What a great constellation Dan!
I believe the dialectic that you have pointed out between phenomenology and
formulaic approach is crucial. The formula includes the orders of love and
other theory we pick up on the way through books discussion with others and
experience, Examples of this are the recent discussions here about alcoholism
and fathers and about sperm donors.
Bertold Ulsamer approaches this dialectic when he says you need to consider
three sources of information when facilitating a constellation.
1. The energy (the phenomena)
2. The Orders (and other formula)
3. The facts as we know them
He discusses the interaction between these very well in his book - The Art And
Practice of Family Constellations So you can see he has introduced a third
element - the facts. They help give us some solid ground.
Your use of the word "dialectic" reminds me of Marsha Linehan's Dialectic
Behavioural Therapy (DBT) which is based largely on the Buddhist approach of
mindfulness. Mindfulness is very like phenomenology in that it acknowledges
what is. This therapy was developed for working with very difficult clients
with a disorder called Borderline Personality Disorder.
The central dialectic that Marsha Linehan notices in therapy is the tension
between acceptance and change. It is not quite the same as the one between
phenomenology and formulaic structure, but nonetheless bears some similarities.
She states that we need to fully accept the present situation including our own
reactions to it. Otherwise our responses will be responding to an illusion
rather than to what actually is. So acceptance is an essential element of
both mindfulness and phenomenology. Acceptance (or agreeing) stops us from
drowning in secondary emotions which can never be resolved. Acceptance is a
necessary antecedent to effective action. It allows us to deal with the
situation at hand skilfully.
Maybe the answer to your dialectic about phenomenology versus formulaic
response is similar. i.e. If we fully accept the phenomena that occur, we can
then bring the formulae into play skilfully.
hasta la vista
Chris Walsh
An Australian Constellation Website:
www.constellationflow.com
----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Booth Cohen
To: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, 28 January 2005 6:10 AM
Subject: [ConstellationTalk] Formulaic versus Phenomenological
The recent exchange about alcoholism and my continuing growth as a
facilitator brings up the question of how we mediate between working from a
formulaic structure versus working from a stance of phenomenological emptiness.
What I am noticing is that I tend to be more phenomenological in the opening
stage of a Constellation and more formulaic at the end. For example, I worked
this week with a client whose issue was that he had been adopted and felt
always alone, emotionally pained and depressed. I asked him to set up
representatives for himself, his adopted parents and his birth parents. This
step was basically formulaic.
Once the representatives were placed, I suspended my preconceived ideas about
how it should be and let the field emerge. The representatives were all
looking away from everyone else. The picture that emerged was that the mother
had become pregnant after sleeping with a stranger. She rejected the baby and
gave him away. The adoptive parents had lost a baby and replaced it with the
client as a consolation; they too rejected the baby, particularly the adoptive
mother who became quite hostile towards her substitute son. This all came
through without my "doing" anything. Here, I was in a phenomenological stance.
Once the dynamic became painfully clear, I sought a healing solution. I
looked at the client in his chair and he appeared to be in agony. He was
half-looking, half turned away, twisted into himself with his fist over his
mouth and tears on his cheeks. So far, so good. I felt like I needed to bring
him out of this state somehow. Here, I became more formulaic.
While being cautious not to impose the healing solution, I nevertheless acted
with a certain amount of purpose and intention. I'll skip all the intervening
steps, but my solution was for to him to agree to it all exactly as it was. I
had him say to each parent, "If this is what you needed to do, I agree. I
accept my life from you at the full price it cost you and the full price it
cost me." He then bowed to each. Then I brought in several representatives to
represent his future. He was able to lean back on the 4 parents and face what
was ahead with love and strength.
I am leaving out many details for the sake of brevity. The client was
inflated at the end; not ego-inflated, but inflated like an empty balloon that
was filled with air. He not euphoric, but seemed to have grown and bloomed (a
cactus flower?) in the space of 45 minutes.
The formula was: see it, acknowledge it, accept it, grow forward into life.
The "it" comes phenomenologically, since I did not care or impose what the "it"
is. Whatever "it" is: see it, acknowledge it, accept it, look to the future.
This dialectic between being open to whatever emerges and being directive
towards a healing outcome seems to influence our work. I'm sure each of us
deals with it a bit differently. My question for the group is how do you see
yourself working between these two poles?
Dan
-----Original Message-----
From: Dee Yoh [mailto:deeyoh@xxxxxxxxxxx] ;
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 10:10 PM
To: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [ConstellationTalk] alcoholism
Here are some notes I pulled from Love's Own Truth on alcoholism & addiction
I thought you all might find to be interesting.
As a mother, she has an incontestable right to see her child, and the right
must be respected. But the child's well-being has precedence over her rights.
As long as she is addicted, there is a certain danger for the child, so one has
to consider what the most sensible solution would be for the child. When she's
cured of her addiction, there's no longer any objection to her visiting the
child.
One reason people become addicted is when a mother says to her child:
"Everything that comes from your father is worthless. You must take only from
me." Then the child takes so much from the mother that it does harm. In this
pattern, addiction is the child's revenge on the mother because she prevented
the child from taking from the father.
The child takes so much food and drink from the mother that she harms
herself. That's addiction, when a person takes so much more than is needed that
he or she is harmed. That's why addicts should be treated only by men. Women
are not capable of it, unless they really respect the addict's father. If they
do, they may be able to represent him.
What if the father is an addict? A. If the mother wants to help her son, she
can say to him, "I love your father in you, and it's okay with me if you are
like him." The effect is strange. For if the father is respected in the son,
the son doesn't need to become an alcoholic. The procedure is directly contrary
to what often happens in practice.
Imagine that your addicted parent is lying on the floor drunk and the spouse
looking on helplessly. Go lie down beside her and look at her with love.
Life-endangering addictions, for example, heroin addictions, are sometimes
concealed attempts to commit suicide.
The mother of an addicted child very often despises her husband and lets the
child know that nothing good can come from the father, but only from the
mother. When this happens, the child takes so much from the mother that it's
harmful. Addiction is the child's revenge on her mother for not allowing her to
take from her father. I've actually seen some addictions cured if the father,
as well as the mother, is allowed to give to the child and the child takes from
the father while the mother watches.
"He's just as important to me as you are, and I take from him everything he
gives me, just as I do from you. I'm a ______ (say last name)." It's very
difficult to do authentically with love, and it takes a lot of courage.
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