Chiara & all The rather lengthy text below is taken from an Essay that
will eventually find its way into my dissertation. It attempts to
deconstruct the reasons why an academic psychologist or clinician would
object to your proposed research. Please do not copy the text off this site
without proper citation. Dan
Overview of the Objectionable and Inexplicable Elements
A schematic description of Family Constellations only scratches the surface
of its philosophic and material conflicts with many precepts of contemporary
scientific psychology and the recognized best practices of professional
psychotherapy. Furthermore, the deeper one explores existential being
through the phenomenological lens of Constellations, the greater the
variance with commonly held perspectives about the sources of- and remedies
for- human suffering.
It is not difficult to tease out the elements of the Family Constellation
approach that strain credulity or contradict well established
psychotherapeutic best practices.
The intake interview, such as it is, last only a few minutes, whereas a
conventional psychotherapist would take a detailed history (Somers-Flanagan
& Somers-Flanagan, 1999). There are no professionally accepted standards of
when Constellations are indicated or contraindicated as the therapeutic
intervention. Upon hearing a brief description of an issue and a few facts
about the family history, the facilitator initiates what can be an extremely
intense emotional process.
Conventional best practices counsels that at the outset the therapist should
be non-directive and establish rapport with the client prior to embarking on
the challenges of the therapeutic journey. Further, the therapist should
encourage clients to follow their own leads and make their own discoveries
(Corey, 2001; Strupp & Binder, 1984).
The group itself defies conventional description. It is neither group
therapy (Yalom, 1995), nor a variant of an Encounter group, 12-Step program,
support group, or religious or spiritual gathering. While the Constellation
is set up by one participant, other members may be drawn into emotional or
physical reactions, or they may not. There are no obvious parallels to more
established formats for group process work.
The facilitators, even those who are licensed in medical and therapeutic
professions, (Hellinger Institute DC, 2006; Systemic Family Solutions, 2006;
Faust & Faust, 2006) disclaim that the process is a form of therapy or
treatment. Despite this, they lead group members into an intense emotional
experience without formally screening participants for pre-existing medical
or mental health issues.
Constellation facilitators are not licensed by any governing jurisdiction.
They cannot qualify for professional liability insurance. There is no U.S.
professional association to create practice standards, training criteria, or
supervision guidelines. As such, they do not receive referrals from licensed
and insured professionals because of licensure and liability risks. Nor can
they receive reimbursement for services rendered from managed care providers
or government agencies.
The representatives are strangers to the seeker. They receive only a
skeletal description of the issue and family history before they are asked
to stand in the circle in an assigned role, such as Mother. Once so
placed, their responses are not taken as projection or role playing, but
rather as a reliable reflection of the mothers inner being. Frequently, the
seeker or facilitator may add representatives of family members whose lives
are lost to memory or whose very existence is questioned, e.g.
great-grandfather and his rumored first wife. Again, the reactions of the
representatives are assumed to mirror these actual individuals.
The facilitator intuits a so-called hidden dynamic that is purported to be
at the source of the seekers current issue. It is claimed that virtually
all pressing personal issues are, in part, echoes of trans-generational
trauma within the family system. This seminal event may be only faintly
recalled by living members of the family, a forgotten secret that is not
known at all, or a seemingly obscure or trivial piece of family lore. Taken
together the representatives feelings, the facilitators intuition, and
the nexus between past and present events point to the hidden dynamic.
This hidden dynamic is not perceived as a product of repressed, forgotten or
traumatic experiences of the seeker, but rather of the seekers family seen
as a collective whole. The presenting issue is contextualized as an echo of
an event that occurred before the seeker was born, sometimes several
generations before. While there are loose parallels to this view found in
established schools of psychotherapy, such as Jungian Analytic Psychology,
Transactional Analysis, and Contextual Therapy, this perception of
trans-generational, systemic entanglements is a unique element of Family
Constellations.
The so-called Healing Resolution is achieved by repositioning the
representatives and/or adding representatives of members of the family
system who were exiled, excluded or forgotten. This stage of the process
presents at least two aspects which seem to defy common sense. First, the
seeker is a passive observer, needing only to sit silently, look, take his
or her place, and repeat a healing sentence or two to receive an efficacious
solution to a serious and longstanding problem. Second, membership in the
family system is not confined to biological relatives, but may include
people whose position of belonging can be hotly disputed, such as aborted
fetuses, perpetrators of violence against past family members or the victims
of crimes or injustices committed by past family members.
What are called, healing sentences can be tautologies, e.g., I lived and
you died, or provocative statements that conflict with the seekers
ordinary understanding, e.g. You are the right father for me (spoken to a
representative of a father who was alcoholic and abusive). The facilitator
spontaneously composes these statements and instructs the seeker and
representatives to repeat them. They are based on a combination of intuitive
feelings of what is true or right in that moment and formulaic concepts
based on a philosophic framework known as the Orders of Love (Hellinger,
Weber & Beaumont, 1998).
Proponents of the Family Constellation process claim that this brief
intervention can be instrumental in overcoming a persistent lifelong pattern
of behavior. There are no English-language empirically validated or peer
reviewed research studies corroborating this claim.
Some facilitators claim that members of the family system who are not
present or informed of the Constellation on occasion spontaneously respond
to the healing resolution as if they had participated. They acknowledge that
the transmission mechanism cannot be adequately explained. It is not claimed
to be a function of supernatural, magical, or spiritualist communication.
This phenomenon is usually ascribed to a systemic family field, collective
consciousness, psi, synchronicity, morphic field or some unknown or
inadequately understood information transmission medium.
The facilitator does not provide for monitoring or aftercare in case of
adverse effects.
Taken individually each of these components seems to strain the boundaries
of professional practice and common sense. Integrated into a whole, a
sensible skeptic would be on solid ground to dismiss the Family
Constellation process as a contemporary incarnation of the many spiritualist
practices that claim to magically and mystically connect ordinary people
with an occult universe that lies just beyond the reach of ordinary
awareness (Simpkinson & Simpkinson, 1998; Singer & Lalich, 1996).
In addition to the factors above, there is another element of the Family
Constellation process that pushes its apparent plausibility further to the
edge. These are the Orders of Love, purported to be a set of invisible
systemic laws that exert irresistible force on families and individuals.
According to Beaumont (Hellinger, et al. 1998):
The Orders of Love are dynamic, systemic forces blowing and whirling in our
families and intimate relationships. We know the disorder caused by their
turbulence as leaves know the whirlwind in our suffering and illness.
Conversely, we know their harmonious flow as a sense of well-being in the
world (p. xi).
Within the framework of the Orders of Love, familiar constructs take on new,
sometime even reversed meanings. Tucker (2005) half-facetiously suggests
developing a new dictionary to distinguish these new usages. In this light,
guilt and innocence are almost opposite of what comes to mind when the words
are spoken in other contexts (p. 18). Similarly redefined are other
philosophical terms such conscience, soul, and forgiveness (Tucker,
2005; Cohen, 2006a; in press). These definitions retain an imprecision and
fluidity that stymies the scientific mind. Hellinger (Hellinger, Weber &
Beaumont, 1998) speaks of this ambiguity: The Orders of Love arent rigid
structures. They are always changing; they are different from moment to
moment. Theres something richly varied in them, a profound abundance we can
glimpse for only a brief moment (p. 91).
Removed from their context within the Constellation, the Orders of Love
convey either an authoritarian dogmatism or a perplexing inversion of common
sense. Ten Hövel (Hellinger & ten Hövel, 1999) wrote that her initial
encounter with Family Constellations, addled my brain [and] unsettled my
belief system (p. ix). Beaumont (Hellinger, et al., 1998) asked himself,
How can a psychotherapist say such dogmatic and moralistic things (p. x)?
Despite this initial negative reaction, they found something in the process
that drew them to understand it more fully, and eventually to work with it
themselves. Weber (Hellinger, et al., 1998) explains:
In my career [as a psychiatrist and professor], I have participated in many
different workshops and trainings seminars from a great variety of
psychotherapeutic schools and orientations and with a variety of teachers.
In every seminar [with Bert Hellinger], I experienced something that
continued to move me years later, to work in me, bringing me back into
balance (p. vi).
Beaumont, too, overcame his initial flashes of outrage to recognize that,
Bert Hellinger has rediscovered something about love in intimate
relationships that grasps people and changes their lives. What he found is
this: Love follows the hidden order of the Greater Soul (Hellinger, et
al., 1998, p. x).
The Family Constellation process claims to enable participants to perceive
and comprehend these elements within their own lives. One can hardly look to
contemporary scientific psychology or empirically validated psychotherapies
to answer these questions: What makes love work in relationships? What are
the hidden orders of love? What is the Greater Soul and how does it
influence our capacity for solving everyday problems?
The gulf between Family Constellations and mainstream scientific psychology
is substantial. The Constellation approach explicitly and purposefully omits
much of what evidence-based practice in psychology (EBPP) includes and
conversely, ventures into territory that cognitive, behavioral and
psychoanalytic therapies explicitly avoid.
-----Original Message-----
From: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
cmegighianzenati@xxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2007 8:23 PM
To: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ConstellationTalk] heart disease patients and heart transplant
patients
dear constellation colleagues. I am going to discuss with an academic
psycologist a study with heart disease patients and heart transplant
patients who are not responding well to conventional therapy. In my
proposal I will offer to consider a Family Constellation approach. I
would appreciate if you had any experience to share or any good reading
of work already done.
Thankfully
Chiara
Dr. Chiara H. Megighian-Zenati
104 Hawthorne Rd
Pittsburgh, PA 15238
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