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Bert Hellinger interviewed on Family Constellations, his
phenomenological method in doing systemic psychotherapy.
By Humberto del Pozo in Santiago de Chile, September 1999.
What is the family psychy?
We observe when we work with the family
that they are driven by a common principle or force, and I call that a family
consciousness. We can observe that a circumscribed number of people are subject
to uncounscious drives to behave in a certain way. For instance, if in a family
one member has been excluded or forgoten, for example a child that dyed early,
and is no longer counted among the siblings, then latter on in that family, in
the next generation only, another member takes up the same fate of that child.
This person then wants to dye, with
nobody knowing why.
And we do a family constellation. That means that in a group, a person recollects himself and selects representatives for the members of his family –including one for himself- and places them in a space in relationship to one another, following only his own intuition. And as soon as those people have taken up their places they feel like the people they represent without knowing them. So by means of the Family Constellation, we get a real picture of what is going on in the family.
Let’s say in
this example, the person selects a person for his father, mother, his/her
siblings and one for himself. Then he sets them up in a space, and they are all
looking in one direction. That is very strange, so when we see that we know
inmediatly somebody has been forgoten or excluded. Then they suddenly remember,
“Oh Yes! ... there was a sister who was
handicapped and dyed after three months...”
Then I select a representative for the dead sister and I place her in
front of the others. And they all feel relieved for she can now be included,
and another child who has becomed ill, for instance, of diabetes, has now a
greater chance that he can deal with that illness in a positive way.
I have seen
you requiere very little information from the client before asking him to set
up his Family Constelation. Is that enough, how come?
Yes, for this perception is helped most
by asking only for the most essential information, and for that to be done just
prior to the constellation, not earlier.
The essential questions are:
1. Who belongs to the family?
2. Are there any stillborn members
of the family, or any who have died early? Has there been any special fate in
the family, for example someone with a disability?
3. Was one of the parents or
grandparents engaged, or married before, or in a significant prior
relationship?
Any
further questioning usually hinders openness to the phenomenal information
which emerges. This is true both for the therapist as well as the
representatives. This is also the reason why the therapist declines any prior
conversations with the client or extensive questionnaires. In addition, it is
best if the client remains silent during the constellation, and that the
representatives refrain from asking the client any questions.
How is it that somebody is selected to
represent an excluded person?
The force that operates which selects
somebody else to represent the person excluded, that is the family consciousness
and it is unconscious. You see it by it’s effects. This family consciousness
follows certain laws. One of them is that every member of a family has an equal
right to belong. Now if one member is excluded or forgotten he doesn’t belong
any more. So the family consciousness has a tendency to completeness of the
family. This is one of the laws. And we can actually see by it’s effects which
member of the family is subject to them and who aren’t. Only certain family members are affected and may be entangled in the
fates of other family members.
Is it the family who choose that person
or the person who chooses to be a representative of the past?
Neither nor. It is the family soul or the family conscience which picks that
person. And there is no one guilty actually
picking somebody. It's a force that requires that somebody does it and the
weakest one - as a rule- takes it upon himself.
If it is a child, it’s often the
youngest one that takes it upon himself.
The one that can resist the forces least. But I don't want to make that a generalization. I have observed
it often, but often it is the first born, too, quite often it is, but it is
always one in a weaker position, who does that.
A circumscribed number of persons
belong to the family consciousness:
1. the children, including stillborn
children and those who have died early,
2. the parents and their siblings,
3. the grandparents,
4. sometimes one of the
great-grandparents and, at times,
ancestors even further back.
And, very strangly, people who are not relatives belong to the family consciousness too:
5. everybody - and this is most
important - who made room to the advantage of the above members, belongs to the
family consciousness. This includes, in particular, former partners of parents
or grandparents, as well as all those whose misfortune or death brought the
family an advantage or gain.
6. victims of violence and murder by
any members of the family.
Can you share with us some of your experiences with
former partners?
Yes, from experiences I had recently
with persons who have suffered a loss in favor of somebody within the family.
For instance, a former wife of the father, from which he has separated. The new
wife has an advantage because the other one suffered a loss, so the latter
belongs to the family. And she will be represented always. This is one of the
laws to which I have seen no exception, she will be represented by a child of
the second wife. One of the daughters, for instance, of the second wife will
suddenly feel like the first wife. She becomes angry with her father and nobody
knows why. That is again a result of the family consciousness. This is the
family consciousness.
How do you work in a Family Constellations with such
issues?
The family constellations shows the state of the
family, where the problem is. In the case I have just mentioned as an example,
I would bring into the family system a representative for the first
wife. And then, the man, her former husband, will look at her and will tell
her: “I am sorry I hurt you. I honor you as my first wife”. And the second wife
will tell her: “You are the first, I am the second one. And please be kind if I
keep my husband and please be kind to my children”. And then the daughter who represented the former wife no longer
needs to do so and she can tell the woman who she represents ... that is the
former wife in the Constellation: “I am my father and mother’s daughter”. And
she can tell her father: “You are my Dad, I am only your daughter. I have
nothing to do with your former wife”. In such cases the daughter also becomes
the rival of her mother because her father sees her as his former wife. She can
now tell her mother. “You are my mother, I am your daughter, please be kind.”
I
have observed that in situations like this children develop neurodermities,
which is a skin desease ... an itching all the time. It is very strange. I
discovered it by chance. If there is a reconciliation between the two wifes,
the neurodermities heals or is alleviated. It shows that actually many illness
are due to the family consciousness. So if you do this work you can help many
people so they can live in a better way.
Are your therapeutic methods also applicable with
people who are severely ill?
Yes, specially in cases where the problem or illness
is caused by systemic implications, or when it is at least a contributing
cause.
What are the symptoms that best respond to a
systemic psychotherapy?
We can see that certain very threatening illnesses, for example cancer, also have systemic causes. The systemic context shows in the dynamics of: "I will follow you"; that means, a persons wants to follow another member of the family who is six or dead, by falling ill or seaking death himself too. Or a child who sees someone in his family having the tendency to follow another person in this way, and tries to withhold him saying: "It´s better that I go instead of you." To all this, adds up the desire to atone and compensate a fate, seeking in turn a similar fate. Knowing these fundamental dynamics, it is possible to devoid them of their power and alleviate much sufferring and pain.
Other syntoms are related to the interrupted movement towards one
of the parents. Thus, for example, heart pains or headackes are frecuently expressing
a retained love, and back akes develop many times when a person refuses to bow
profoundly in respect for his father or mother.
You
have said there are dynamics conductive to recurrent patterns of
accidents or misfortune. Will you please tell us about the dynamics in such cases?
Serious illnesses, suicides or suicide attempts, or
accidents are some of the things we often see in psychotherapy that are
motivated by love -the love of a small child. Small children love
according to a magical belief system. For the small child, love means:
"Wherever you lead, I will follow. Whatever you do, I’ll do," or
"I love you so much that I want to be with you always." That is:
"I’ll follow you in your illness" and "I’Il follow you in your
death." Whenever someone loves in this way, he or she naturally is
vulnerable to becoming seriously ill.
But how must the person feel who's loved in this way? How
must he or she feel upon seeing that his or her illness or death is causing a
child to become ill? How must they feel? Bad, right?
Exactly!
In the constellations, we invariably observe that the deceased, the
ill, and those who have suffered a difficult fate wish the survivors
well. One death or misfortune is sufficient. The dead are well
disposed toward the living. It's not only the child who loves, but also those
who’ve suffered or died. In order for the systemic healing to succeed,
the child must recognize her deceased relative’s love and honor his fate.
I'm not clear what you mean when you say,
"recognize his love and honor his fate."
When a child dies, the other members of the family
tend to become afraid -in part because they also, perhaps unconsciously, feel
the kind of love that makes them want to follow the child. In order to
contain their fear, they deaden their feelings. They effectively shut the
child out of their hearts and souls. They may talk about the child, but
they've cut off their feelings. Then, even though the child is dead, he
or she is still having a deadening effect on the family system, a deadening of
feeling. For love to succeed, the child must have a place in the family,
just as if he or she were living. The surviving members of the family
must live their feelings for the child and their grief. They might put up
a picture of the child, or plant a tree in the child's memory. But the
most important thing is that the survivors take the deceased with them into
life, and allow their love for the child to live.
A lot of people act as if the dead were gone. But where can they
go? Obviously, they're physically absent, but they’re also present in
their continuing effects on the living. When they have their appropiate place
in the family, deceased persons have a friendly effect. Otherwise, they cause
anxiety. When they get their propoer place, they support the living in living
instead of supporting them in the illusion that they should die.
What about Aids?
To be infected with the virus or contract AIDS is not a family dynamics, not directly. Of course people who contract AIDS are mostly homosexuals, and homosexuality is a family dynamics. If I go back to the previous example, if there was a child who dyed early and the child was a girl, and later on in the family there are only boys, then one of the boys has to represent a girl. Now, this leads to homosexuality; if a man has to represent a woman in a family. But when there is AIDS, the main issue is that they face their destiny and fate. By what I have seen they usually have no illusions, it is easy to work with them.
With regards to the dynamicas of homosexuality, first, I want to say a couple of general things about the systemic view.
Everyone is an integral part of the relationship systems in which
he or she lives, and everyone has an equal value in the functioning of those
systems -everyone in the family system is essential to the system.
Differences in a social system add to its durability and stability. The conscience that seeks to exclude individuals from the group because they are different operates on a different level than does the systemic conscience that seeks to balance the system as a whole by guarding the right of every member to belong to the system. It has very serious consequences for the younger members of a family system when someone is excluded from the system because he or she is different. I've seen many cases in which younger persons suffered terribly because they had to identify with an older relative who was excluded from the family because of his being homosexual.
This fundamental commitment to the intrinsic
dignity and value of all persons makes ¡t possible to view differences openly.
Having said that, there's an inescapable fact that homosexual couples
face: Their love can’t lead to their having children together. Procreation's insistence on heterosexuality
has consequences that can't be ignored as if they didn't exist. In any partnership without children, the
partners can separate with less guilt -they only hurt one another. But when parents separate, that has enormous
consequences for their children, and they must be very careful or their
children will be harmed by what they do.
This added guilt makes it more difflcult for parents to separate, but,
paradoxically, it also supports their partnership. Couples without children -including homosexual couples- don’t
have the support of these consequences to hold them together during crises.
Homosexual couples, like other childless couples interested in
long-term, loving partnerships, especially need to make clear and conscious
decisions about the purpose and goals of their partnership. Some goals are more conducive to long-term
stability in relationships than are others.
Wanting to avoid loneliness or the feeling of emptiness, for example,
isn't a goal that supports a long-term partnershlp of equals.
Everyone has his or her own path in life -part of it we choose, but part of it just comes with life and isn't really chosen. That's the part that's hard to deal with. The homosexuals with whom I've worked -even those who maintain that they chose their sexual orientation freely- have been caught in systemic dynamics, experiencing in their lives the consequences of what others in their system did or suffered. They've been inducted into the service of the system, and as children, they couldn't defend themselves from the systemic pressures to which they were subjected. So that's the second thing they have to deal with, that they're carrying something for the family.
I’ve rarely worked with someone who wanted to "get over"
being homosexual. When I work with
homosexual persons, homosexuality isn't the primary issue. I merely try to
bring to light any entanglements that might be limiting the fullness of life,
but I have no intention of trying to change someone's sexual orientation.
What are the patterns you have observed in
relationship to homosexuality?
I’ve observed three patterns of systemic
entanglements in conjunction with homosexuality, but I don't know whether
they're actually its cause:
A child was pressured to represent a person of the opposite sex in the
system, because a child of the same gender wasn't available. For example, a boy had to represent one of
his deceased older sisters, because none of the other surviving children was
female. Or another boy had to represent
his father's first fiancée, who had been treated unjustly. This is the most painful and difflcult of
the three patterns I've seen.
A child was pressured to represent someone who had been excluded from
the family system -or who had been vilified by the system -even though that person was of the same
gender. Homosexuals living in this
pattern have the position of being "outsiders." For example, a boy
was systemically identified with his mother's first fiancé, who contracted syphilis
and withdrew from the engagement.
Although the fiancé had acted honorably, he was scorned and despised by
the boy’s mother. The boy’s feelings of
being scorned were very similar to what the man must have felt -as if they were
his own feelings.
A child remained caught in the sphere of influence of the gender-opposite parent, and was not able to complete the psychological movement of taking the same-gender parent.
What is the dynamics you have seen in
working with addicts?
When there is addiction, for example
alcoholism, we have very strange family constelltions. In such a family the
wife despises her husband. And she does not want that the children honor the
husband or go with him and with his family, she says: “I am good, he is not
good”. And then the children take revenge on the mother, they prove to her that
they are not good and that she is wrong. So they take revenge. As a result it
has becomed clear that during addiction, it actually can only be taken care off
by men, not by women. So the therapists for drugaddicts should be men. But
women who honor men, they can help, only if they are not trying to help “the
poor addict” or so, for then they treat them like they were children, and the
drug addict has to become a man. And he becomes a man when he honors his
father. There is a very simple image to go in this direction: for isntance, I
set up his father –in a Constellation- and behind him I place the grandfather,
and behind him the great grandfather. And then the addict leans against his
father and that is a masculine strenght for him and it helps.
But
on the other hand, many addicts are suicidal, and this is another dynamics, one
you find in families directed by the family consciousness into some basic
dynamics:
A
child wants to follow a dead person, for instance the mother or the father...
he develops illness, is prome to accidents or to suicidal tendencies.
A
child sees that his father wants to follow his own father, and he says: “I will
do it in you place Dad”, and he becomes anorectic... “I rather disappear”... he
wants to prevent his father from dying.
This is magical thinking and completly unconscious. Only in the family constellation it comes to light, then it can be exposed and you can find a solution within the family.
How many times you have to repeat a
Constellation?
No repetitions. It is done once. The
Constellation shows it and then a healing movement can start operating. But it
is not so easy because if, for instance, a child wants to dye instead of his
father, he feels inocent and greater, but if he follows the solution ... he
feels small and feels guilty in a very special way ... so it needs a special
development within the soul for a child to take these steps. So it is not that
you can do a healing or a solution in the way you repair a watch. We have to
support the soul and find in the family resources for the client.
As I said before, the family members
behave as if they all share a common soul, or a common conscience, and as if
they are all subject to a common higher authority. It even appears that this
authority follows certain laws and demands.
The first phenomenon we see here is, that the members of a family are bound together by this greater soul, or common family soul. This is true even to the extent that a child, whose mother or father dies early, feels a longing to follow them into death. Even parents or grandparents occasionally want to follow their child or grandchild into death, and we can observe this dynamic between partners as well. If one dies, often the other one loses the desire to live.
The second
phenomenon we notice, is that there is an urge to balance gains and losses
across generations. That means that someone who has profited at someone else’s
expense will pay for it with an equivalent loss to compensate. If those who
benefited were also the perpetrators, their descendants are often the ones who
end up paying. The family soul uses them in place of their ancestors,
frequently without anybody being aware of it.
And if somebody was guilty in a former generation, but he did not face
his guilt, then somebody from a later generation will take up the atonement for
that guilt. So for instance he will
kill himself. We'll see that with the
Nazi murderers for instance. And many
descendants two or three generations later have a tendency to be suicidal and
then they want to redress that.
In other words, the family soul favours those who came later over those who came earlier. This represents a third movement, or natural order of the family soul. Someone who is born later is prepared to die for someone who came earlier in the system, sacrificing his own life in an attempt to prevent the death of another family member. Or, the later family member may be atoning for the unresolved guilt of someone who came earlier. A daughter may represent her father’s former wife, and behave towards him more like a partner than like his child. In such a case, she becomes her mother’s rival. If the father’s former partner had been wronged, the daughter may take over the feelings of that woman towards the two parents.
The fourth
order of the family soul attends to the integrity of the family and demands
that every family member have the right to belong. Later family members
represent earlier members who have been excluded or forgotten, thereby
honouring their right to belong, and restoring them to the family by making a
place for them. Whenever one member is excluded or forgotten, then this kind of
conscience or soul picks somebody from a later generation to regress the former
person. And this person then acts out
the life of the former one.
This is only a brief summary of some of the movements of the family soul and its underlying orders. My book “Love’s Hidden Symmetry” and “Acknowledging What Is” deals with the topic more extensively.
What kind of
solutions can be found for a client? What constitutes the phenomenological
approach here?
The phenomenological field of vision
ranges from a narrow point of view to a spacious awareness, it extends from
what is close at hand to distant vistas. This means, instead of looking only at
the client, the therapist also looks at the entire family; and instead of
looking only at the client and his family, he looks beyond them, to a larger
field of phenomena and to the larger soul containing all of it. An individual
and his family are bound together by a larger field and affected by the forces
of a greater common soul, which appears to guide and direct them. Furthermore,
it seems clear that a problem may only be understood fully, and solutions may
only emerge, in the context of a larger view.
If
I hope to assist the client’s soul, I must look at his soul as being guided by
the family soul. But if I only look at the client and his family, I may
recognise what may have lead to entanglements, but the solution may not present
itself, until a connection has been made to those forces and dimensions of soul
which lie beyond the individual and his family. These dimensions are beyond our
influence. We can merely remain open and receptive to them. When we focus on
the essential during a constellation, this greater soul may provide insights
into a potentially healing image, a healing sentence, and a possible next step.
The therapist merely makes himself open
to be touched by this larger soul, by refraining from any direction on his
part, and remaining deeply humble towards all that he fears, even fear itself.
Then suddenly, a picture, a word, or a sentence may emerge, guiding him to the
next step. But it will always be a step into the dark and the unknown. Only in
the end will it be clear whether this was the right step, or if it actually
helped. By taking a phenomenological stance we come into contact with these
dimensions of soul, and this is more easily accomplished by non-doing than by
doing.
The
therapist’s own focused presence assists the client in adopting a
phenomenological attitude himself, and to receiving the insights and strength
it offers. Often the client cannot bear what is being revealed and closes down
against it. The therapist consents even to that. The therapist does not allow
himself to become entangled in the destiny of the client and his family. This
may seem cold-hearted. But our experience has shown, that insight gained in any
other way, remains incomplete and tentative, for the client as well as for the
therapist.
Can you give
us examples regarding those whose misfortune or death brought the family an
advantage or gain?
In
constellations with the descendants of those who had acquired great wealth,
what was remarkable were the particularly difficult fates of the grandchildren
and great-grandchildren, which could not be explained by events in the family
alone. After representatives had been added for the people who had suffered
through the acquisition of this wealth, it became apparent that their sacrifice
continued to have an effect in the family over several generations.
The
same is the case were for instance there are laborers who died during the
construction of the railroad or in oil production, whose contribution to the
prosperity of their employers was not acknowledged and honoured.
What if someone is murdered in a
family?
I will give you an example. It was in a supervision group. A therapist set up a client. The father had killed his wife, the daughtres were left and are now in the care of the wife’s sister. And the two children are very upset. I set up the man, and the woman, the sister and the two children. The woman was inmediatly frightened. She turned to her sister for protection. The man turned away. He wanted to leave. He had actually killed himself after he had kiled his wife. So I had to make them face the real issue. So I brought the wife and let her lie on the floor in oder to show she is not alive, she is now dead, so she can’t just go to her sister for protection anymore. So I reestablished the reality in this point. Then I brought the man back, let him look at his wife. And he lloked at her and he could not move. Then I made him breathe deeply and suddenly it broke out of him. A very, very deep pain. Atremendous pain. And then he fell down on his knees and lloked at his wife and he just cried. Then, only then he coould really llok at his wife. And then I let him lie at the side of his wife, because that was the reality. Hewas also dead. And then the two, they moved together with very, very deep love. That’s the strange thing, that after that they are just united in deep love. And from this I conclude, and I has similar expereinces in other constellations, even more traumatic, that at the end if both recognize themselves as dead, then the dead ... they move together. A strange movement that those dead just move together, mingle with one another, come to peace with very, very deep love.
Now
this movement is for me only possible, if the perpetrators and the victims,
whoever, are at the service of a false raging beyond them, far beyond
them. And only if all of them look at
this greater force, then the antagonism between those can cease and they become
very humble in the soul of this greater force and what unites all of these I
call then a greatet soul and I don't have a better name for that, but it goes
beyond the fields, because a field is fixed. The soul is something that steers,
it directs a course of history and of personal life. And in this soul we participate.
And instead of looking at the individual as having a soul, he
participates in a soul.
This
soul has several levels. And in the foreground there is a level of very harsh laws.
And beneath it there is something quite different. For instance I can set up a
family, two people, and I don’t do anything and suddenly, they are driven by a
force and they face the real issue, and this force directs them towards a
solution, which goes beyond the laws which operate in the foreground. If we can reach that soul, we reach the
healing force.
But
perhaps just one more thing about the constellation with the man who killed her
wife and then commited suicide. The two daughters were very upset. And the one was full of hatred. It was quite clear, she becomes a murderer
with this hatred. This one went to her
father, wanted to go to her father. And
the other one was very upset in a different way. She wanted to become a victim.
And I let them lie beside their parents. Then they were united with them, then
they could stand up; no longer with hatred, no longer with despair, and they
could turn away from the dead, leave them alone and look at life. That would also be a solution in there.
We
have seen that what causes disturbances is that the living take upon themselves
something that only the dead among themselves can achieve. So the healing
movement would be that the living look at the dead, let them do this movement,
look at them once more, then turn away and look to the future. That would be
the healing movement that goes on another level. So the interference in the
realm of the dead causes for the living a disturbance.
In
many constellations involving the descendants of murderers, for example the
perpetrators during the Nazi Regime, it was clear that the grandchildren and
great-grandchildren wanted to lie next to the victims, which implies a danger
of strong suicidal tendencies. The solution was similar for both groups. The
victims must be looked at and acknowledged by all members of the family, who
need to bow to them and grieve for them. Afterwards, those who originally
benefited, as well as the perpetrators, need to lie with the victims, and the
other family members need to let them go to that realm. Only then will the
descendants be relieved. And then those living could perhaps look at one
another in a different way.
A recent observation I made in family
constellations, that may have a bearing on harsh historical events, is that
when we allow the dead victims and the dead murderers to face each other - and
in family constellations we can set up a setting where that is possible -then
it doesn't need any intervention from outside.
There will be a movement where they come together and all that was
considered by the living as unjust or which requires atonement does not apply
to the dead. They meet on a level where
they are really one.
We
saw this dynamics in constellations set up in our recent seminars in Spain,
Brasil, the one we just finished in Chile, and in Argentina in relationship to
the so called “mothers of Plaza de Mayo”. In Santiago you saw the constellation
set up for the daughter of a labor union leader who “disappeared”. I asked her
to choose a representative for his father and five men to represent all other
victims, a representative for the chief of the perpetrators and five men to
represent all the perpetrators. Then withouth us saying a word, we saw how much
pain there is among the dead victims, and the movement –which lasted for 20
minutes or so- whereby they reached towards their perpetrators, faced them and
latter came to lie together mingled with the perpetrators, all dead in peace.
The last movement was notable for the chief of the perpetrators, once lying on
the floor, moved and placed himself with his feet touching those of the leader
of the victims, and there he remained still in peace.
In severe collective entanglements
involving heavy guilt and suffering the Constellation’s work may become a
deeply moving and a powerfully changing way of reconciliation.
In what other areas can your systemic
method be applied?
There is a
tendency at present that we extend the field away from psychotherapy and
include many other areas, because it seems in them what I call orders of love
-which lead to entanglements- can be applied in ways which lead to solutions.
As an example I mention the work in prisons. We were in London last year and we
worked in three prisons; it was very astonishing how the work was positively
received by the prisoners. In Germany there is now research being done on how
to apply this work in prisons. My suggestion was that we work first with murderers
and their victims, because that seems to be the extreme case and it shows the
laws best. I think if we can gather
from them ways of solving these difficult issues then it can be extended more
easily to other fields. Another field is schools for instance. Teachers can do
that, apply that without being psychotherapists. Or in social work it can be
easily applied. And to find solutions for relationship difficulties in
organizations too, as we did in the workshop here in Santiago on September 3. So we try to get away from the restrictions
of psychotherapy and apply in a wider fíeld. And I think that's quite in
harmony with what you actually want to achieve.
I have seen that a 3rd International Conference on Family Constellations will be held in Germany in May 2001. What is the main
focus going to be?
It’s main focus will be perspectives for
solutions in ethnic conflicts. Conflicts
in families and communities caused by differences in religion, culture and
shared history; their consequences in the unconscious of the individiual, of
the famiiy and of the nation; the transgenerational transmission of these
consequences; attempts for solutions which may promote the bridging between
psychotherapy and political decisions: These subjects will be thoroughly investigated
in lectures and in workshops.
From different nations
“psycho-political” projects will be presented which have proved to be
successfull.
Humberto del Pozo: Thankyou dear professor for the
opportunity of such a moving and enriching conversation.
Bert Hellinger: Those where good questions... I was
forced to tell a lot of secrets. My pleasure.