. When information about people¹s lives is
collected, added to the basic diagram, and thought about, one¹s own life
takes on a new understanding and meaning.²
On the Bowen Center website (http://www.thebowencenter.org/theory/), it
states that Murray Bowen, the psychiatrist who pioneered family systems
theory, which includes the 8 interlocking concepts listed below, is ³a
theory of human behavior that views the family as an emotional unit and uses
systems thinking to describe the complex interactions in the unit. It is the
nature of a family that its members are intensely connected emotionally.
Often people feel distant or disconnected from their families, but this is
more feeling than fact. Families so profoundly affect their member¹s
thoughts, feelings, and actions that it often seems as if people are living
under the same ³emotional skin.² People solicit each other¹s attention,
approval, and support and react to each other¹s needs, expectations, and
upsets. The connectedness and reactivity make the functioning of family
members interdependent. A change in one person¹s functioning is predictably
followed by reciprocal changes in the functioning of others. Families differ
somewhat in the degree of interdependence, but it is always present to some
degree² (para. 2). Anxiety spreads ³infectiously² among family members, and
the family member that ³does the most accommodating literally ³absorbs²
system anxiety and thus is the family member most vulnerable to problems
such as depression, alcoholism, affairs, or physical illness² (para. 3).
Bowen Family Systems Theory (8 features):
1) Triangles ( Fusion and distancing, Adequate and inadequate spouse)
2) Differentiation of Self (Fusion or differentiation, Solid self or
pseudo self, Intellectual and emotional functioning)
3) Nuclear Family Emotional Process ( Maternal conflict, Inadequate or
over adequate spouses, Emotional divorce)
4) Family Projection Process (Child focus or triangle child, Identified or
designated patient,
5) Multi Generational Transmission Processes (Compounding
effects,Schizophrenia)
6) Sibling Position (Toman¹a Family Constellation. Based on the
publication of Walter Toman¹s first edition of Family Constellation: It¹s
Effect on Personality and Social Behavior, published in 1961)
7) Emotional Cutoff (Family of Origin)
8) Emotional Processes in Society (Societal Regression)
It seems to me that Toman¹s and Bowen¹s work seem to show up as very
influential in Hellinger¹s Family Constellations. Toman reveals that the
ancestral lines of his work are Freud, Adler, and Jung. Can anyone elaborate
on whether Walter Toman¹s and Murray Bowen¹s work and principles were
influential in the development of Orders of Family in Hellinger¹s
phenomenological practice of Family Constellations that are revealed within
the greater system of The Knowing Field?
Is there any acknowledgement of this earlier work? I also wondered if part
of the reason Hellinger did not copyright his way of working with Family
Constellations is because Family Constellation already existed before he
used the label? I have heard that the reason is because he wanted Family
Constellations to expand and evolve with each new facilitator as they added
their own background and experience to the work. Any thoughts to share?
Kind regards,
Patricia
Peaceful Possibilities Consulting
MA(CAM), BA(Hon), BCom, CPA, CMA
Student, Doctor of Social Sciences, Royal Roads University
Integrative Wellness Practitioner, Educator, &
Body Focused Systemic Constellation Facilitator
403-474-0452
patricia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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