Hidden Solutions to War and Conflict
Peace in the Family Soul
April 12-13, 2003
This is a personal and very subjective summary report about Harald Hohnens
Hidden Solutions to War and Conflict and Peace in the Family Soul workshops
that Cynthia Robinson and I produced in Arlington, MA on April 12-13, 2003.
We had 30 participants on Saturday for Hidden Solutions and 20 for the
Family Soul. It was a strong, diverse group, including several leaders in
the Boston-area Israeli/Palestinian peace movement. In addition there were
therapists, academics, writers and other professionals, plus several clients
referred by their therapists.
Judging from the evaluation responses received by participants, the
workshops can be considered a qualified success. 90% of the respondents
reported their overall impression of the event rated a 4 or 5 on a scale
with 1 being mediocre and 5 being extraordinary. 92% said they would be
interested in participating in another Family Constellation event.
Here are a few excerpts from the evaluations submitted by participants:
* I was amazed at the seemingly simple way in which one can be guided to
looking at complicated issues and see them from a different perspective.
* The Family Constellation System seems like something so innate and
natural
that I'm very surprised that it is just becoming more established now.
* I was not only very impressed but deeply moved. On the question of
whether the Family System can be applied to issues of war and peace, I can
only conclude that it is unlikely to yield palpable results in the near
term.
* Family constellations astounded me. Having attended countless other
workshops, I came into the day with fairly low expectations. Despite the
rough edges, the experience far exceeded my expectations. It was as if a
curtain was pulled back and I saw my life in a whole new light.
* I don't think it was as applicable to larger, political issues as to
personal issues.
In 2000, when I first encountered the Family Constellation method pioneered
by Bert Hellinger, I immediately recognized that this work filled in a
missing piece of the puzzle that the peace movement has longed struggled
with. Peace activism takes many forms, but whether through protests and
political lobbying, education and dialogue, or prayer and consciousness
raising, the efforts are aimed either at influencing political systems,
changing minds or opening hearts.
Hellingers work goes to a wholly different dimension that is neither
political, religious, spiritual or psychological. In looking at the causes
and aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews, Hellinger saw that
there was another level of existence operating in humans. He calls it the
Family Soul.
A common initial response to hearing an explanation or description of the
Family Soul is some version of, If its so important, why dont I already
know about? Or else people mistakenly categorize it as a variation of some
esoteric religious, spiritual or psychological model.
The family soul cannot be grasped through an intellectual process; it must
be experienced to be appreciated. Last November, I met with a small group
of leaders in the Israel/Palestine peace with justice movement and proposed
creating an informal support group modeled after the Children of War
program. Its mission would be to expand the circle of compassion within the
Jewish community to encompass Palestinians, and vice versa.
Using the Family Constellation model as a tool, we would expand our
understanding of the hidden loyalties that fuels ethnic conflicts. In doing
so we might come to accept those people whom we thought before as evil,
realizing that whatever we do, we are in the service of something that moves
through us.
While cordial and supportive, the group turned me down cold and not
without good reasons. Partly this is because many people take on activism
to feel better about a frightening or terrible situation. The family
constellation is designed to be discomforting. It disturbs the feelings of
self-innocence that result from doing the right thing, or taking the
right side. The solution is often the most obvious answer that has been
most vigorously rejected.
Its no wonder that local Jews and Palestinians, who may have difficulty
maintaining a civil conversation about the conflict, are reluctant to share
their hidden truths. However, without the courage to face these truths the
debate is stuck like a ping-pong ball with one side claiming, The Israelis
want peace; the Palestinians only respond with violence, and the other
counter-claiming, If only the Israelis would end the Occupation, then the
Palestinians would accept them in peace.
I emailed Harald Hohnen and asked, I am working to put together a dialogue
group to look at the barriers to peace in Israel/Palestine. One of the
obstacles to using the Family Constellation method is that it is a form of
personal therapy that is perhaps too intimate for such a group. Do you know
anyone or have any ideas yourself about how to introduce the concepts of
systemic conscience, blind and enlightened love, and loyalty to the dead in
a group process such as this? He wrote back, I do not have precisely an
answer, but since I am going to Israel in January for the 4th time to a
constellation seminar/workshop/training, I could come to Boston to give a
seminar.
This was the genesis of the Hidden Solutions workshop. The Peace in the
Family Soul workshop was added as a second day of more conventional personal
work.
The need for a healing solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is
urgent, even desperate. We are all much too busy, too overwhelmed by new
information, too distressed at the state of world affairs. It is within
this reality that I attempted to add something of value to peoples
understanding of the sources and solutions of violent conflict.
The weekend represented a good beginning. We only had time to scratch the
surface of what is a deep and profound process. Harald took most of the day
to demonstrate the foundations of this method of inquiry.
He showed us that the conscience that we feel as a good feeling when we do
good or a bad feeling when we do something bad is only a small part of
the equation, and misunderstood at that. There is another conscience that
we can neither feel nor see, but it exerts a compelling, powerful force upon
our actions and decisions.
Next, he demonstrated how this conscience is the mechanism through which the
family system exerts its need for balance. If a member of the family system
is excluded this could be a family member rejected for some violation of
rules, or a former partner who is replaced by a new love, or a non-related
murderer or victim within the system the system replaces the excluded
person with a child.
This is the mechanism by which ethnic conflicts in one generation are
perpetuated in successive generations. The families of the victims hate the
murderers; the families of the perpetrators turn away from the victims. The
result is that the children in these families take on either victim or
perpetrator energy.
The solution is to give the excluded persons their place in the family
system. This relieves the children from serving as replacements.
In the last hour, Harald worked with two participants whose families were
directly harmed by the Nazi Holocaust. This gave the group an look at how
Family Constellations work as a healing modality.
Near the end, one of the participants asked Harald how this method could be
used to ease the current conflict. Haralds answer was that Family
Constellations could not be applied globally. For example, we cannot set up
a representative for Israel and one for Palestine and expect to gain any
benefit from it.
Not withstanding this limitation, I still hold my vision of how this could
all work. If we could assemble a 3-hour open monthly group looking at
individual connections to ethnic violence using the family constellation
process, over time we might have a meaningful impact on the political
constituencies that finance U.S. military support for Israel. This,
together, with the ongoing efforts by many others could open a path to a
just and secure cessation of violence.
As I have for the past three decades, I will continue my efforts. I remain
convinced that the hidden workings of the family soul are an important piece
of the puzzle. Tomorrow, I fly to Germany for an international congress on
family constellations with 2,500 attendees from 5 continents. Upon my
return, I will respond to each of you who expresses interest to see where we
can go next.
All for now
Dan
