Re: Ethical Question About Constellations in Prison
- From: "Gail" <gail_m_allen@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 14:20:26 -0000
Hi Dan,
I've been letting this one sit with me for a while, and am at the
beginnings to be able to verbalise what it brings up for me.
--- In ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Dan Booth Cohen"
<danbcohen@...> wrote:
Colin's Constellation
By the standards of the American Psychological Association the
Constellation
would likely be considered an unethical intervention. The man is part
of a
vulnerable population, the method is not empirically supported, he did
not
give informed consent to the risks, and he was deeply disturbed by the
experience.
One could argue that making a man who has committed rape and attempted
murder "feel bad" is not bad in itself, especially if it has a
positive
benefit in the long run.
One could argue that it is the facilitator's responsibility to keep
group
participants from being "re-traumatized" as Colin likely was. If I
cannot
reasonably assure this level of security, I should not be proceeding.
My thoughts are around trauma, retraumatisation, and the
difference/similiarity between the victim and the perpetrator. And it
has something to do with being human. Firstly, the experience of
dehumanising so that one becomes a perpetrator and will inflict pain -
so that in the act of violence there is a separation from feelings and
emotions. So Colin's experience here:
" When representatives were placed in the Constellation for my victim,
wife, and children, the raw emotion that this evoked was terrifying. I
don't think I was ready for what I experienced that day. Love, hate,
anger,
compassion, and a host of other emotions came on so strong that I felt
completely overwhelmed."
is around being reconnected with himself - the human part of him that
feels the depths and complexities in overwhelming rawness.
I don't know that I would call this retraumatisation.
Initially my reaction was that a situation which puts a perpetrator into
this sort of painful struggle is positive. And I was trying to
understand why it is different to when a victim is retraumatised in the
constellation setting.
So part of the difference is, in my understanding, that the person in
becoming a victim loses identity, their humanity is ignored, potentially
destroyed by the perpetrators actions. They are often all too aware of
the overwhelming raw emotions, and live with them daily. They often
carry the feelings of shame etc., that originally belonged to the
perpetrator.
So when this traumatisation is reopened for the victim......it has a
different feeling, although equally raw and overwhelming.
It's like the perpetrator is confronted with what he has tried to escape
from, wheras the victim is confronted with what they have lost and the
tangling of their own pain with the perpetrator's pain.
Sorry, that probably doesn't help your ethical issues, but I wanted to
explore the difference that I felt between the two situations, and why I
would easily judge one as a potentially positive and yet regard that
other as something to be handled with greater care.
Gail.
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