Hi, I am recently returned from the Bernried Intensive, The Wurzburg
Congress and Hellinger in Malaysia in May 2008. Thanks for all your
wonderful posts and Chris’s steady hand.
It has been a big struggle to write this post and to send it. It
seems like I have rewritten it a thousand times. But i think what
supports me is some feeling of responsibility I have to us, to our
work and to our clients, and to the clients that we haven't even met
yet.
I want to say something about my experience of Hellinger in Malaysia,
I found the Malaysian seminar quite unsettling due to Hellinger's
style as a facilitator. However his ideas, his ‘insights’, his
philosophies, I am much more comfortable with these and over the
years they have helped me, both professionally and personally.
I am starting to separate out in my mind ‘Constellation Work’ into
two parts. One is the process of facilitating a constellation, of
whatever form that takes. And the other part is the philosophies or
ideas we might use to explore the constellation space. It seems as
though the two parts are not separate but this distinction helps me.
In Malaysia, Hellinger said he was demonstrating his new work. I did
not see anything very new about his process. It seemed the same to me
as when I saw him 4 years ago. But his explanations of his work have
changed such as now he says “Movements of the Soul" are always a
movement towards death. i didn't hear that before.
In 3 days with an audience of about 250 mainly derived from a
background of immigration there was no representative for any country
or race. That surprised me. Many of the systems set up by Hellinger
(and always he chose what should be set up or what work should be
done) were a parent and a child. It seemed quite normal Orders of
Love to me, often asking people to accept their parents. The ‘space’
of the work had a small feel to it. I have always felt it was that
one of the beauties of constellation work is that it opens up the
space for healing.
But what mainly unsettled me was the nature of the work and his
relationship with the clients. Often it didn’t seem like
Constellation work. What I think I saw was much Hypnosis (Hellinger
called these meditations, and he talked about Milton Erickson) Primal
Therapy, Rebirthing, NLP and lots and lots of Philosophy and maybe a
few Constellations, though I am not too sure. At one point Hellinger
set up a man and a woman. It looked like a Constellation to me. He
said ‘of course this is not a Constellation’. I know that this begs
the question ‘what is a Constellation?’. I am wondering how the
field conditions at the event influence his work, though I have seen
videos of Hellinger doing Constellations. i presume with quite large
audiences.
If I am right that he was doing other forms of therapy, maybe
influenced by constellation philosophies (Orders of Love and good
conscience etc), then how does that define his relationship with the
client? He himself talks much about the problem of the therapeutic
relationship.
I know for myself, sometimes I feel in a constellation workshop I am
straying into therapy. I can feel the shift in my body, a sort of
thickening of the connection with the client, and a feeling that the
relationship is longer than just the workshop. This all happens
quite quickly. When I feel this I usually shift back into being a
constellation facilitator. It has a different feel to it. More
separate from the client but more connection to the wider field they
and I are in. And as a constellation facilitator I feel I have more
support and guidance from the field, as a therapist its more up to
me. I haven’t tried to put this into words before.
Seeing Hellinger work, I wonder now if some of his statements that
have become part of usual constellation practice are more intended to
be hypnotic statements, but are taken as the truth. One that comes
to mind is ‘it doesn’t matter who you choose as a representative’.
Hellinger kept on asking for experienced representatives to come
forward. It did seem to matter for him. And I am starting to think
it does matter who is chosen as a representative.
With demonstrations, as Hellinger said he was doing, I think we have
to be very careful about who is the real client. Demonstrations can
be influenced by intentions and agendas.
In one case a man came forward because Hellinger asked for someone
who had a large business to come to the stage. Hellinger said that
the man was strong. The man said he didn’t have an issue he had only
come up because Hellinger had asked for someone who had a large
business. Hellinger decided to work with this man. I think he wanted
to demonstrate an insight he had been discussing that success in
business depends on respect for your mother. When Hellinger stopped
this man’s constellation his customers lay on the ground as if dead
(they had been upright before), and the client was wobbling, where
once he had been strong. Hellinger also brought in the man’s mother,
but not his father. Hellinger’s attitude is that client’s have to
take their own responsibility for the outcome of his constellation
work with them. As I saw the clients on the floor I wondered if that
rule extended to them as well. I am really not sure what to make of
that outcome. I was quite concerned, for the people in the man's
system, for the audience and for the reputation of our work.
I think that demonstrations need to be carefully thought about. For
instance ‘who is the main client?’. If it is not the individual who
brings his/her case then I think there can be problems.
There has been talk in this forum about our reactions to Hellinger.
About him being a father figure to some. When I did my Gestalt
training I remember reading an article that asked the question ‘Why
do certain projections/transferences get made on you?’ I don’t think
we are a blank screen for people to project an image onto. I think
we have some influence on what gets projected onto us, whether we
know it or not.
I think Hellinger is a father figure and, in the Malaysia seminar,
with all the contradictions and confusion in his statements, maybe
people are then more open to his suggestions that he makes in his
work with them. This could be done from a place of good intentions,
of what he thinks is best for his clients.
I find it a struggle to criticize Bert Hellinger, but I also think it
is a very healthy thing to do. If we allow ourselves to be critical
of his work then we help ourselves, our clients, and him. I have
asked myself do I respect Bert Hellinger? I think it is out of
respect that I write this post, because he and this work are
important to me. I am glad to have this opportunity, this forum, to
express my views.
I think that one of the great moderators and ways of learning
constellation work is that so much of it is done in public view,
quite different to most therapies. And I think that we all, and our
teachers, and Bert Hellinger, can be proud of this.
David Mathes..........Melbourne & Guangzhou