Dear Johannes, sorry I am getting back to you so late (I have pasted
your content below), but I have been traveling and moving between
different countries, and I struggle with the
intellectual/academic/group processing way that Constellation Talk has
seemed lately. But i guess I could do something about that!
So here goes.
You seem so sure, in your posting below about what is a constellation,
a projection of the client supported by the facilitator's and the
participants projections. I hope i have got you right?
For me, I am not so sure what causes a constellation, and I tell my
clients this. In fact I am sure I don't know. And i think that is one
of the basic premises of Constellation work, accepting what is,
accepting the truth, without having to understand it or analyse it.
The example i give in my workshops is that every generation thinks it
knows, but the next generation 'proves' that the previous generation
was wrong and only they know.
And, you say that you can refer to countless stories to back up your
ideas. When I was studying Organisational Dynamics at University in
Australia (what a struggle that was!) one of the first things we
learnt was that we tend to see and collect data to confirm our ideas
or our own view of the world. There is no such thing as objectivity,
only different shades of subjectivity.
I welcome you response
All the best...David Mathes
Melbourne Australia and Guangzhou China.
Dear David, dear all,
interesting discussion.
I understand e v e r y constellation as the set-up of an inner process of
the client ! This, in fact, means that nothing is ever revealed about your
family. What is presented is what kind of inner image or relationship a
person developed with regard to Her/his family.
A constellation does not reflect the reality of a family. Content is the
most unreliable part of a constellation. A constellation, I am repeating
myself, shows what kind of inner image developed in a client in his personal
history about his family. Reliable are the QUALITIES that show up but not
the actually related story. I can refer countless stories about that. Hope
everybody makes sure that this becomes a common understanding in the
American field.
Sometimes, the inner image does coincide with some seemingly "objective"
aspect of the real life situation. All the better. In my opinion, whatever
is on the tape reflects internal aspects in this specific (videotaping)
situation, with this particular facilitator, with the particular inner state
of the client in mind, with the particular group of people present. This
should be somehow related to the viewer. In Germany exactly this
misunderstand led to devastating press coverage by the press. By the way,
the same holds true for every story, sorry constellation, you may read in
Bert Hellinger's books.
Johannes B. Schmidt
