Читать книгу Family Constellations - Jakob R Schneider - Страница 8

The idea of using strangers to represent personal process and relationships is not a new one. Very early on in psychodrama, JL Moreno used role-playing methods taken from improvisational theatre and made inner conflicts and relationship issues visible through dramatisation. Role-playing has also been a favoured method for sorting out social processes, using not only words, but also positioning and gestures. Virginia Satir had a finely tuned sensitivity to the network of family interactions and their effects on individual family members and in her family reconstructions, she created impressively staged scenes of entire multi-generational, extended families. Through the various dialogues that ensued, she would then track the family stories, almost like a detective, searching with her clients for clarification and understanding. “Sculpture” also allowed a glimpse into inner conflicts, as parts of an individual personality were portrayed and then rearranged to bring about useful movements.

Bert Hellinger intuitively grasped the importance of order in families in these psychotherapeutic methods and recognised that insight and direct experience were the essential goals of therapeutic intervention. He incorporated the use of representatives and intensified the process in his own style. He soon recognised that constellations offered a potential for portraying inner processes and the bonds of family relationships. He saw that they could initiate a helpful process in the client when representatives were directed or allowed to move spontaneously. With few questions it was possible to reintegrate excluded family members and promt short dialogues of resolution.