The Knowing Field Issue 12

The cover design for this issue comes from Charaka Satyam. Please see below for her description of the design. Over the next few years we will be publishing a series of interviews with those who have been around the work a long time – the ‘elders’ of the constellation field and those who have made a very specific contribution to the work. We will head these interviews: ‘Spotlight On’ and ‘In Conversation’. As the first in the series of interviews, we are putting the spotlight on the founder of the constellation work, Bert Hellinger. He was interviewed by the Editor when he visited London in March. Readers will be familiar with the writing of Dan Booth Cohen who in this issue traces for us many of the semantic and mythical threads of the word soul. Continuing with the theme of journeys of the soul, Alfred and Bettina Austermann offer us their very interesting article describing their experiences of working with people who have lost a twin in the womb and the long term effects of that. It appears to be much more common than we first realised.

As a snippet, Jen Altman adds a short piece on her own experiences of working with this issue. Even though Bert Hellinger frequently uses stories to convey a message or provide a bridge from one piece of work to another and there has been some writing in Germany on the use of fairytales in constellation work (The Knowing Field issue 6, p. 45), little has been written so far in the English speaking world about storytelling and the power of constellating ancient tales and myths and their particular message for us as individuals. We are pleased therefore to include Geoff Mead’s piece as an illustration of how storytelling and constellations can be interwoven to provide a very valuable way of making sense of some of our personal issues by linking to specific aspects of the story. Also operating at the soul level is the theme of phenomenology and Chris Walsh offers us the benefit of his knowledge of both phenomenology and mindfulness as helpful ways of making sense of this ongoing topic of discussion in the constellation field.

Raquel Schlosser introduces a new theme for us in writing about the power of language and how semantics can affect human rights within families. This seems particularly relevant when we are working across the world with so many different cultures and languages and highlights how careful we need to be when translating from one language to another in providing an accurate representation of what the author is trying to convey – no easy task. Alemka & Max Dauskardt’s rendering of the Australian apology to the aboriginal people for their past mistreatment highlights another human rights issue which hopefully is now a thing of the past in this country.

The issue of trauma is a recurring theme in this journal and we are pleased on this occasion to offer an interview with social trauma specialist Anngwyn St Just and two reviews of her book on the same issue Relative Balance in an Unstable World. In the organisational section Cheng Lap Fung and Simon Loveday offer us the benefit of their experiences of working with specific themes with teams of workers. Fung’s focus is on time-line constellations set in the context of Chinese history and culture and is the first of a two-part article, whilst Simon Loveday is able to demonstrate how his application of ‘the orders’ helped a team of engineering managers to move forward, albeit in surprising ways! We have two articles coming under the heading of ‘Personal Reflections’ this time. Vivian Broughton writes with some passion about her views on constellation work in relation to psychotherapy, standards and associations – an article which may well provoke further discussion. Berthold Schmidt is concerned about the idealisation of facilitators and describes his inner thoughts which have led him to withdraw temporarily (and maybe permanently) from being a facilitator. His words offer some advice on how to approach this whole topic with some caution.

Christine Wilson offers a personal story in response to the article on community written by the Editor in Issue 11 of The Knowing Field. She writes about her experiences of attachment and bonding formed as a result of being a ‘Truby King baby’ and her subsequent addiction to alcohol. Examples of constellations are provided by Bill Mannle who offers a moving piece about his work with teenagers who self-harm, Sheila Saunders who gives some inside information about her experiences of representing psychosis and our regular contributor Ed Lynch who this time gives us a moving constellation demonstrating the healing power of re-connecting women to their female lineage Under the News from Around the World section, we have a piece from Mexico and several reports on the Intensive at Kloster Bernried with a brief reference also to the International Congress at Würzburg.

The News from Mexico seems particularly appropriate, given that the 7th International Congress will be held in Mexico City next year in collaboration with ISCA. We are pleased to include an invitation from the President of the Congress, Raquel Schlosser in this respect. Iwould like to welcome Chris Walsh as a new member of the Editorial and Advisory team. NEWIDEAS FOR THE JOURNAL June 2008 Ihave particularly appreciated my team over the last few months, not just for their tireless support with the editing and allied tasks but with their commitment to dialogue as we negotiated some turbulent waters and managed to reach agreement on some difficult issues.

I am also very grateful to my new distributor for the USA, Don Opatrny, who has inspired me with his energy and enthusiasm and new ideas for the way forward for the journal. (See below). We seem to be moving into new and exciting waters.

Barbara Morgan