Thank you Tiiu for sharing this wonderful piece of early history in the field
of Systemic Family Therapy. You have provided me with plenty of food for
thought. It is great to create a context for the early work. If I plan to
triangulate Systemic Constellations with my research on transgenerational
trauma in the field of peacebuilding, I do feel that a strong understanding of
the ancestry of the approach is needed.
Warm regards,
Patricia
On Mar 4, 2016, at 12:26 PM, Tiiu Bolzmann <tiiu.bolzmann@xxxxxx> wrote:
Dear Patricia,
I am Tiiu Bolzmann, origen estonian, austrian citicen and living in Buenos
Aires.
I can tell you, that I knew Bert Hellinger about 30 years ago in 1987 in
Austria and I am still working with his approach. At the very beginning he
talked about Eric Berne and the Primary Therapy and about 6 years ago he
started to mention Thea Schoenfelder and Leslie Kadis who introduced him in
the Family Constellation Work. But as he told me, they didn’t have a theory
and couldn’t tell, what was going on in a Constellation. So he went to USA to
visit them and to find out and when he came back, he started to investigate
in this matter. For me it’s he who developed the theory and the practice of
this work and who spread it to the world. Of course there are all the people
who worked similar, or let’s say who could have been preparing this field,
like Virginia Satir, Jacob Moreno, Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy and all the others
you mentioned. But it’s Bert Hellingers merit to have developed and
acquainted this work!!
I want to tell you a detail of my own experience. Maybe it will be of
interest for you. I am a Systemic Family Therapist educated in Austria (where
I got in touch with Bert). First I studied the method of the Family Therapy
with Harry Merl, an austrian Psychiatrist and we referred our work to the
Systemics of Milan, Heidelberg, and the Norwegian Tom Anderson, with the
reflecting team, etc. When I came to Argentina, 18 years ago, I went to a
systemic institute and they were working with the camera, as we did in
Austria many years ago. The argentina colleagues told me that they are
working with the “Camara Gesell” and were very surprised, that I didn’t know
this method. But when I saw the work, I understood that this was the same we
did in Austria and which was known as a method from the Milan School (and
later the Reflecting Team of Tom Anderson without camera but in two different
rooms with a mirror in between). When I told the Argentines that this method
comes from Milan and from Norway, they laughed at me, because they were
convinced that this is a invention of a psychologist called “Gesell”. So, in
South-America there was developing the same work and structure, maybe at the
same time, but the european Therapist didn’t know about it. And vice versa.
So I think, that Bert Hellinger didn’t know Toman, and didn’t search about
the roots of his work, but rather generously shared what he discovered in
every moment.
To find out, which are the roots of this work seems to be your task and I
congratulate you for this investigation. I am looking forward to the results
of your exploration!! I think it will be very interesting to see, where this
wisdom comes from. Much luck and success - kindly - Tiiu
