Daily Opening Addresses
Hunter Beaumont, PhD
Each day, Hunter Beaumont will open our conference with discussions regarding the theory, practice and evolution of Systemic Constellations Work. In addition, he will offer insights and reflections upon the experience as it unfolds within the Conference.
Plenary Opening and Closing Experiential Processes
Francesca Mason Boring
Francesca will open the Conference with an experiential process enabling us to create a collective space, a Circle, as we begin our Conference. Each morning she will lead us in a brief centering process to hold us as we move into the learning and experiences of the day. She will also lead the closing ceremony at the end of the Conference. Francesca, along with Malidoma Somé, will lead the Plenary Session Circle Wisdom and Ritual in Community Constellations.
Friday Lunch Keynote Address
Systemic Constellations and Gestalt
Gordon Wheeler, PhD
Gordon Wheeler, PhD will explore the theory, practice and philosophy shared between Systemic Constellations Work and Gestalt and other experiential, phenomenologically-based therapies. Instinctively, many of us feel an embodied affinity between these experiential traditions, and the great stream of systemic therapies, out of which Systemic Constellations took root and grew. To those systemic traditions, Gestalt adds both embodiment and the experimental stance that together orient and ground many of us in our work. These dynamic dimensions characterize Systems Constellations work — and at the same time speak to how Gestalt understands human process, and personal/systemic change. Still, we cannot help being aware of some of the deep discomfort and questions of some Gestaltists and others, when first presented with this newer methodology. Is Systemic Constellations Work truly client-centered, respectful of the client’s own construction of experience and meaning, truly experimental as opposed to impositional or authority- and “expert”-based? How do those of us who care about both these traditions answer these important questions and concerns, and others like them.
Saturday Lunch Keynote Address
A Western Awakening Through Systemic Constellations Work
Malidoma Somé, PhD
The Dagara define ritual as the involvement with spirit in sacred space for our healing. While in ritual, a person experiences cathartic changes, some of which are permanent. Systemic Constellations are one of the many faces of ritual. The work stems, at least in part, from old ritual practice rooted in Africa that sees individual challenges as linked to some forms of entanglement; the nature of which needs to be understood and dealt with for healing to happen. The crisis of the individual is the crisis of the collective or the community. Not all rituals require a shrine, a drum and a song. But all of them have the same purpose; to decongest an energetic entanglement through a carefully choreographed release. Systemic Constellations is awakening the Western world to the power and deep healing that ritual and ancestral work can offer.
Sunday Lunch Keynote Address
Unfolding the Wisdom and Expressive Intelligence of the System
Marita Fridjhon, MSW, ORSCC and Faith Fuller, PhD, ORSCC
There exists within human systems, an inherent wisdom and intelligence beyond our wildest imagination. Beyond Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence lies the realm of Relationship Systems Intelligence (RSI). Discovering the “voice of the relationship” is the new frontier in working with partnerships, teams and organizations. Constellations are one of the primary ways in which systems express what is truly happening and as such can be seen as a basic communication structure of the system. Systemic Constellations are an expression of what is trying to happen for the system and when viewed from the Relationship Systems Intelligence perspective, can be seen and heard as an expression of collective intelligence of teams and groups. It is indeed not about ‘who is doing what to whom, but rather about what is trying to happen…’
Sunday Closing Keynote Address
Dancing On the Tightrope – Balancing Tensions in the US Field of Constellation Work
Jane Peterson, PhD
As organizers of the first US conference in 2005, Jane Peterson, PhD and husband, Don Chitfield, set aside one day for US facilitators to engage in a “get acquainted conversation” and meet each other for the first time. Since then, the challenges of introducing constellation work in the US have become more apparent. We face obstacles such as isolation and coming to this work from widely diverse backgrounds. Our differing values and opinions about what constellation work is and should become, combined with the complex and often violent history of our nation, creates a field of tensions as well as opportunities. Forming a national organization, despite the benefits that such an organization might bring, is enormously challenging. Jane will reflect on where we’ve been, what is unfolding now and how we might dance together on the tightrope strung between the differences that could divide us and our shared love of constellation work.
