I recently had a meditational experience that may be relevant here.
Or perhaps more accurately, this reminds me of a recent meditational
experience.
This reminds me of a story...
The meditation reached a point of complete emptiness: my mind was
crystal clear, and still, like the surface of a calm lake. No noise.
No disturbance. Nothing.
Nothing except... my awareness of the nothingness, my awareness of my
response (my desire to hold that pure still experience and to get to
know it) to my awareness of the nothingness.
And then it faded.
It seems to me I achieved a level stillness in which my witnessing/
observing function, whatever that is, could be compared to the
reference beam of the hologram. So that anything outside of that
stillness would constitute a disturbance which my observing/
witnessing function could readily detect.
Perhaps phenomenological awareness strives to approach that purity of
being. Our therapy process serves to strip away the cultural,
developmental, epigenetic and genetic layers of experience that
intrude, contaminate, and distract when we come with a beginner's
mind to a new situation.
On 04/06/2008, at 6:34 PM, Hunter Beaumont wrote:
Dear Alison
I want to pick up your question, because I think it is central to all
forms of psychotherapy AND spiritual work.
Obviously what you (and your scientist friends) are thinking about
must be true. It seems unavoidable to me NOT to bring our past into
our work _ it may take the form of our language, our cultural values,
our personal history, our training. I can't imagine a life that could
occur outside of such "correlations/experiences". On the other hand,
cross-cultural psychotherapeutic work and spiritual work has made
clear that there are disadvantages of imposing one set of values and
assumptions on another person.
So, the situation as I see it is, we can't do without that happening,
but we want to avoid it happening any more than is necessary.
My own personal answer has been to do ongoing, deep personal work to
help identify my own biases, prejudices, fears, limitations and
resources to the best of my ability. In this way, I have a better
chance of recognizing when "my stuff" is getting in the way. I know
from conversations with you and Dan that you also support this
approach. It's not a cure all for sure, but it sure does make things
easier. The other major thing that has helped me personally is to
listen to clients when things have gone wrong. Obviously when
something goes "wrong" clients often are attacking, blaming, avoiding
personal responsibility, but often there is also wisdom in what they
say, and hearing it with an open heart can be an important part of our
training.
The third thing is the phenomenological technique of "bracketing" that
I talked about before. Long before I got into Gestalt and Humanistic
Psychology and phenomenology, I remember reading that Jung once said
(in his autobiography, if I remember correctly) that he had analyzed
over 80,000 dreams, but that he tried to forget everything he knew
when approaching a new dream. That stuck in my mind, because I
couldn't imagine how he could forget what he knew. I'm getting old
now, and so it's a lot easier to understand forgetting :-). Anyway,
that was my introduction to bracketing, and I've been practicing ever
since.
I don't think it is an absolute thing. Obviously, we remember at some
level, but we turn the brain functions over to some other part. Right
brain perhaps. Btw, did you see the talk by Jill Bolt Taylor on
TED.com? Speakers on TED.com get 18 minutes to give the speech of
their lives. It is a great resource. Here is the link: http:// ;
www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229
.
Anyway, that's all for now, but I did want to pick up your great
question.
Hunter
On 31.05.2008, at 14:02, Alison Rose Levy wrote:
remember
Dear Hunter and All:
Thank you so much this is tremendously helpful.
I once heard Stephan Hausner say (and I hope that I understood/
correctly) that he sometimes has an inner picture/hypothesis aboutwhat may be
going on, but at each step, he takes a step back from that to seeif the
evolving constellation verifies it or not and Ive taken thatapproach as a
model in practice. In doing so, Ive observed that sometimes itdoes evolve
along the lines of the unspoken hypothesis and sometimes itevolves in a
completely different way.studying the
My question is this: since I am working with scientists who are
phenomenon of intention, Ive also wondered if even the unspokenhypothesis or
picture that I have could function to influence the way theconstellation
unfolds? In effect, serving as an intention. As a facilitator, Icarry an
inner archive of past correlations/experiences and no matter howmuch I strive
to be open to the new, that is present. How to hold and work withthat?
different
Alison
Dear Barbara,
That's an interesting question. As you know, there are many
views about what representatives' reactions in a constellationover
actually mean and how to utilize them.
I support a very phenomenological position. Phenomenologically, when
representatives turn around it the only thing I can know for sure is
that the representatives turn around. Any additional meaning it may
carry must emerge from the constellation itself.
According to this position, any other meaning it may have should not
be imposed on it from our previous experiences in other
constellations. Obviously there are patterns that repeat over and
again, and our previous experiences in other constellations are apart
of what we get paid for to facilitate, but I feel strongly that weinterpretations
need to remain methodologically "clean" and treat all
as hypotheses. The only source of knowledge about the meaning of asee
movement comes for the constellation itself.
If you watch the tapes from Hellinger's early USA trips, you will
the same representatives appearing in different cities. You willwith
notice that some representatives react to any systemic turbulence
a favored reaction. Some fall down, some start to sway or shake,some
get weak. Once we noticed this repetitive pattern in representativethe
reactions, we became very cautions about interpretations.
There is a concept from phenomenology that Erv Polster, a well known
Gestalt therapist, picked up called "bracketing". That means that
facilitator suspends any interpretation as much as he or she can.open
So, this is most likely more than you wanted to know, but your
question gave me an opportunity to raise this issue in the forum. I
saw that you have already received some suggestions about how to
interpret it, but my recommendation nevertheless is not to interpret
at all (ultimately not possible, I know, so let's say as little as
possible). That is, I recommend not trying to know, but to remain
and curious about the possible meanings. Premature knowing closesdown
curiosity and diminishes the openness of the knowing field.but I
This by the way, is a place where Bert has been inconsistent in his
teaching. At some times he has eloquently defended the
phenomenological position, and then at other times, he has abandoned
it all together. I don't think it is necessary to be consistent,
have seen that many students have been confused and haven't noticedposition
this inconsistency in his work.
Just to be clear, I realize that many very skillful facilitators see
this point differently than I do, so I am not saying that the
I am defending is the RIGHT one, but I have found it to be a hugesafest in
support in helping me to protect myself and my clients from the
grandiosity that haunts the constellation work field. I feel
a certain kind of unknowing.is
Thanks for the question. I hope that it opens a fruitful discussion.
Hunter
On 30.05.2008, ad 22:41, Barbara Eggenberger wrote:
I have a question about what it means in a constellation when
someone is
slowly turning around and around as if looking in all directions?
Someone
once said that it is an indication of a perpetrator and if that
person isso, can
someone explain it to me? For instance, does it mean that
anrepresenting a perpetrator or is looking for one? Also, what is
casesappropriate response? I have had this show up in three separate
recently and though I was able to reach resolution, I find myself
feeling
uneasy that I might be missing something important.
Logo
www.barbaraeggenberger.com
916.484.5016 503.727.2595
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Hunter Beaumont
hbeaumont@xxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:hbeaumont%40t-online.de>
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Hunter Beaumont
hbeaumont@xxxxxxxxxxx
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