Family Constellation And Trauma

Franz Ruppert's book explores the different types of trauma experience, along with the bonding theories of John Bowlby and attachment work of Mary Ainsworth and others, forming a multigenerational picture of the dynamics of trauma. Experiences of trauma can be so painful as to cause a split in the personality. It is impossible for a mother or father to avoid passing something of their own traumatic experiences on to their children through the process of bonding. These are the deeper feelings, perceptions, thoughts and embodied ways of being which form the residue of the trauma. Informed by his clinical experience Franz Ruppert introduces his insights into the origins of psychological distress. He has developed a unique way of working sensitively with Constellations to reveal and resolve the hidden dynamics of past trauma.

The first-ever user-friendly guide on Family Constellations—a powerful group therapy method that uses family history as an avenue for understanding and resolving conflicts of the present Mapping out a “family constellation,” explains Dr. Joy Manné, encompasses exploring previous powerful life events from accidents to adoptions and accessing the deepest dynamics in that family system. This process helps us recognize and then resolve deeply seated family patterns. For example, in order to understand a person’s inability to trust, the family history of betrayal must be uncovered and released. These insights replace resentment with respect, pain with understanding. In this book, Dr. Manné uses the knowledge gained from her own practice as well as her educational experiences with Bert Hellinger—the founder of Family Constellations therapy—to clearly describe this unique therapeutic method. Most Family Constellation sessions are carried out in a group setting, with the facilitator first seeking clarity regarding the issue or problem the client has come to work out. Representatives are then chosen from among the group and the constellation is set up and worked in until it comes to resolution. This may be followed by a closing ritual and advice about how to integrate what the constellation has revealed. Through the use of real-life examples of Family Constellations, Dr. Manné makes this increasingly popular practice understandable and relatable.

Family constellations work has broadened and developed in many different fields as a method of counseling and therapy. In addition to constellations in organizations and schools, applying this approach to working with illness and disease has expanded the potential for healing effects in the field of medicine as well. A view of transgenerational entanglements and family dynamics casts a new light on health and disease, and the insights gained from constellations with illness and health problems have led to a more holistic view of those who are ill. In Even if it Costs me my Life, Stephan Hausner aims to provide a picture of the healing potential of systemic constellations, entering into the reciprocal effects of family dynamics and illness. Extensive use of case studies demonstrates this technique in action, revealing how existing illnesses and pathologies are rooted within the family dynamic, and setting up healing postures to facilitate growth, development, and direction.

A supportive book for those who want to know: How you can work cautiously and with patience on your traumatic experiences. How to find and activate resources. How you can quickly bring feelings and behavior triggered by trauma into balance. How you can overwrite your traumatic experiences step by step with the help of family constellations. How you can transform trauma in the long term with family constellations.

A groundbreaking approach to transforming traumatic legacies passed down in families over generations, by an acclaimed expert in the field Depression. Anxiety. Chronic Pain. Phobias. Obsessive thoughts. The evidence is compelling: the roots of these difficulties may not reside in our immediate life experience or in chemical imbalances in our brains—but in the lives of our parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents. The latest scientific research, now making headlines, supports what many have long intuited—that traumatic experience can be passed down through generations. It Didn’t Start with You builds on the work of leading experts in post-traumatic stress, including Mount Sinai School of Medicine neuroscientist Rachel Yehuda and psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score. Even if the person who suffered the original trauma has died, or the story has been forgotten or silenced, memory and feelings can live on. These emotional legacies are often hidden, encoded in everything from gene expression to everyday language, and they play a far greater role in our emotional and physical health than has ever before been understood. As a pioneer in the field of inherited family trauma, Mark Wolynn has worked with individuals and groups on a therapeutic level for over twenty years. It Didn’t Start with You offers a pragmatic and prescriptive guide to his method, the Core Language Approach. Diagnostic self-inventories provide a way to uncover the fears and anxieties conveyed through everyday words, behaviors, and physical symptoms. Techniques for developing a genogram or extended family tree create a map of experiences going back through the generations. And visualization, active imagination, and direct dialogue create pathways to reconnection, integration, and reclaiming life and health. It Didn’t Start With You is a transformative approach to resolving longstanding difficulties that in many cases, traditional therapy, drugs, or other interventions have not had the capacity to touch.

A primer on the Family Constellations philosophy and its core principles that will inspire and empower readers to take ownership of their lives. Family Constellations begins with the premise: it did not start with me. Many of us become "entangled" with the unhappiness of those who came before us, unconsciously adopting destructive familial patterns of anxiety, depression, failure, and even illness and addiction in an attempt to "redo" the past and "fix" our families. Affirmations and exercises punctuate every chapter, created to help the reader actively engage with and experience the benefits of Family Constellations. Readers will also learn how to: Recognize family system patterns and disrupt them Heal the inner child and parent the adult self Release limiting beliefs and behaviors Dissolve trauma bonds that entangle them with the past Reconcile the past and the present, for a whole and integrated self Arrive at a place of personal peace within the family system Craft future-facing narratives that empower them to live authentically

This book is aimed at constellation practitioners. It is a personal book in which I practically describe and explain my work with trauma and constellations. I give suggestions here from the interplay of constellations and trauma therapy. When I talk about trauma therapy, I refer to the "Somatic Experiencing" (SE) developed by Peter Levine. If you want to work with trauma patients on their trauma in a well-founded way, you should do a training in trauma therapy. This book does not serve that purpose! In the book I deal with questions and topics like What are different focuses of constellations and trauma therapy? What is the fundamental difference between personal and transgenerational trauma? What are the advantages and disadvantages of a broad concept of trauma (e.g., according to Ruppert)? Are we all traumatized? Is trauma therapy only for traumatized people? What is dissociation? What special forms of constellations are there for trauma? What background is needed to constellate trauma responsibly? What heals trauma on the human level? What do constellations teach about survivor guilt? How can secondary traumatization be explained and how do I protect myself from it? From the constellation side, I address violence and abuse within and outside the family. And I close with the constellation of a traumatized horse. I started constellating families in 1995. Then in 2002 I encountered Somatic Experiencing by Peter Levine in Switzerland. This was another breakthrough and helped me personally on a new dimension to arrive more in life. From the beginning, it was exciting for me to see how the two methods cross-fertilize and complement each other. I had already experienced this myself. But what does this mean for me as a therapist in my practical work? After my SE training, I started to offer additional trainings for constellation practitioners on how to deal with trauma. In Italy, I offered several 16-day courses for constellations over eight years. In China, I encountered many intense traumas during the twelve years I worked there. Intensive was a 7-day training in Mexico on constellations, trauma and violence, in which participants from several countries in South America worked on their experiences of violence. All of these experiences come together here in this book.

"The Roots of Love" offers insight into family constellation, an effective and powerful method to recognize family entanglements. Most often unexpected, solution-oriented interventions bring relaxation and understanding in deep human problem situations. This allows love to flow again between the members of the family system.