Dear Anne and Dan,
I think the psychology professor presents us with two valid challenges
around constellation work. The first is about the difficulty achieving
uptake of this method by the broader community. The second is a challenge to
our professional integrity, warning us of pitfalls encountered by
psychodrama which is a very similar modality. In my personal experience
systemic constellations are generally a profoundly healing process.
However, I have heard of some very damaging work as well. So I believe we
need to take this seriously.
I believe the issue of achieving uptake is multifactorial and much more
complex than is implied by this professor's letter and I may take up this
issue at a later date.
The issue of our professional integrity is one of those factors and it that
raises serious concerns. Interestingly I find myself agreeing both with
Dan's concerns about erecting walls and with the professor's concerns about
lack of professional accountability and issues with energy work in general.
The problems inherent in energy work are:
1. The highly subjective nature of interpretation of the energy
2. Tendency of some practitioners and participants to take to adopt a
stance of almost delusional certainty in regard to their interpretation of
the energy. E.g. Categorical assertions that a murder has been committed
despite a total lack of objective evidence.
3. Tendency to exaggerate the emotional release that naturally happens
during this work. This can be quite spectacular and creates an artificial
sense of release. It can also be retraumatising and keep people stuck in
secondary emotions. Moreover this artificial release can have a very
addictive quality to it. So some participants and facilitators get very
hooked on this and it retards their growth rather than assists it.
4. Tendency to resist being accountable to objectively verifiable
facts. These facts can be of great assistance in keeping us grounded in
reality. This means we can use and interpret energy more accurately. Of
course this sometimes means we have to abandon a favourite hypothesis.
Moreover, we need to be able to be appropriately humble in order to do this.
5. When accountability to facts is ignored the field takes on a pseudo
religious quality where people insist their assertions are true just because
they are expressed in beautiful poetic and mystical language.
It is because of these problems that people try to develop controls which
unfortunately tend to be very ineffective. One problem is that it is
possible to have highly qualified incompetent or even dangerous
practitioners as well as it is possible to have extremely good practitioners
with no professional qualifications. Nonetheless more damage seems to be
done by untrained practitioners who remain blissfully ignorant of their own
deficiencies. Ignorance of trauma is one very good example of this.
So the questions I have are:
. How can we develop , maintain and protect our professional
integrity without building unnecessary and unhelpful walls?
. How do we get clear on what is good quality work and what is not?
. How do we then communicate that to the broader community?
I leave these questions open as I have no more than vague ideas as how to
answer them myself.
hasta la vista
Chris Walsh
806 Lygon St Carlton 3054
(Melbourne, Australia)
ph: +61 (0)3 9347 4300
fax: +61 (0)3 9347 4355
web: <http://www.cwalsh.com.au/> www.cwalsh.com.au
Subject: RE: [ConstellationTalk] psychodrama and oversight
Dear Anne -
The commentary by the psychology professor highlights three important
dimensions of the difficulty in raising interest and participation in
Constellation workshops.
First, "The description of constellation work could have been taken directly
from psychodrama's literature." What is lost in this statement is the
essential difference between Constellations and Psychodrama. No doubt the
Constellation process is difficult to describe. 30 seconds after a
Constellation concludes, it is nearly impossible to describe what happened,
no less to convey the experience in a flyer, webpage, or spoken account.
Still, the two processes are quite distinct, with the most important
difference being that the elements that made Psychodrama dangerous have been
refined in Constellations. The design of Constellations makes exponentially
safer than Psychodrama.
Second, is the paradox contained in the paired statements, 1) it is
unethical unless handled by licensed professionals; 2) how government
licensing boards view the process. Combine the logic that a) government
licensing boards will reject Constellations because their safety is not
empirically validated plus b) only licensed practitioners can ethically
provide these services, leads to the conclusion that c) no one is ethically
qualified to be a Constellation facilitator.
While this may seem like an erroneous analysis, it is in fact the
predominant mainstream view. The first expression of Western civilization
was the fortress. Before the temples, books, or abstract numbers came
walls. Psychology professors exists in universities which are defined by
walls, sometimes called ivory towers. At their root, Constellations
represent an integration of German existential philosophy and the native
wisdom of the African Zulus. Your professor can easily sniff out that
Constellations have more than a hint of shamanic ritual. By definition,
wisdom that resides beyond the walls of scholarship is rejected. This is
the logic of the walled city.
The route past this unsolvable logical dilemma is provided when
Constellation facilitators create their own professional associations,
training institutes, ethical standards, certifications, supervision, and
insurance pools. These are already in place in many countries. For
facilitators in countries without these resources, the German Association
for Systemic Constellations (DGfS) is offering interim support.
This creates its own divide, as many facilitators object to mirroring the
mainstream model by building our own walls. However, without such
structures anyone can declare themselves a Constellation facilitator and
warp the process into an experience that invites retraumatizing.
Collectively, if we seek to expand the reach of the Constellation
experience, we probably need to employ professional practices to protect the
well-being of participants.
Third, I am coming to see that group workshops are a limiting factor
themselves. The process works beautifully in a group setting, but the need
for a group to create a process for an individual is problematic. In
cultures where group healing experiences are well understood and accepted
this may not be an issue. Here in the US it is a big obstacle. I continue
to work with groups, but have reoriented the focus of my practice to provide
Constellations individually. Little is lost and much is gained from this
adjustment.
I hope this opens a broader conversation of DGfS certification and
professional practices.
Dan
-----Original Message-----
From: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:ConstellationTalk%40yahoogroups.com>
[mailto:ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:ConstellationTalk%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of anne becker
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 2:53 PM
To: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:ConstellationTalk%40yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [ConstellationTalk] psychodrama and oversight
Hello to everyone.
I would like to get some commentary on the following e-mail that was sent to
me recently after I invited this person ( a psychology professor) to attend
one of my constellation workshps. We have had other interesting
correspondence in the past.
*Anne: I think that maybe I have some insight into the resistance/lack of
interest that you are finding around this. In the 80's many of us 'old
timers' were introduced to psychodrama as part of our clinical training in
the modalities that were part of the human potential movement. Anyone with
gestalt background or analytic Jungian background or energy work training
found the inherent hazards/flaws/risks of psychodrama work were not worth
its use. The description of constellation work could have been taken
directly from psychodrama's literature. The other concern is the lack of
professional oversight/licensure on this work so that professionally many of
us can not ethically refer people to this unless it is handled by licensed
folks. It will be interesting to see what the state board makes of work
like this in the future given its similarity to psychodrama.
Keep me on your list---I like knowing what alternative approaches are out
there.
*
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