Category Archives: Counseling

Case Studies, Counseling, Family Constellations, Uncategorized

Family Constellation Case Study: A Mother-Daughter Healing

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by Samvedam Randles, LMHC, Dipl. Psych.

Introductory comments:  What we find in each Family Constellation is unique and belongs to only one family system. That said, our family may be playing out its own version of a pattern we observe in another’s family system. I offer these case studies to give you a small taste of the issues that can arise in this work.

As you will see, some of these patterns originate in the current generation. Others originated several generations back.

Please keep in mind that constellation work functions in a rather kinesthetic, felt-sense, so the written examples will not convey the impact of a constellation; but I hope they give you a better understanding of how the work is done.

THE MOTHER-DAUGHTER RIFT

Angela presented this issue: “I was always very close to my daughter until she turned 15. Then, she began hating me.”

My first reaction was that maybe this was more of a developmental movement rather than a Family Constellation issue. But when I voiced this, Angela replied, “The same thing happened to me. I loved my mom until I turned 15, and we still barely speak.”

This clarified the generational component. And so we began.

First we put up 3 representatives: for mother, daughter and grandmother. With the representatives installed, the constellation indeed displayed a similar disconnect between mother and daughter in both generations.

I decided to add another representative: the great-grandmother. Interestingly, the same stony coldness was felt between the representatives for mother and daughter in this generation, too.

Wondering what might be going on, I asked if there was any further information about this great-grandmother. Continue reading Family Constellation Case Study: A Mother-Daughter Healing →

Breathwork, Counseling, Family Constellations

A Lesson from the Hummingbird

by Samvedam Randles, LMHC, Dipl. Psych.

A Lesson from the Hummingbird, counseling services in Boston, MA.This month brought the pendulum of our collective psyche into full swing!

Intensity of emotional reactions to the presidential election flew high. As I endeavored to meet each person in my office with calm centeredness, I found myself challenged by the wild array of personal shadows being flushed out of their hiding places. It felt as though we were experiencing a collective immersion of shadow reactions to the seismic political shifts taking place: fear, grief, dismay, anger or despair flooded my office.

Having just re-centered from one version of reaction, I would then sit with someone who felt quietly hopeful and wished to celebrate the change, but did not feel safe expressing this publicly. My work was to be present with each person no matter where on the pendulum swing we started.  

As the waves kept moving in and out, I found myself remembering the tiniest of creatures, the hummingbird. When I traveled to Peru last spring, I enjoyed watching these lovely beings, so wondrous in their deftness and precision. A hummingbird’s wings move faster than our eyes can perceive, yet it remains calm in its center so it can enjoy each flower and drink deeply from its nectar. The gift of this image seems like a good teaching this month. Stillness in rapid action became my mantra as I practiced staying present with each person I met.  When presence holds us in each moment, it becomes more than a mantra; it becomes effortless.

Healing in Community

In the midst of this election month, our Constellation Learning Group, which meets one weekend each month, launched beautifully. Grounding into the felt-sense within our bodies evoked calm and allowed us to support each other. The teachings of the Family Constellation work expanded our horizons as we were reminded that it is the nature of the pendulum to swing; and that none of what we experience is either actually new or unique to us.

Breathwork, another powerful practice, assisted quite a few folks with releasing pent up emotion and coming back to their center. Gathering in the safety of community to learn new tools that help us understand and grow from challenges feels timely and important.

What helps you find inner stillness when the pendulum swings wildly?

Counseling

A Silver Lining to the Election?

by Samvedam Randles, LMHC, Dipl. Psch.

A Silver Lining Cloud - the U.S. Election, trauma, and resolution.This election has been a mess, and I am struck by how the issues raised by Donald Trump have shown up in my office. My private practice is overflowing with women who are re-living sexual assaults that they tried to bury long ago. So many women who were silent when the wounding occurred are now mightily struggling with anger over being violated and a hopeless feeling that the stronger will always win. Others are swimming in grief over the way incidents of assault or abuse have dominated their sex lives. Some have no pleasure, some have closed themselves to sex completely, and others have become promiscuous, acting out constantly, with no enjoyment.

The press about Donald Trump’s sexual misconduct and the betrayals of Bill Clinton, as well as Hillary’s aid’s husband, have opened a flood gate. The only good news is that trauma has to be seen and acknowledged in order to be healed. And for all the ugliness this election has raised, it also has moved many women to face what they could not bring themselves to face before. This is a courageous act that initiates the possibility for healing. The women I am privileged to support are working on re-owning their own bodies and knowing that they can again have power and feel powerful.

Both men and women have been jarred into re-examining what it means to be in healthy relationship with the opposite sex, and it affects us all. Ultimately, the focus comes even closer to home as we each struggle with how to balance our internal female and male energies – our strengths and our vulnerabilities, and our capacities for giving and receiving. Again…we learn within our family structures how to hold and value these energies.

Counseling, Family Constellations

Unraveling Family Secrets: An Interview with Bert Hellinger on Family Constellations

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by Humberto del Pozo, September 1999, Santiago Chile (translated from Spanish)

What is the family psyche?

Bert Hellinger: 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 unconscious drives to behave in a certain way. If in a family one member has been excluded or forgotten, for example a child that died early, and is no longer counted among the siblings, then later on, in the next generation only, another member takes up the same fate of that child.

This person then wants to die, with nobody knowing why.

And we do a family constellation. That means that in a group, a person selects representatives for the members of his family – including one for himself –and places them 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.

How does this therapy work for the unconscious behaviors you mentioned?

Bert Hellinger: 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 immediately somebody has been forgotten or excluded.

Then they suddenly remember, “Oh Yes! There was a sister who was handicapped and died 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 later became ill, for instance, of diabetes, has now a greater chance to deal with that illness in a positive way. Continue reading Unraveling Family Secrets: An Interview with Bert Hellinger on Family Constellations →