Can we work as a group to update it?
Rosabelle White Aguirre de Rice
Federally Certified Spanish Interpreter and Certified Medical Interpreter
Solutions@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
1-3036640852
Cell +1 (303) 502-4746
On Jan 6, 2016, at 7:38 AM, Harrison Snow teambuilder@xxxxxxx
[ConstellationTalk] <ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The write up manages to be both negative and patronizing. There must be a way
to update it
and give a fair presentation of constellation work.
Thanks for mentioning it
Harrison Snow
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
From: jack blackwell travelerjbjb@xxxxxxxxx [ConstellationTalk]
Sent: Tuesday, January 5, 2016 3:26 PM
To: yahoogroups
Subject: [ConstellationTalk] Read these 3 short paragraphs. Is this HURTING
us, hurting Family Constellation work??
When someone searches for Family constellation on the web (in English), The
number 1 page that comes up is Wikipedia.
So many of our clients get their information about Constellations here.
If Wikipedia's description is negatively written, does this hurt our modality
and our profession?
First read Wikipedia's 3 paragraph description of Psychodrama, a close cousin
to Family Constellation work:
Psychodrama is an action method, often used as a psychotherapy, in which
clients use spontaneous dramatization, role playing and dramatic
self-presentation to investigate and gain insight into their lives.[1]
Developed by Jacob L. Moreno, M.D. (1889–1974) psychodrama includes elements
of theater, often conducted on a stage, or a space that serves as a stage
area, where props can be used. A psychodrama therapy group, under the
direction of a licensed psychodramatist, reenacts real-life, past situations
(or inner mental processes), acting them out in present time. Participants
then have the opportunity to evaluate their behavior, reflect on how the past
incident is getting played out in the present and more deeply understand
particular situations in their lives.[2] Psychodrama offers a creative way
for an individual or group to explore and solve personal problems. It may be
used in a variety of clinical and community-based settings, and is most often
utilized in a group scenario, in which each person in the group can become
therapeutic agents for one another's scenes. Psychodrama is not, however, a
form of group therapy, and is instead an individual psychotherapy that is
executed from within a group. There are "side-benifits" that the other group
members may experience, as they make relevant connections and insights to
their own lives from the psychodrama of another. A psychodrama is best
conducted and produced by a person trained in the method, called a
psychodrama director.[3]
In a session of psychodrama, one client of the group becomes the protagonist,
and focuses on a particular, personal, emotionally problematic situation to
enact on stage. A variety of scenes may be enacted, depicting, for example,
memories of specific happenings in the client's past, unfinished situations,
inner dramas, fantasies, dreams, preparations for future risk-taking
situations, or unrehearsed expressions of mental states in the here and
now.[2] These scenes either approximate real-life situations or are
externalizations of inner mental processes. Other members of the group may
become auxiliaries, and support the protagonist by playing other significant
roles in the scene[2] or may step in, as a "double" who plays the role of the
protagonist.
A core tenet of psychodrama is Moreno's theory of
"spontaneity-creativity".[4] Moreno believed that the best way for an
individual to respond creatively to a situation is through spontaneity, that
is, through a readiness to improvise and respond in the moment.[5] By
encouraging an individual to address a problem in a creative way, reacting
spontaneously and based on impulse, they may begin to discover new solutions
to problems in their lives and learn new roles they can inhabit within it.[4]
Moreno's focus on spontaneous action within the psychodrama was developed in
his Theatre of Spontaneity, which he directed in Vienna in the early
1920s.[6] Disenchanted with the stagnancy he observed in conventional,
scripted theatre, he found himself interested in the spontaneity required in
improvisational work. He founded an improvisational troupe in the 1920s. This
work in the theatre impacted the development of his psychodramatic theory.
Now read the short Wikipedia 3 paragraph description of Family Constellation
work:
Family Constellations is an alternative therapeutic method which draws on
elements of family systems therapy, existential phenomenology and Zulu
attitudes to family.[1] In a single session, a Family Constellation
supposedly attempts to reveal a previously unrecognized systemic dynamic that
spans multiple generations in a given family and to resolve the deleterious
effects of that dynamic by encouraging the subject to accept the factual
reality of the past.
Family Constellations diverges significantly from conventional forms of
cognitive, behaviour and psychodynamic psychotherapy. The method has been
described by physicists as quantum quackery, and its founder Bert Hellinger
incorporates the pseudoscientific idea of morphic resonance into his
explanation of it. Positive outcomes from the therapy have been attributed to
conventional explanations such as suggestion and empathy.[2]
Practitioners claim that present-day problems and difficulties may be
influenced by traumas suffered in previous generations of the family, even if
those affected now are unaware of the original event in the past. A
theoretical foundation for this concept is called The Ancestor Syndrome in
psychology.[3] Hellinger referred to the relation between present and past
problems that are not caused by direct personal experience as Systemic
entanglements, said to occur when unresolved trauma has afflicted a family
through an event such as murder, suicide, death of a mother in childbirth,
early death of a parent or sibling, war, natural disaster, emigration, or
abuse.[4] The psychiatrist Iván Böszörményi-Nagy referred to this phenomenon
as Invisible Loyalties.
Now, it may be just me, but I believe that Wikipedia's Family Constellation
description, as written, is negatively biased.
Particularly these two points:
"In a single session, a Family Constellation supposedly attempts to reveal"
"The method has been described by physicists as quantum quackery, and its
founder Bert Hellinger incorporates the pseudoscientific idea of morphic
resonance into his explanation of it. Positive outcomes from the therapy have
been attributed to conventional explanations such as suggestion and empathy"
I believe that this description, which is probably the NUMBER ONE ENGLISH
DESCRIPTOR IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, being negatively slanted, hurts us and hurts
our profession. Note, there is nothing like this in the Psychodrama
description.
What are your thoughts, Am I right? does this matter? If it does, should we
do something?
From Boulder Colorado, Jack Blackwell
Jack Blackwell (720) 458-5363
Connecting Spirit & Psychology ~ Creating profound insights and Healing
Family Constellation Workshops & Trainings, Holotropic Breathwork
Visit us at Family-Constellation.com to learn more
