Hello Patricia,
Please do take a look at Jodorowsky and Costa's book METAGENEOLOGY--SELF DISCOVERY THROUGH PYSCHOMAGIC AND THE FAMILY TREE.
This is a very well-developed theory and practice centered around understanding and healing intergenerational influences. it apparently grew up in Paris in the 70's. There are a lot of profound similarities to and yet also substantial differences from Hellinger's synthesis.
If we truly acknowledge the larger collective "souls" that as individuals are are part of, it should not be surprising that great ideas bubble up simultaneously as the zeitgeist evolves.
Best,Michael
Michael Reddy, PhD, CPC, ELI-MPmichael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 610 469 7588www.reddyworks.comRelieving Chronic Emotional/Physical Suffering usingFamily Constellations | Core Energy Coaching | EFT | Shamanism
On Mar 4, 2016, at 10:20 AM, Patricia Robertson pkrobertson22@xxxxxxxxx [ConstellationTalk] wrote:
Hello to the Systemic Constellation community,
I have been researching the ancestry of Bert Hellinger’s 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 client’s as a body focused systemic constellation facilitator. I want to understand the long ancestral line behind Hellinger’s 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 Hellinger’s 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 Hellinger’s work?
The longer version:
At the back of Love’s 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 “awareness of the relativity of many cultural values,” “perceiving systems in relationships,” “human commonality underlying cultural diversity,” ritual as “common human experiences,” “the goodness of cultural and human variety,” and “the validity of doing things in different ways” (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 I’m interested in the work of Albrecht Mahr, Hellinger, and others using systemic constellations in peacebuilding.
Since training in Hellinger’s 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 “major aspects of family constellation.” 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 “tacitly, implicitly, and without much order.”
While his work does take a different direction and emphasis on sibling order in relationship, it does not seem totally unrelated to Hellinger’s work either.
Toman’s 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 Toman’s Family Constellation work was available in Germany during the development of Hellinger’s 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 family’s 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 by Murray Bowen and how it “symbolizes 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 family’s past lives in the present.” “Diagrams 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 people’s lives is collected, added to the basic diagram, and thought about, one’s own life takes on a new understanding and meaning.”
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 “a 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 member’s thoughts, feelings, and actions that it often seems as if people are living under the same “emotional skin.” People solicit each other’s attention, approval, and support and react to each other’s needs, expectations, and upsets. The connectedness and reactivity make the functioning of family members interdependent. A change in one person’s 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 degree” (para. 2). Anxiety spreads “infectiously” among family members, and the family member that “does the most accommodating literally “absorbs” system anxiety and thus is the family member most vulnerable to problems such as depression, alcoholism, affairs, or physical illness” (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 (Toman’a Family Constellation. Based on the publication of Walter Toman’s first edition of Family Constellation: It’s 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 Toman’s and Bowen’s work seem to show up as very influential in Hellinger’s Family Constellations. Toman reveals that the ancestral lines of his work are Freud, Adler, and Jung. Can anyone elaborate on whether Walter Toman’s and Murray Bowen’s work and principles were influential in the development of Orders of Family in Hellinger’s 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 ConsultingMA(CAM), BA(Hon), BCom, CPA, CMAStudent, Doctor of Social Sciences, Royal Roads UniversityIntegrative Wellness Practitioner, Educator, &Body Focused Systemic Constellation Facilitator
403-474-0452
patricia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.peacefulpossibilities.ca
Attachment:
bin1H4trNGhi5.bin
Description: application/ygp-stripped
