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We present interactive and demonstration-rich workshops on
topics such as systemic coaching, systems theory, resolving family chaos and
relationship bonds.
Human Relationships are Complex Systems
Most people communicate with other people and respond to
communication from other people, in a hierarchy of relationship complexity. This
hierarchy ranges from meetings of strangers, through friendship, teamwork,
partnership, parenthood to community leadership.
These relationships are subject to systemic rules including
those from government law, ethic customs and family traditions.
And for each relationship type there are a spectrum of
culturally appropriate skills and a spectrum of intimacy (or closeness) between
the members.
Relationship Management
Relationship management is about assessing human systems,
recognizing problems, systemic diagnosis, identifying potential solutions,
implementing potential solutions and testing their effectiveness.
- Recognize Problems
- Systemic Diagnosis
- Identify Potential Solutions
- Implement Potential Solutions
- Test their effectiveness
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Keywords: sessions,
holistic, articles, therapy, integrity, love, skills, education, teams, work, life, abortions,
abuse, bonds, soul mates, child changework, children, clarify, coach, co-dependence, psychology,
learning, connection, counseling, lives, dependence, emotions, experts, expertise, family, feelings,
goals, guilty, healing, intelligence, integration, expert, modeling, expert, issues,
power, life, purpose, matrix, models parents, psychiatry,
psychology, psychotherapy, therapists, issues, urgent, crisis, problems, challenges |
Managers and executives need relationship skills - and where there are relationships there are emotions.
We coach people to improve their skills and solve their
problems - whether corporate, government or public.
(People who do not want to understand their family
system and legacy may have difficulty learning and applying human systemic
dynamics. The risk of unpleasant discovery may be too great.)
In our experience as systemic trainers, most students know less about their
own systems than any system they study or coach. Many people are
reluctant to dig for gold in their own garden.
Although human relationship problems are often easy to
recognize, it is harder to
discover the underlying (systemic) causes of those problems. Superficial
analysis of relationship problems motivates superficial solutions
and good advice, with limited, short-term effects and
sometimes detrimental consequences.
Systemic solutions require that all significant members of a
system be satisfied with a change. Often, however, it is not clear who is
significant until a rigorous exploration of the family rules. A family pet, for
example, might have far more significance than a cousin.
Most relationship problems result from
ignorance about the rules that people apply in families, groups or
organizations. In many relationships, and most especially in families, there is
a taboo against discussing the rules. This includes a taboo against discussing
the taboo against discussing the rules. Systems theory provides a basis
for understanding the relationship interactions between genders and
generations. Here are some general rules applicable to most human systems.
Systemic Rules
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One key to a healthy relationship system is to
acknowledge every member - including past, dead or disgraced members.
This can be achieved by discussing their actions, contributions,
responsibilities, beliefs, values and personalities.
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Every member of a system affects the system
- Respect the members who joined or were born first (seniority)
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An alpha male normally takes the highest position
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An alpha female normally takes the second position
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Senior members give to junior members
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If system members are ignored, forgotten or dishonored,
the effects manifest in subsequent generations as depression, childlessness, mental or
physical disease, addictions and suicide. There applies even if there is no conscious
awareness of what occurred in previous generations.
Relationship trauma is strongly related to symptoms of mental,
physical and emotional disease. People can suffer from relationship
trauma from parents who were rejected, with refugee drama or separation during
birth. Children reflect the characteristics from their parents or some ancestor
including depression, fear, self-criticism, guilt and self-hatred.
- A system's primary resources are the relationships
between its members
- A system provides information about relationships
between its members
- A system includes relationships between
all system members, including the missing and dead.
- Disabling conditions lie
at both the individual and relational level of its members.
- Individual
actions and motivations are shaped by biological, emotional and
relational demands
- A system can maintain patterns and violence and harm
- Unspoken rules guide family relatedness.
- Maturation may represent a threats of loss to a
human system.
- All subjective behavior implies a relational context
Disruption of Family Systems
Disruption to a family system may result in family members becoming
entangled. Common entanglements are between the mother and the oldest son, and
between the father and the youngest daughter. Other entanglement include
identification with a victim or with a dead child.
Attachment Disorders & Relationship Bonds
If the entangled children feel powerful unpleasant
emotions, they may reject their families as they attempt to gain independence. But
entangled children may be unable to move on with their lives.
As they experience adolescence, if they cannot form or at least
look forward to, healthy, happy partnerships - they may express their entanglements as aberrant behavior.
[
Father - Daughter Bonds . Mother - Son Bonds ]
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The
following actions by a member of a family system will likely initiate unpleasant
consequences, even though such actions are often themselves initiated by previous
family events:
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previous partners are not acknowledged
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aborted, miscarried or stillborn babies are
not acknowledged
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children or young adults who die are not
acknowledged
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children are given away for adoption and are
not acknowledged
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the biological parents of adopted children
are not acknowledged
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those who risk lives or die in wars are not
acknowledged
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family members are not entrusted with family
secrets
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Systemic Goals
Although the goals of a human system may seem transparent;
systemic goals cannot always be predicted
from cultural, ethnic, class or educational background. Friendship may be
faked to gain access to resources. A person may lie to join a team. A marriage
may be forced by an unplanned pregnancy or the agreement of parents. A business
may function as a make-work project or deliberately lose money for tax purposes.
A country may fight a war that only benefits its leaders.
Nevertheless, human organizations do evolve more or less
predictably. The development and evolution of human systems is best predicted by the work of Dr
Clare Graves ...
links
The New Systemic Coach
A would-be coach's first steps are to attend training,
solve their own problems, define their own goals and create a life plan
for living with integrity. Only then a coach be a role model - while
finding out what other people want, and
make specific offers of what he or she can provide for others.
A new Soulwork coach may be unable to help clients define their
goals and diagnose their problems - even if clients describe their history
and symptoms, and even if the coach asks deep and searching questions.
Many Soulwork students try to use questions and phrases
used by Soulwork trainers, in the hope that they may somehow acquire
some of the trainer's results. While this is positive in principle,
students who believe that they can now duplicate the excellence of the
trainer may abuse or hurt their clients.
Behind Soulwork is a complete model of systemic
dynamics that respects the integrity of a system and the dynamics
of how people develop and maintain problems.
Soulwork Demonstrations
If you watch a Soulwork trainer demonstrating Soulwork,
especially with people who are not students and do not know what to expect,
it seems easy. Some people feel that they could do similar work after watching
one or two demonstrations. Yet those people obviously lack the trainer's experience
and systemic understanding that lies behind the Soulwork approach.
Modeling trainers during demonstrations can be an effective way
to learn, IF demonstrations are supported with precise, detailed predictions and
analysis of the strategies demonstrated.
Soulwork trainers demonstrate their competence in
real time, with predictions, commentaries and analysis. They
discuss what they intend to do before a demonstration; what they are doing
during a demonstration; and an analysis of what they did after a
demonstration. This is rare.
Soulwork students receive many experiences of modeling,
but they nevertheless model their own limited perceptions. Following
demonstrations they are encouraged to fully participate
on class exercises, to test their understanding and provide feedback. Soulwork
training provides many multi-dimensional learning experiences.
Relationships & Reality
We respond to external reality with internal process.
We distort external experience with internal process. Yet internal process
may feel more real than external reality.
Healthy people continually test reality by action and
observation. Clients check how well they are doing by evaluating their coaching.
People use relationship events, actions and consequences as
reference experiences by which they assess other relationships. If people change the number and
quality of their reference experiences, they can change their relationship
patterns.
Systemic coaching assumes that we are not just biological, rational and
communicating beings. The systemic world of relationships includes time and
generations.
Coaching in Relationship Systems
As
systemic coaching provides deep and long-term
benefits, many students ask “How do you know what to do?”
A simple philosophy can help students stay on track.
- Live with integrity
- Know what you want and work to achieve it
- Discover what people want
- Offer choices
- Accept their choices
- Discuss the choices and their consequences
- Offer ways to achieve their choices
- Test the results in the real world
- Discuss the feedback from the real world
- Choose the next goal - or end
Soulwork provides effective coaching and
coach training. We train people to coach individuals, partners and
teams to resolve a wide range of emotional and relationship challenges.
Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 2004, 2009 All rights reserved.
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