Dear Maria,
I am sorry to hear about the suicide of one of your patients and I imagine
I would ask myself the same questions as you do.
And even if I were not a health practitioner I think I should follow that
ethics as well. We are responsible for each other.
In constellation practice I often observe how we step out of personal
responsibility into the larger knowing field as if they were two different
things.
When we do constellations our social and relational realities are not
automatically disappearing.
Even if your colleague and you decide that you are in the constellation not
as the physician, the client might have a very different expectation and
experience.
I often think of Erich Fried, an Austrian poet who fled from the Nazis, who
said: "Not knowing doesn't hurt anyone except those who get hurt because
nobody knows"
The question of our responsibility is a very personal one and cannot be
answered by standards of professional ethics or common beliefs in
constellation practice alone.
I think by overemphasising "fate" we simply deny how impactful our
relational presence with each other is in every moment.
Our professional roles or orientations make us see some things and not
others. We are always limited in this way and therefore need each other.
You said you feel it is important that your ethics of your profession could
be recognised by colleagues doing constellations.
Yes. I think it is not only the ethics of your profession which would need
to be recognised but also that there is only one interconnected knowing
field and that when we do constellations and tap deeper into the knowing
field we are not automatically released out of our social responsibility.
My best wishes for you to find peace
Brigitte
On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 3:11 AM, choices@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[ConstellationTalk] <ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Maria, thank you for raising this question, and my thanks to those who
have already contributed to this conversation, which is important in regard
to any outcome of a constellation, not just "big" results or those which
make us sad.
I just want to add that constellations facilitators are also human beings.
All the wise things that have been said are fully compatible with grieving
(or rejoicing) at the fates of the people we serve - as long as we do not
come to think that we are in some way responsible for their fates.
Maria, like many doctors, holds the quite human desire to be able to
prevail against death, whether it comes via disease or suicide or even old
age. When we enter into the field with her, can we simply grieve with her
that in this particular case her professional hopes for her patient could
not prevail against what was killing her patient? I have learned a lot in
constellations about grief, and I am grateful for that.
Deborah Frangquist
San Francisco, CA
