Chris,
Are you aware of any controlled studies on addiction and constellations? I
recall Jane Peterson mentioning once that such a study had been done and had
showed a positive affect.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-----Original Message-----
From: "Chris Walsh" <chrisjwalsh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:50:36
To: <ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: [ConstellationTalk] Systemic approaches for Drug & Alcohol
Treatment
Dear Anna,
This sounds like an exciting and worthy undertaking. I work in the same
field.
From my forays into applying constellation work I would suggest using
constellation work to develop a more systemic awareness in the D&A field.
Too often patients are conceived in isolation from their families. When
families are considered it is often in a disdainful way. Having said that
there are some very interesting developments in the area of helping and
involving families who have a member with a substance use problem. Some of
the best work in this area has been done in your country - the UK by:
Alex G. Copello and Jim Orford from Birmingham and Solihull Substance Misuse
Services and School of Psychology, The University of Birmingham, Birmingham,
and Lorna Templeton and Richard Velleman from Mental Health Research and
Development Unit, The University of Bath and Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health
Partnership NHS Trust, UK
Constellations can be used very effectively as a staff supervision tool to
view the importance of family dynamics in a compassionate way. It can also
assist the therapists to find a better place for themselves in relation to
patients and their families. You could measure changes in attitudes of
therapists to both patients and their families after doing this kind of
work.
Another area worth exploring is looking for possible entanglements in
multigenerational genograms. In my experience I have found a much higher
incidence of early deaths of fathers and grandfathers of severe alcoholics
and severe addicts than you find in the general population. So it seems that
this is one of Bert Hellinger's assertions that may actually be verifiable.
Of course you can use constellations directly as a therapeutic tool, either
on the substance user or perhaps more interestingly on another family
member!
I hope this is helpful
hasta la vista
Chris Walsh
Melbourne, Australia
webpage: <http://www.cwalsh.com.au> www.cwalsh.com.au
From: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Chris Williams
Sent: Wednesday, 2 July 2008 7:33 AM
To: Constellation Talk
Cc: Anna Magee; Chris Williams
Subject: [ConstellationTalk] Systemic approaches for Drug & Alcohol
Treatment
Dear C-Talk friends,
We are UK based constellators who have had many years of experience working
in the substance misuse treatment field, in a variety of roles. As
associates of the nowherefoundation, we are looking to develop a project
researching the impact of integrating family constellations methodology into
existing addiction treatment programmes. We are seeking information from
fellow constellators around the world who have themselves applied
constellations in treatment work or have done similar research.
Most treatment programmes use cognitive and/or behavioural therapies, which
support individuals to explore and change their dependent behaviours,
limiting beliefs or strategies, but don't examine the wider systems to which
the addicted person belongs. As a consequence, the 'systemic maintaining
conditions' which can foster the recourse to substance misuse in the first
place may persist and prevent treatments working optimally and therefore
being sustainable. We surmise that in order to tackle issues surrounding
addiction, the systems to which the addict belongs, or indeed are excluded
from, and the roles they play within these systems need to be acknowledged.
Our proposal is to work with treatment staff in a number of different
programmes and co-create with them systemic tools that they (may integrate
into their practise) will use. We will use an action-research methodology
which incorporates the views and perspectives of all the participants.
If C-Talk members have any experiences or thoughts on the research within
treatment programs, or of working with the issue of addiction in
constellation workshops so that we can begin to collate some cross-cultural
data, we would really welcome this input.
With warm regards
Anna Magee
Chris Williams
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