Читать книгу Family Constellations - Jakob R Schneider - Страница 12

The constellation described above is an example of what we would call a “classical” family constellation. In the development of constellation work, new aspects have emerged that essentially refine a constellation more to an event horizon, the furthest point from which effects can be felt in relationship to the fundamental presenting issue or the client’s life situation. The constellation is then left more to the free movements of the representatives, even in terms of finding new orders and resolutions. Sometimes very little information, perhaps just a single fact, is gathered before, during, or after a constellation. Some constellations proceed silently, in confidence that the physical images of whatever happens with the representatives will be clear enough to the client. Any interpretations or interventions by the therapist are radically reduced.

To illustrate this kind of work, I will describe a constellation that, although very brief and simple, is one of the most moving constellations I have ever led.

A man, a psychotherapist himself, had been experiencing a powerful death wish ever since his 21-year-old sister’s suicide and the subsequent sudden illness and death of his father. The man was asked to set up representatives for his mother, his father, his sister, and himself. No other information was requested.

The man placed his father and sister close to one another, his representative at a distance, looking at the other two, and his mother close behind him. After a short while, his sister looked at her father with unbelievable warmth and love. She pressed up close to him, kissed him, and then lay down in front of him with her eyes closed. The father looked at daughter lying before him and began to weep, quietly, but so deeply that there was scarcely a person in the entire group without tears in their eyes.

The man stood there crying for about five minutes, and then lay down next to his daughter on the floor. The two embraced warmly. The client’s representative moved over to the two and lay on the floor on the other side of his sister. Although she barely noticed him, he lay there completely relaxed. After a while, I then asked him to stand up and go over next to his mother. He stood in that place, and then nodded his head. After another brief period of complete silence, I ended the constellation.

What happened here? Why was everyone so deeply touched? There were no questions from the client or the group. The client seemed very relaxed. He too had wept, while watching attentively from outside the constellation. The expression of sorrow, so closed and burdened, that had been on his face before the constellation had wholly disappeared by the end. He seemed to understand completely, even though he did not know what had really happened in his family, or what had so drawn his father and his sister together in death. According to feedback at a later date, his death wish had dissolved and he experienced a new surge of vitality.