family constellation...

[Adam Blatner]

Responding to Karen's and Regina's recent postings to Grouptalk:

I will say again (and again) that respectable professional work is done, in my opinion, 
not in the heat of the individual in the experience, surrounded by true believers and with 
a generous transference to the group leader, but in the cool light of professional 
(written) discourse, ideally, published in a journal article, and subject to critical 
questioning and analysis.
       I praise the pioneering work of those involved in the Hellinger Family 
Constellation work, and its offshoots. I acknowledge that, as with Freud, and maybe 
Moreno, too, sometimes the second generation may offer refinements that the pioneer 
missed. (Jung noted this and I quoted his comments in my Foundations of Psychodrama.)
        Nevertheless, Ron Anderson had begun to write a paper on this for our journal but 
it has been delayed by illness. Perhaps Karen might help, or others. A paper needs to be 
written, objections noted, and rebuttals or carefully thought-out responses offered to the 
rebuttals. This dialogue needs to be reiterated so that some tentative conclusions can be 
drawn.

     I feel that psychodrama could benefit from input from many other approaches, and in 
turn offers input to a further development of many other approaches. This kind of mixing 
of ideas is good, but it requires a bit of discipline.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karen Carnabucci" <karen at companionsinhealing.com>
To: <list at grouptalkweb.org>
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 4:05 PM
Subject: RE: the healing power of family constellation work


> It's good to see this discussion of Systemic Family Constellation Work.
> Thanks to Ron Anderson and Donna Little, I have been increasingly
> interested in this way of working and have begun some training.
>
> People may want to know that there is a Family Constellation training
> being organized in the Midwest, with Heinz Stark, a skilled facilitator
> from Germany who is doing the training. Here are the details.
>
> Systemic Family Constellation
> Training Dates and Fees
> 2007-2008
>
> Each of the series of five training sessions is held Thursday, 9:00 am -
> Sunday, 5:00 pm at the Carmelite Spiritual Center, Darien, IL
> [www.carmelitespiritualcenter.org]
>
> q August 16-19, 2007 Basic Training Seminar
> #1
> q November 1-4, 2007 Study Seminar #2
> q February 14-17, 2008 Study Seminar #3
> q May 15-18, 2008 Study Seminar #4
> q September 18-21, 2008             Study Seminar #5
>
> Payment Plans:
>
> Option 1: Discounted single payment of  $3500.00 due June 1, 2007
>
> Option 2: Installment payments
>
> Nonrefundable deposit  $400.00 due June 25, 2007
>
> q Payment 1    $650.00 due July 12, 2007
> q Payment 2    $650.00 due November 1, 2007
> q Payment 3    $650.00 due February 14, 2008
> q Payment 4    $650.00 due May 15, 2008
> q Payment 5    $650.00 due September 18, 2008
>
> Make checks payable to Healing Heart and Soul and send with your
> application to:
>
>                                HEALING HEART and SOUL
> % Catherine Rennert
>                1615 Harlem Blvd
> Rockford, IL 61103-6339
>
> Receipt of your application by July 12, 2007 guarantees your space in
> the training. If Heinz Stark does not accept you into the program or if
> the training is canceled your payment will be completely refunded.
>
> Payments must be paid in full by the due date. Late payments or
> non-payments of any of the above scheduled fees will terminate your
> participation in the training program.
>
> Note: The fees outlined above are payment for training only--food and
> lodging are additional. The Carmelite Spiritual Center provides simple
> lodging and daily meals for approximately $300.00 for each full 4-day
> training session. You are encouraged to reside at the retreat center to
> increase learning and to avoid distractions. Information pertinent to
> the Carmelite Spiritual Center will be included in your registration
> materials.
>
> Please contact Sue Bronson (sbronson at wi.rr.com) not me for information
> on this intensive training. You also may see www.healingheartandsoul.com
> for details.
>
> Lake House will be offering some one-day workshops with Sue Bronson, a
> Milwaukee psychotherapist, demonstrating FC work from a non-training
> perspective. We are now gathering names -- and you may contact for that
> information: karen at companionsinhealing.com.
>
>
>
> Karen Carnabucci, MSS, LCSW, TEP
> Companions In Healing
>
> Lake House Health &  Learning Center
> 932 Lake Ave.
> Racine, WI 53403
>
> (262) 633-2645
> karen at companionsinhealing.com
>
> www.lakehousecenter.com
> www.companionsinhealing.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: list-bounces at grouptalkweb.org
> [mailto:list-bounces at grouptalkweb.org] On Behalf Of REGINA SEWELL
> Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 3:16 PM
> To: list at grouptalkweb.org
> Subject: re: the healing power of family constellation work
>
> Michael,
>
> I'd like to put a different spin on the impact of Family Constellation
> work.  Before doing so, I think it's important to know that I haven't
> read any books on the topic and have only participated at a limited
> level, once in a constellation directed? faciliated? by Donna Little.
> Also note that I do not know the vocabulary, so will probably use
> psychodrama vocabulary.  In the constellation directed by Donna, I was
> an auxilliary, cast as a dead person and really tapped into the
> sensation of not quite being able to be there becauase of the burden I
> faced and yet not quite wanting to leave.  At that point in my life, I
> was not quite suicidal but if a truck would have run over me, so much
> the better.  At the end of the workshop, Donna noted that it looked like
> I couldn't decide whether to stay or to go.  In Moreno's terms, I would
> call the protagonist's casting me in the role of that person "tele" and
> will add that along with Donna's comments, (and the miracle that I got
> stuck in  a a traffic jam in Toronto with 3 hours with no where to go
> but inside) and realized that I really had to decide, "should I stay or
> should I go?"  I chose to stay and really focus on living and following
> my dreams.
>
> Since then, I have participated in a couple of all day workshops lead by
> Andy Stuck who also trained in Europe and is also a Gestalt therapist
> and seems to be quite respectable in the field.  I have been both
> auxilliary and protagonist.  (Her approach seems to be that anyone who
> wants to do work gets a shot, even if there are 18 people who want to
> work.)  There again, it was somewhat transformative.. not so much in the
> auxillary role but in the protagonist role.  I will add that for me,
> what was transformative was more about the energy and in being able to
> see very basic bits of my perpetrator mirrored back to me in a way that
> I could feel some compassion for him.  My experience is that psychodrama
> is a more powerful modality for this because the words that the
> auxillaries tap into sometimes don't resonate at all or only slightly
> resonate.
>
> But the wierd thing is that family constellation does seem to tap into
> some sort of wierd energy thing.  Andy and I talked about it.. to really
> start to grasp the energy thing that happens you have to really start
> looking into the new physics and trust that that energy happens.  As a
> scientist, this feels a bit "woo woo" but I also know that there has
> been an energetic shift somehow, not  just in me but in my relationships
> with my family and that shift is not just a cognitive behavioral
> response.  Nor is it because I believe that my brother hurt me in the
> way that he did to save the family system.  This may well be true, but
> this is not a concept that I can cognitively "swallow."  I also suspect
> that if we attended more to group dynamics, the healing potential would
> be much greater because there is something very powerful that happens in
> the sharing process as well as in attention to the process of tele and
> thinking about who gets chosen for what roles and why (something tha
> t Donna did attend to).
>
> Hope this helps in your exploration.
>
> Regina Sewell
>
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>
>
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