Systemic Family Therapy & Relationship Management
Systemic influences may be out of your awareness, yet
include the relationship events that influence your life.
Systemic diagnosis offers deep insights into your life's hidden dynamics
- and systemic solutions for achieving goals or solving problems.
Systemic insights are simple
yet profound, hidden yet obvious, and always
revealing. Family Constellations
Family constellations were first described
by Alfred Adler. Applications of this were re-invented and incorporated
into family therapy by Virginia Satir (see New Peoplemaking) and
popularized by Bert Hellinger (see Love's Hidden Symmetry).
Family constellations are integrated into Soulwork
systemic diagnosis, and are used to check the relationship ecology before
systemic coaching, and
the effectiveness of systemic coaching later.
Trauma, Tragedy and Health
Every family experiences drama, trauma and
tragedies. Some are:
Most families can resolve relationship trauma
and move on, but some get stuck, unable to find a balance between giving and
receiving, between honoring and forgetting, between life and death.
Families follow systemic rules. For example, if
a family member is ostracized, another family member may marry a
substitute for the excluded person, or may identify with the lost family
member. If a lost person is not brought back into a family, a system loses part
of its identity ... and a system member may lose part of his or her identity ...
Such cross-generational entanglements explain why certain tragedies are repeated again and again in each generation.
Relatively simple but toxic examples of cross-generational systemic suffering are the
varieties of emotional
incest, as shown by relationship diagnosis.
See Mother-Son
Entanglementsand Father-Daughter
Bonds.
Children can become entangled in the drama of missing, hurt or grieving relatives, and can identify
with or bond
to those relatives. Later in life, as these adult children act out their
entanglements, they create the seeds of chaos for the next generation of
children.
Cross-generational entanglements can be
exposed and resolved with systemic coaching. Failure to expose and resolve
family entanglements can have more serious consequences, such as
schizophrenia, bipolar
disorder, depression, anxiety ... and
suicide.
Constellation Risks
There are risks for people who participate in other
people's family constellations. As observers of a system interact with
the members or substitutes of that system, the consequences of observation,
especially for those who act roles in other person's system,
flow both ways.
Many family systems require one or more members to
be physically mentally unhealthy, and the observers and actors may
identify with those people, and experience psychosomatic physical or
mental symptoms. This is common.
Unstable and immature observers may become enmeshed in the
drama of a dysfunctional family constellation. They may react and abreact to
what they discover, and distort their own relationships. The consequences of selecting
unhealthy participants can be unpleasant. See Systemic Health.
Soulwork Systemic Coaching
As the behavior of people in a system can reflect the entire system, Systemic Coaching is used in
human resource management and organizational development, as it
provides efficient and effective models for solving
both family problems and organizational re-engineering. (An interesting theory of
family constellation work involves morphogenetic
fields.)
Consequences of relationship trauma (e.g. abandonment, betrayal,
suicide,
abortion and adoption) continue in a family (as cross-generational
entanglements). Junior members of a system may follow senior members into
obsessions, illness or death.
As human organizations reflect systemic principles;
systemic disturbances can affect entire organizations and populations. Some systemic
questions that precipitate stress are:
-
How do leaders gain power?
-
How is power delegated?
-
Who really makes decisions?
-
How are decisions communicated?
-
How are people removed from the system?
Systemic Coaching can restore order in systems and change the human resources of a
family, team or organization. This emotional intelligence can help you answer such questions as:
-
Which applicant best fits an existing
organization?
-
How can a family increase happiness?
-
How can a team increase effectiveness?
-
How can core competencies be duplicated or improved?
Systemic Solutions
Following systemic diagnosis, Soulwork goal diagnosis helps
people define plans to reach goals -
including relationship goals. Verbal and nonverbal objections
are explored until each goal is congruently desired (without conscious or
unconscious objections).
Do you want relationship coaching or systemic coach training? We can train you to coach individuals, couples and teams to resolve complex relationship challenges.
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