Fate and Conscience:  A Review of Love’s Hidden Symmetry

In a ti me when a sense of hurry pervades our culture, when psychotherapists’ attention is too often distracted by the press for quick results, and training more and more technique-driven and symptom-focused, it is a true delight to discover the work of German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger.  Here is an iconoclast who has hesitated to write down his insights gathered from a career of therapy – he is 75 this year – because of concern his ideas would be oversimplified, misunderstood, or rigidified into lifeless generalizations.  He quotes William Blake and Lao Tzu, and his language has the patina of a lively spirituality balanced by the directness of a practical man with no patience for irrelevancies.  The transcripts of his work with clients range from exquisitely delicate rituals in his family constellations releasing generations-old guilt, to crisp confrontations of clients mired in self-pity and inaction.

Like Erickson, he values the actions and experiences of life over the conversations about it, and constantly seeks to reawaken the giving and receiving blocked in his clients’ lives.

Like Erickson, his understanding of problems and solutions ca me from close observation of the human condition rather than from theoretical constructions.   Rather than talk about multi-generational transmission of family dysfunction, he talks about fate.  Rather than talk about the maintenance of systemic equilibrium, he talks about group conscience.  How much richer, more flexible, and communicative are his terms?  How much more evocative and generative are the concepts?  

The transcribed conversations are passionate, not scripted. I particularly enjoyed his exchange with a workshop participant around the delicate issue of seductive children:  “Little girls are supposed to be seductive.  It’s how they begin to experi me nt with and practice their sexuality.  It’s the job of the adults to not respond to that practicing with sexual behavior, to protect the kids.”

There are two important technical differences from other approaches to family sculpture in how he constructs and processes the family constellations he creates in group therapy.  In the setup, the only stimulus for unfolding emotional process besides the identity of the family me mber (father, older sister, adoptive mother, etc.) is their physical position.  There is no historical narrative attached to the identity, nor is there sculpting of evocative postures.  Hellinger feels these tend to limit and stereotype responses, which he wants to encourage to develop intuitively from the constellations.   In the processing, the designees are asked to empty themselves of personal identification and conceptual fra me works and follow the simple but rigorous discipline of responding to what co me s up at a feeling level from their spatial position relative to one another.  The transcripts generated from this work are rich and moving rituals of release and transformation, opening the participants from blocked or frozen attitudes and feeling states.  Hellinger’s style is calm, focused, never overtly encouraging of catharsis.  As in masterful improvisation and intense conversation, the work appears to unfold on its own.  The scenes support his description of his work as uncovering love’s hidden sym me try, restoring the balance of giving and receiving.  The emphasis of flow along with the de-emphasis of personal narrative must make the group experience as rich for those not at the center of the work.

Wondering if so me of the transpersonal qualities he unleashes in group ritual space could be harnessed in a dyad, I read part of one of the transcripts to a client and suggested we try a modified version of the family constellation.  He designated two empty chairs as his parents, and positioned them at angles not quite facing each other, and designated the lamp on the desk as himself as a child.  We took turns standing behind the chairs and sensing the imbalance, mutually arriving at the conclusion the chairs needed to face each other.  This position felt right.  He then noticed the lamp on the desk was too high, and it shouldn’t be on:  “I’m working too hard!  I’m only a kid!”  We turned the light off and placed the lamp on the floor, at the feet of the parents.  His sense of relief, if not resolution, was palpable.  I was surprised how much of the power of the position-based family constellation could be unlocked even without the multiple intelligences of the group.  The format itself seems to invoke both archetypal awarenesses and calm mindfulness, allowing release from the blockages associated with tightly held justification of intense emotional states.

Love’s Hidden Sym me try combines the exposition of central ideas in a lucid and persuasive style with the transcripts of workshops and group therapy sessions which bring the family constellation work to life.  The resulting text can both inspire and technically guide clinicians interested in his approach. It’s a fine place to start in discovering the work of Bert Hellinger.

Copyright © 2002 Chuck Holton All rights reserved.