Dear Dan thank you for this impressive essay
Menis
On 21 Jan 2007, at 16:03, Dan Booth Cohen wrote:
A colleague asked me to write a short essay for an on-line
newsletter. I
have pasted a draft below. I'd be grateful for editorial feedback,
comments, critiques, etc. Thanks in advance, Dan
The Family Constellation approach originated in Europe in the 1990s
and is
gradually gaining recognition and acceptance in the U.S. In a Family
Constellation circle, one person presents an urgent personal issue,
such as
"I can't control my anger," or "My marriage is falling apart."
With the help of a facilitator and the group, the "seeker" sets up
representatives, similar to a psychodrama. Unlike psychodrama, once
the
representatives are placed, they do not pose, act or roleplay.
Instead,
they stand silent and still. The representatives tune in to
feelings and
physical sensations that mirror the consonance and dissonance in
the family
as it relates to the issue.
By observing this simple "constellation" of figures, the seeker
perceives a
hidden pattern that runs through the family. In many cases, it is
an echo
of trans-generational trauma that influences the seeker to
unconsciously
repeat or atone for events from the past. Once this pattern
emerges, the
representatives are repositioned in a new configuration that
relieves the
representatives, the family system, and thus, the issue as well.
The observations that follow come from my participation as a
facilitator and
representative in hundreds of Constellations. They do not represent
a new
theory or a proposed universal principal. They are simply a report
of the
patterns I have seen repeated many times. The next time, something
entirely
different may emerge that will expand the knowledge base without
diminishing
what has been observed before.
For many of us who had unhappy childhoods, being the daughter or
son of our
mother and father carries a heavy measure of pain. Not that this is
not the
whole story; our feelings for our parents are multi-layered and
complex. In
my experience, two predominate patterns emerge over and over:
mothers always
do their best and fathers often disappear to the horizon.
Neither of these patterns is always visible. In troubled families, the
surface is like turbulent white water on a surging river. At this
level, we
are in contact with our mother's behavior, which can appear like
anything
other than "their best." Similarly, our fathers may be abusive in
countless
ways that make us wish he would "disappear to the horizon" and thus
finally
leave us free of his bad behavior and moods.
In a Family Constellation, we become still and silent while
maintaining a
sharp level of awareness. This enables us to sink below the raging
disturbances of the surface to make contact with the currents
below. This
is where these patterns emerge.
In Constellations, we often perceive how our mother's resources and
capacity
were diminished, often even crushed, by the legacy of her being her
parent's
child. The stories have nearly infinite variety, but contain common
themes
of traumatic events, tragic deaths, and incomplete movements towards
healing. When we see our mothers in the broader tableau of her family
history, we recognize that the surface chaos is above a deeper
systemic
current that moves steadily, irresistibly in one direction. In this
context, we can appreciate that despite everything that came
before, and all
the obstacles and challenges in the moment, that mothers always do
their
best for their children. Her "best" may be woefully insufficient and
terribly destructive, but in the larger context of her being, it
was all she
could do.
With difficult fathers, there is also a dynamic of inexplicable
chaotic
behavior above a relentless hidden undercurrent. The pattern is
fathers
turning away from their partners and children to pursue something
in the far
distance. In our lives, they may be present or absent, dangerously
close or
long gone and forgotten, but underneath, first their attention and
then
their physical beings are drawn far away. These fathers yearn to
recover or
reconnect with someone who has been lost. Like knights in search of
the
elusive Grail, they leave behind what is truly theirs to pursue
what cannot
be reached. The consequences are devastating: once started this
pattern
often repeats for many generations.
Constellations can uncover a healing movement for the worst
problems. What
sooths all this discord is to hear the steady bass line that plays
below our
particular version of the Blues. For better and worse, we vibrate
with the
frequency of our mother and father as long as we breathe. There is no
choice and no escape, for our breath itself has its source in them.
Incapable parents hit many false notes, but this needn't be the
dominant
melody we play over and over in our minds. In a Constellation we can
perceive and accept that mother always did her best - even if it
didn't
sound like much at the time - and that father danced to a tune not
of his
making, which remains embedded in our tune as well.
When we accept our life exactly as it was given to us, without
accusation or
blaming, we can also take in the love and vitality that is our
birthright.
Deep down, it does not matter how our parents behaved then or now.
What is
more important is that we connect to them in a way that allows the
love that
flows from far away to reach us.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
