To Tiiu Bolzmann
Three months ago I came to meet Tiiu in her Institute in Buenos Aires. Did our thirst for speaking Estonian have something to do with it? - somehow it felt we had known each other all our lives. Not only did Tiiu become my host and friend, but also a teacher and guide in a field called Systemic Constellations and Family Constellations, a theoretical outline to which was developed by a German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger.
This is briefly on how from June till yesterday I could take part in classes and workshops in the Bert Hellinger Institute of Family Constellations in Buenos Aires, Argentina that Tiiu is the director of.
When I first heard the word " Family Constellation" I thought of the night sky. Hence drawing sketches in my notebook I looked for the connection. What we call a constellation in the celestial sphere is a percieved pattern of stars. In a way a family may also be seen in this manner: just as the celestial constellations, the family patterns are different and in many cultures carry one name that distinguishes them from others.
In reality the name "Family Constellations" holds a symbolic meaning and has nothing to do with stars, quite on the contrary, is very much down to earth seeing a person in the context of his or her family. The German term "Familien Aufstellung" could be translated as family setting. The method used by therapists and business councellers in many countries of the world aims to solve problems in peoples' relationships. Ranging from personal pain and unsatisfaction, troubles at work or in romance, issues that come up in family life, school, society in general, but also economic problems or illnesses, the field of work of systemic constellations covers a bigger area than traditional therapies. The healing process begins with accepting and understanding what is; including all what has been, finding the right place in the system to be able to receive strength from it and with it face the future to whatever will be. To read more on the phenomenology of the method click HERE.
The main idea of the systemic world view is described briefly through the images below.
1) Each person´s strongest connection is to the parents:
2)“Love´s hidden symmetry” (part of a book title by Bert Hellinger):
3) Wisdom of the generations is passed on to children:
4) A classroom, a work-space, a team, an organization or any other group has always more people participating than one can see:
6) A systemic way to see society:
"A man lives less than a tree,
yet a nation lives longer than the forest" Lennart Meri
7) A cultural "carpet" of the world:
When drawing the last two pictures I thought they resembled the patterns from a crochet lace work.
Curiously so the final workshop I took part in, conducted by Marianne Franke Gricksch (the author of the book through which lead me to find Tiiu), was titled "Recognizing the Weaving. Order of Love between parents and children".
During my travels I often heard myself say that the world together with its people is one. Yet we come from different places, carry within our customs and languages which have formed distinct understandins of things. In the last picture the difference is shown in colours, each culture centered around one circle of values and common objectives. Pink is not better than yellow, nor blue more correct than green - all are equally important, the difference is to be appreciated and not argued. All of them form one carpet in the weaving of which same patterns can be recognized.
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