Could we research and discuss it?
Firstly, it's posted on this board because such is my current understanding and my working hypothesis. If it comes proved wrong, the topic can be moved where it belongs.
Hellinger's therapy has been recommended quite a few times on this forum. It's mentioned in passing by Dr. Sircus in his article quoted in the MMS thread, in the mechanisms of possession thread, karma from progenitors thread and a few other places (use the search engine), mostly in a positive context. There are some forum members who have a direct experience with it and they found it powerful and helpful; my current guess is, "by accident", so to say.
For basic info please check out Wikipedia entries: Bert Hellinger and his Family Constellations.
From what I could gather, BH's approach has nothing to do with any science, so recommending it on the forum, where we have such a great section on cognitive psychology and so forth, seems a bit off, but maybe it actually is worth recommendation with no word of warning necessary. Hellinger himself seems to be a bit of a suspicious character with no psychological education. His group/systemic constellations therapeutic method is known as controversial, but most of the criticism goes on in Germany and little is known to non-German speaking people. How valid is that criticism? Is it just mainstream body of science against it, because it is all but conventional approach? Or is it (or could be) actually dangerous? (There are reports of suicide and serious psychotic cases allegedly in consequence of the therapy.) Is it a New Agey fluff? quackery? and not much more than an excellent business (which it definitely is)? Can and/or should that therapy itself be considered separately from its creator and the trainer of 'constellators'?
Looking forward to finding at least some answers.
From Wiki on controversy re: BH:
While English Wiki entry on Systemic Constellations says that "the Systemic Constellation process is sanctioned by family therapy associations in Europe", this doesn't apply to Family Constellations, at least not everywhere. For example, the German Association of Systemic and Family Therapy (DGSF) issued an open letter (published in journal "Systeme" (JG. 16, vol. 1-02)) where they distanced themselves from the FC stuff, criticized H's method and stated that it, as it is now, has nothing to do with systemic therapies and should not be perceived as such. (Official DGSF position on Constellations here, in German)
Here (Google books) you can read more on his approach to incest from his book "Love's Hidden Symmetry: What Makes Love Work in Relationships".
According to Wiki again, Hellinger was trained by, and took inspiration from, Arthur Janov, whose so called Primal Therapy was criticized too, including by Alice Miller who said that "there was 'too much faith' in cathartic discharge"-- and we know also from Peter Levine that it can be dangerous and re-traumatizing experience in some cases, and not efficient in others.
One of very few critical materials on BH and his therapy I could find in English is here. A big part of it below (my comments in italics):
Some other links:
_http://www.selectsmart.com/hellinger.html
_http://skepdic.com/hellinger.html
_http://sciamanesimo.forumattivo.com/t149-principali-critiche-al-metodo-delle-costellazioni-familiari#492 (it.)
Some people say, Constellations are so powerful because you get connected with your emotional imprints, some unconscious patterns that keep you stuck in life. The question is, does it work because it's Family Constellations or despite it, because you do what is within you and not necessarily what Hellinger and his school claim and do? And if so, perhaps real systemic constellation (or other) therapies would be a safer and better option?
Firstly, it's posted on this board because such is my current understanding and my working hypothesis. If it comes proved wrong, the topic can be moved where it belongs.
Hellinger's therapy has been recommended quite a few times on this forum. It's mentioned in passing by Dr. Sircus in his article quoted in the MMS thread, in the mechanisms of possession thread, karma from progenitors thread and a few other places (use the search engine), mostly in a positive context. There are some forum members who have a direct experience with it and they found it powerful and helpful; my current guess is, "by accident", so to say.
For basic info please check out Wikipedia entries: Bert Hellinger and his Family Constellations.
From what I could gather, BH's approach has nothing to do with any science, so recommending it on the forum, where we have such a great section on cognitive psychology and so forth, seems a bit off, but maybe it actually is worth recommendation with no word of warning necessary. Hellinger himself seems to be a bit of a suspicious character with no psychological education. His group/systemic constellations therapeutic method is known as controversial, but most of the criticism goes on in Germany and little is known to non-German speaking people. How valid is that criticism? Is it just mainstream body of science against it, because it is all but conventional approach? Or is it (or could be) actually dangerous? (There are reports of suicide and serious psychotic cases allegedly in consequence of the therapy.) Is it a New Agey fluff? quackery? and not much more than an excellent business (which it definitely is)? Can and/or should that therapy itself be considered separately from its creator and the trainer of 'constellators'?
Looking forward to finding at least some answers.
From Wiki on controversy re: BH:
Controversy
Adolf Hitler
Hellinger created controversy in writing a poem dedicated to Adolf Hitler which asks the reader to identify something of themselves in Hitler and to respect that part of themselves. Several articles related to this appeared in the Dutch antifascist magazine "Alert!".[10] [full poem translated into English here]
Incest
Hellinger's position on Incest that the perpetrator should not be punished is regarded as questionable in the therapeutic community and is summarized by this quote taken from one of his recent books:
Now about incest. If you are confronted with cases of incest, a very common dynamic is that the wife withdraws from her husband, she refuses a sexual relationship. Then, as a kind of compensation, a daughter takes her place. This is an unconscious movement, not a conscious one. But you see, with incest there are two perpetrators, one in the background and one in the open. You cannot resolve that unless this hidden perpetrator is brought in. There are very strange sentences that come to light. The daughter can tell her mother, "I do it for you." And she can tell her father, "I do it for mother." What is the effect of these sentences? Incest cannot go on anymore. If you want to stop it, this is the best way without any accusations.
If you bring a perpetrator to justice, then the victim will atone for what is done to the perpetrator."
Hellinger goes on to tell a story of an incest/abuse victim who became suicidal, because the perpetrator was prosecuted.[11]
Other controversial positions taken by Hellinger
* A breast cancer victim may secretly want to die due to a woman's unconscious "war with her mother."
* Homosexuality may result because a boy unconsciously assumes the feelings of a deceased aunt or great aunt when there are no female descendants in the lineal family system.
* Rape and incest create a bond; the perpetrator must receive "due respect" before the victim can bond with another.[12][13][14][15]
While English Wiki entry on Systemic Constellations says that "the Systemic Constellation process is sanctioned by family therapy associations in Europe", this doesn't apply to Family Constellations, at least not everywhere. For example, the German Association of Systemic and Family Therapy (DGSF) issued an open letter (published in journal "Systeme" (JG. 16, vol. 1-02)) where they distanced themselves from the FC stuff, criticized H's method and stated that it, as it is now, has nothing to do with systemic therapies and should not be perceived as such. (Official DGSF position on Constellations here, in German)
Here (Google books) you can read more on his approach to incest from his book "Love's Hidden Symmetry: What Makes Love Work in Relationships".
According to Wiki again, Hellinger was trained by, and took inspiration from, Arthur Janov, whose so called Primal Therapy was criticized too, including by Alice Miller who said that "there was 'too much faith' in cathartic discharge"-- and we know also from Peter Levine that it can be dangerous and re-traumatizing experience in some cases, and not efficient in others.
One of very few critical materials on BH and his therapy I could find in English is here. A big part of it below (my comments in italics):
Bert Hellinger's so-called systemic constellations, which he commends as a therapy for problems within families and organizations, are now being offered in more than 25 countries all over the world; they are especially popular within esoteric and new age circles. Over half a million of his books and videos based on this sort of therapy, which is supposed to constitute a revolution in the field of psycho-therapeutics, have as yet been sold in these countries. Since a couple of years, Hellinger's own reactionary ideas have been under severe attack in his native country Germany, whereas hardly any criticism exists in other countries. German critics point out that Hellinger is not only attempting to set the clock back for decades or even centuries on achievements in contemporary society, but habitually also adopts a most humiliating attitude towards those who come to him for help. Worse still, he displays sympathy and compassion towards dictatorships such as Adolf Hitler's regime and his national-socialist movement. ...
It has been said that he copied material from the late U.S. family-therapist Virginia Satyr, who displayed a more serious approach in her work. In the early 1970's, Hellinger left the order and resettled in Austria and Germany, where he set up a practice as a psychotherapist without the appropriate qualifications. In many European countries, psychotherapy is not officially recognized, causing a situation that furthers uncontrolled growth of indistinct legal status of the profession. H's followers-cum-practitioners present themselves as qualified, but might actually be would-be as they might have read only one of his books or seen only one of his videotapes and besides, Hellinger's readings do not match with regular concepts of psychotherapy at all. ...
Patriarchism all over
Over the last 4 years, Hellinger's controversial ideas have confronted him with lots of criticsm in German-speaking countries, and this is gradually spreading to the Netherlands. Critics report that the Hellinger-like practitioners -in contrast to regular psychotherapists- generally lack solid training and consequently their therapies show a very amateuristic set-up. Intake interviews merely consist of a few sentences, and there is hardly any aftercare. Besides this, Hellinger displays in his therapies an authoritative approach and reverts to extremely old-fashioned moral standards, leaving hardly any freedom to his clients. One of the keystones in H.'s doctrine consists of the hierarchical structure within a family: a father is considered the irrefutable head, and his wife and children are at all times answerable to him and must under all circumstances obediently submit to his will, while the first-born child takes precendence over the younger ones. This hierarchy also applies to inhabitants of a country towards the head of state, and the summit of Hellinger's hierarchical ranks is fate: human beings should be aware that fate actually controls their lives and they have to submit to it.
From Hellinger's highly patriarchal viewpoint, family constellations dealing with matrimonial problems usually tend to conclude that the spouse has been disobedient to her husband, and that she was actually the one who had caused the problem. Obviously, feministic circles, after having achieved a liberal, self-determinative standard for women over the past decades, are far from happy with Hellinger's doctrine. Regarding homosexuality, Hellinger points out that within a family, a homosexual is generally regarded as an outcast and suffers from a very heavy fate. Proudly, Hellinger claimed that he had cured at least one person from this 'disease', who - after having participated in a family constellation - married a few months later and is now the happy father of a child.
A highly unprofessional scene
H.'s therapies occasionally prove to have critical consequences. In 1997, a woman committed suicide after taking part in a family constellation in Leipzig. She was suffering from serious depressions and relational problems and hoped to find a solution through Hellinger's therapy. Hellinger's evasive comment on the matter ran as follows: "It didn't occur to me that she might have been suicidal. I only saw her for three minutes." A psychiatric clinic in Bad Schussenried, a town in southern Germany, had to treat various patients who turned psychotic after participating in Hellinger's family constellations. This clinic confirmed that H.'s practitioners used highly unprofessional methods and were obviously incapable of solving the problems they are faced with. One of Germany's prominent critical agencies, the Forum Kritische Psychologie [FKP] (2) stated that four patients had to undergo treatment for obsessions incurred during their Hellinger sessions in 2004. According to the FKP, the factual number of mentally disordered patients among Hellinger's ex-clients may well be much higher, since they generally find it too embarrassing to relate their unsavoury experiences in public. Dutch psychiatrist Nelleke Nicolaï reported of four additional cases of patients who suffered from mental disorders after they had taken part in H.'s workshops. Nolens volens, these cases end up in regular psychotherapeutic wards and in the end, the National Health Service is burdened with the financial consequence of H.'s failures.
Incest isn't bad at all
Hellinger's controversial methods include an incest-therapy of his own making. In his view, a father who has sexually abused his daughter in childhood cannot been held responsible for the deed. The actual offender is the mother, whose repeated rejection of her husband's sexual advances causes him to use the daughter instead. [This is simplified and not exactly all what he says, as you can read in the above linked book, but in a nutshell, close.] Hellinger turns a blind eye to the problems that emerge from incest, claiming that nothing is wrong with sex and even postulates that a young girl might well experience her father's advances as an exciting, pleasurable adventure. [Clear psychoanalysis influence. In one of his videos, BH even happened to say that the conflict arises because there is an accusation of the perpetrator by the victim.] Years of terrible trauma and victimization are completely denied, and during family constellations these problems are "solved" by means of the following ritual: the practitioner orders the representative daughter to kneel down in front of her representative father [frequently in public!] and is then told to say: "Thank you Dad, I am very grateful to have been able to do this for you". Hellinger believes that the distorted family balance will be restored in this manner, but critics point out that this 'therapy' is extremely humiliating to the victim and will in no way contribute to a solution of such a serious problem. German writer Elisabeth Reutter, sexually abused by her father during her youth, writes in her autobiographical book Gehirnwäsche [Brainwash] (3), that Hellinger's incest-therapy almost expelled the last remainders of her human dignity.
An obscure form of mysticism
By the same token, Hellinger explicitly and invariably sides with the role of offenders during therapeutic sessions which centre around the latter and their victims. He goes even further on this issue, claiming that those who commit crimes - including war-criminals - are unable to act in any other manner since they are under orders of an authority 'from-on-high' that lies entirely beyond their influence. Basing himself on indeterminate cosmic laws and obscure mysticism, Hellinger proclaims that this authority makes use of human beings whose actions are inescapably determined by their destiny. Consequently, war criminals were unable to defy their duties as this authority was in complete control of them. Sixty years after the end of W.W.2, Germany is still suffering from feelings of guilt, which prompts Hellinger to induce the victims of the first and subsequent post-war generations to be grateful to their offenders instead of dealing with post-traumatical problems for years on end. In keeping with his habitual family constellations and incest-therapies, victims are told to perform a ritual of a similar kind: they must kneel down before those representing their malefactors and express their gratitude. Obviously, Hellinger met with strong criticism from German authorities, all the more so since the idea to end all discussions on war culpability is one of the main issues within the N.P.D., a German political party with outspoken leanings towards the extreme right, which over the last years has gained increasing public interest.
Winning the hearts and minds of managers
Meanwhile, pretentious expressions such as 'systemic constellations for organizations' serve to introduce H.'s therapies on a large scale into - mostly German - enterprises and institutions. Managers and business people in general are considered prone to therapy in order to weather the present economic incertitudes. Unfortunately, they are frequently oblivious of authentic scientific methods and instead are receptive to pseudo-therapies with alluring claims. Unable to tone this down to its real proportions, they tend to become impressed and overwhelmed by the current terminology on the H.-scene such as systemic ranks, morphogenetic fields, resonance, and chaos-theory.
Allegiance to resistance fighters is uncalled for
According to Hellinger, opposition against those so-called authorities-on-high is entirely futile, and resistance workers during W.W. II ought to have been aware that nothing could be undertaken against the desastrous phenomena within Hitler's Third Reich. In fact, they should have realized their failing beforehand. Only last year, Hellinger told a German audience, whilst guiding one of his family constellations: "In this country, a broad public opinion still exists that these nazi criminals were personally responsable for their acts and took decisions of their own free will and that they are therefore to be blamed for those crimes. But that is wrong, because at the time a stupendous force had enveloped them." Hellinger also proclaims that allegiance to resistance fighters against national-socialism - or any other dictatorial government such as the former Pinochet regime in Chile - is useless, wrong and actually based on ego-inflating self-deceit. ...
Hitler's mystic spot
Not surprisingly, Hellinger displays considerable admiration for W.W.II-dictator Adolf Hitler in his books and teachings. ...
Lost court cases (4)
Public criticism of Hellinger's doctrine also culminated when, at prime time on April 19th 2004, Germany's renowned national tv-channel Das Erste presented a lengthy and most devastating report on H. called "Das Geschäft mit der Seele [Merchandising the soul]" (5). Claiming that Hellinger had been portraited as a fascist, his most prominent followers immediately called upon the producers to rectify some of the issues, but in the end they abandoned their efforts. In this documentary, an ex-Hellinger patient reported she had suffered severely from therapeutic treatment by H.-psychiatrist Robert Langlotz from Munich, against whom she subsequently filed a lawsuit. The case ended six months later in court, where the parties agreed upon a compromise. In 2004, additional prominent followers of Hellinger were involved in court cases. ... By now, it appears highly questionable whether H.-celebrities will continue to take their critics to court.
How one of Hellinger's closest friends quitted
Although Hellinger hardly made any personal efforts to defend himself against increasing criticism, the H.-scene began to feel uneasy. Reinhard Bauss, until then an unimportant member of the guild of practitioners, made a courageous attempt to plunge right into the heart of the scene by stating in the Hellinger periodical Praxis der Systemaufstellungen (6), that some of H.'s standard family constellations were outrageous and in no way corresponded with regular psycho-therapy. Their sacrosanct repute should therefore be got rid of. He was reprobated by the H.-elite, but then a prominent member and close personal friend of Hellinger, Arist von Schlippe - also chairman of the German umbrella organization of family-therapeutical centres - completely broke with H.'s ideas. In May 2004, von Schlippe wrote an open, emotional farewell letter stating that he could no longer agree to Hellinger's views on psychotherapy. Two months later, the Potsdamer Erklärung (Declaration of Potsdam) (7) was drawn up, which von Schlippe also initiated. In this declaration, more than 150 H.-therapists offically announced their rejection of all H.-readings and teachings. ...
Some other links:
_http://www.selectsmart.com/hellinger.html
_http://skepdic.com/hellinger.html
_http://sciamanesimo.forumattivo.com/t149-principali-critiche-al-metodo-delle-costellazioni-familiari#492 (it.)
Some people say, Constellations are so powerful because you get connected with your emotional imprints, some unconscious patterns that keep you stuck in life. The question is, does it work because it's Family Constellations or despite it, because you do what is within you and not necessarily what Hellinger and his school claim and do? And if so, perhaps real systemic constellation (or other) therapies would be a safer and better option?