Hello Dan and All,
Great to read your informative comments. My interest is not so much to
follow anyone but to learn from everyone. Interestingly I find no conflict
whatsoever in navigating amongst the ancestors, archetypes, symbols and all
kinds of spiritual resources whilst retaining a gentle, non-authoritative
mode of facilitation.
I sense a measure of unresolved inner division whenever a facilitator
insist on hogging the bandwidth of power, revelation and knowledge. I do
consider professional pride and financial imperatives as unfortunate
corrosive hindrances - unavoidable as they may be. This is the point where
I find Vivian Broughton agreeable about the powerless experience of the
traumatised.
My preference is to listen, wait, allow unfolding, invite and suggest and
to leave the final choice and decision with the participant.
Best wishes to all,
Robert
ps
Sorry to hear about your post-concussion brain Anni. Indeed Constellations
may take us a long way; to where we are.
On Sat, Jan 24, 2015 at 7:50 PM, 'Dan Booth Cohen, PhD'
danboothcohen@xxxxxxxxx [ConstellationTalk] <
ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello Robert –
In terms of my understanding of the evolution of Constellations, the
direction taken by Franz Ruppert and Vivian Broughton makes the work more
accessible and acceptable to mainstream academics, scientists, therapists
and the general public. This is its primary advantage. On the other hand,
it deletes completely the aspect of Constellations that makes the process a
powerful healing modality.
Using the model of the three dimensions of consciousness
(personal/ancestral/spiritual, drop/wave/ocean, ordinary/soul/spirit-mind),
Constellations of Intention expressly and unequivocally work exclusively
with the first dimension. Both Vivian and Franz have stated quite firmly
that the second and third dimensions are no more than products of the
imagination.
Bert Hellinger was usually agnostic when asked whether the representatives
standing in Constellations were literally channeling the consciousness of
the ancestors they were representing. His stock answer was, “We do not
know. We work with the effects.” Broughton and Ruppert have answered with a
firm No. In my work, especially working with Emily Blefeld Volden, I answer
with an equally firm Yes.
To my understanding, a Constellation is a process in which a person with a
pressing personal issue comes into contact with the consciousness of
deceased members of the family system for the purpose of releasing
ancestral imprints, healing broken connections in the biological lineage
and establishing a loving connection to 2nd and 3rd dimension resources.
In this context, symbiotic trauma is an aspect of the first dimension and
need not be the central focus of the experience.
If Constellations are no more than a first dimension experience, it is
proper for the facilitator to exert strict limits on authority. However, if
Constellations are a way of interfacing with 2nd and 3rd dimension
consciousness, then the facilitator is acting responsibly to help navigate
among the ancestors and spiritual resources. It can be appropriate for the
facilitator to act more proactively in communicating with the Field.
Dan
Dan Booth Cohen, PhD
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*From:* ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
*Sent:* Tuesday, January 20, 2015 2:56 AM
*To:* ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [ConstellationTalk] Authority of the facilitator and issues of
trauma.
Hello Friends,
I would like to share this excellent writing by *Vivian Broughton *who
articulates some of the fundamental challenges I have observed in so many
constellation sessions. Although the article focuses on intention it has
general significance about the way constellations are facilitated.
" Trauma is a situation in which, in the moment of the shift from high
stress to trauma, we simply are looking death in the face. The
psychological splitting that occurs in this moment is the organism’s
last-ditch attempt to manage the devastation it faces by dissociating from
the experience. This is the most extreme situation we can ever face, and
survive. All real traumas have this life and death element. We have no
resources, we have no choice, we have no autonomy. We are absolutely in the
power of the forces at play, whether natural or relational. Resignation and
surrender are the only possibilities; the situation is beyond ‘fight or
flight’.
A baby is all feelings; you cannot tell a baby he is safe, he only knows
if he *feels safe*, and essentially he should feel safe with his mother.
But if his mother is traumatised, and emotionally unavailable, dissociated,
absent to the child, the child cannot feel safe; he must fear for his
survival. The mother’s traumatised state becomes the child’s traumatised
state, and the lack of good, clear loving connection with the mother
becomes the child’s own first moment of trauma… the point at which the
child resigns to his fate of non-connection. This doesn't even begin to
deal with the issue of later traumatisation, for instance in an
intentionally abusive family.
Understanding trauma in this way underlies the idea of the constellation
of the intention, because *the authority and power of what happens in the
work must always remain with the client.* If we understand the powerless
experience of the traumatised, we must understand that every moment of
their life embodies a question of power: who is in charge now? Who is the
more powerful? Am I safe with this person, in this situation? The tension
between the survival need to control, and the terror of being in the
control of another underlies all trauma work.
The formation of the constellation of the intention requires the client to
formulate her intention for this constellation, and for the facilitator to
be acutely attentive to the potential power and authority of any of his
interventions. However easily clients may attempt to make us the authority
of what her intention will be… we cannot take this on. Because the
individual’s autonomy is destroyed in the trauma moment, their continuing
existence oscillates between not trusting others’ potential to have, and
take, power over them, and their need to project their own power out onto
others, to make others the powerful ones. The facilitator must continually
avoid falling into the trap of assuming authority for what happens in the
whole constellations process.
So the intention must belong to the client, be in her own words, and from
her own reflections and deliberations. As much as she may look to the
facilitator to help with forming her intention, we fail her if we do so. We
must listen carefully to everything she says, with our whole being. We may
ask questions if we think we need information or if we have not heard
correctly, but essentially the journey to establishing the intention should
be the client’s own journey.
Once the client’s intention is established, it is the client who must
energise her constellation by choosing a representative for her intention.
She must be free to choose whoever she wants, place this person as she
wishes, and stay with this representative for her intention. This frees the
facilitator from having any influence on who is chosen and how the
constellation is set up.
The ‘intention’ then becomes this extraordinary wildcard that, through the
representative’s experiences, shows the underlying dynamics at play that
relate to the clients stated intention. The representative for the
‘intention’ is free to move, to speak, to follow his or her experience. The
beginning process of the constellation is the development of the
relationship between the client and her ‘intention'; this already
represents a split, two parts of the client: herself and her ‘intention’.
The main task of the facilitator from this point on is to observe the
developing relationship between the client and her ‘intention’, and try and
understand the dynamics that unfold in relation to the stated intention.
The continual question for the facilitator could be expressed as: how does
what I see happening in the constellation relate to the stated intention,
and what are the observable survival/healthy/trauma dynamics?
The advantages of the constellation of the intention then are:
· right from the beginning it represents two parts of the split psyche
in the client (client as separate from her intention, an intention meaning
that she wants something she doesn’t think she has, ie other than her, or
separate from her)
· it is intended to keep as much power and authority for what happens in
the constellation with the client
· it keeps the facilitator’s interventions to a minimum: observation,
understanding and comment
· this gives the process an in-built safety factor: provided the
facilitator doesn’t overstep his place, the constellation will only go as
far as the client can allow (whether consciously or unconsciously)
This last is perhaps the most advantageous item. Safety when working with
trauma is extremely important. The client’s trust of himself, and of the
facilitator, varies from moment to moment, depending on what is happening.
If his trauma is too frighteningly re-triggered he will likely go more into
survival mode, and the constellation will not go further until he is ready.
In my view and experience, situations of severe re-traumatisation of the
client in any constellation is due to the facilitator having pushed the
boundaries and intervened too much.
Anyone can facilitate something that looks like a constellation of the
intention, but the underlying purpose of this process requires a clear
grasp of the reality of trauma, of the relational dynamics between the
healthy, traumatised and survival parts of the traumatised person, and of
the power issues involved."
Best wishes to all,
Robert
