Hi Liz,
The phrase, “everything belonging”, in the last line of your post might be a
good place to start with the issue of the facilitator’s ability to create
safety. A suggestion is that a more useful understanding might be “everything
that is part of the field has its place in the field.” However, the initial
interview does not need to represent the whole field and usually cannot. The
interview is often the key place in which the facilitator creates safety for
the client and the group. So an early evaluation the facilitator needs to make
is whether the client is clear on how to create safety with respect to the
issue they are bringing; often if the client is clear in that regard, the need
they have of the facilitator is very different than otherwise. The implication
is that skills of eliciting and allowing only what is necessary and sufficient
from the field at a rate that the client can accommodate is a fundamental skill
in the repertoire of the facilitator. That might be a good place to practice.
Best wishes,
Richard
On 3 Oct 2015, at 23:35, liz.sleeper@xxxxxxxxx [ConstellationTalk]
<ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi all,
I would really appreciate some guidance/input/feedback on the following
situation, which has left me alarmed.
Last week, I ran an evening constellation workshop. Members of the public
had signed up to attend via a 3rd party organisation that were hosting the
workshop.
There were 8 women and one man. The man was a bit odd. He couldn't look
people in the eye, mumbled and looked at the floor a lot. That description
makes him sound simply shy, but he did seem more odd than that. He said he
had come because a woman that he was very fond of had recommended he go to a
family constellation workshop.
One of the women was the issue holder, she came from a family where that had
been a violent step father, and much intergenerational trauma and loss. Her
family were from one of the Balkan states.
When she started speaking about her issue in the initial interview,
everything came pouring out - story after story of relatives who had
committed suicide, or lost someone, or been cut off or out in some way. She
doesn't know who her father is - her mother tells her it could be one of two
men, but nobody will do a DNA test to confirm anything.
Today she emailed me to tell me that the man in the group, was someone she
had met two years earlier, and he has a romantic interest in her. He sends
her texts that she ignores. When he said someone had told him to do a family
constellation he was talking about her.
This has really alarmed me. Neither she nor the man had intimated that they
knew each other in any way during the workshop. I am disturbed at this news.
Usually I ask at the beginning of the workshop for people to say who they
know in the group and it is odd that I didn't ask that at the beginning of
this one. I will never miss that step out again!
But in terms of maintaining safety in a group - has anyone any further
comments or advice they could give from their own experiences?
How does one balance "everything belonging" with safety in a group?
