Chapter 1. The Spirit of Ancestors Just as a branch cannot exist separately from a tree, so a person cannot live without the clan that gave him life. (Author unknown) Origins The family constellation method was created about thirty years ago by the German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger. With everyone

Call of the Ancestors One day in March, I had the opportunity to observe a flock of pigeons that settled on my balcony due to free feeding. It’s like she was spying on people! The same mating games, preening of girlfriends, inflating one’s “I” in order to avoid competition.

«. ..fathers ate sour grapes, and children’s teeth are set on edge.”

Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, chapter 18, verses 1-4

Hello to all “advanced” people, beginners and those simply interested in issues of psychology, or more precisely, issues of script reprogramming. Our Club has been dealing with this issue for many years and quite successfully. At the same time, quite often we encounter situations that are difficult to explain using the traditional approach. People begin to encounter inexplicable things, events begin to occur that cannot be explained from the point of view of the usual theory of scenarios.

Well, for example, how to explain the phenomenon that in a family, in each generation, it is the eldest child who dies, and all subsequent ones remain alive. Or is it such that a woman wakes up every night in terrible despair precisely from 5 to 6 in the morning, and then everything suddenly goes away? There are a great many similar examples.

Most people immediately rush to look for answers where they simply cannot be found. Fate, karma... Yes, such directions provide an “explanation”, and one is cooler than the other. You read it, and you don’t want to live at all

So what is it? Mysticism? Evil spirits? Or something else out of this world?

And everything is much simpler. This is science, the science of man and, more specifically, the science of our ancestors. Yes, yes exactly about them. Now let's go back to the very beginning.

Most areas of psychology, working with human script mechanisms, usually study in detail the life path of the client himself. There is an analysis of his early years of life, the influence of close people who had the greatest influence on the formation of his character, as well as how these mechanisms manifested themselves throughout his life. But besides this, there is one more mechanism that is usually not paid attention to - the scenarios of the “past”. Scenarios of our ancestors. Yes, exactly, the scripts of our grandmothers, great-grandmothers, etc. This trend in psychology is called the “Ancestor Syndrome.”

There is such a definition of this phenomenon.

Ancestor syndrome — the coincidence of dates of significant events occurring in the same family over several generations, repetition of the circumstances of life and death, as well as the transfer “by inheritance” of unfulfilled family debt.

It's that simple. But it is still worth clarifying a number of points.

The effect of ancestral syndrome is associated with the “unconscious” of the family, which is invisibly present in the life of any person, from the moment of conception to death. How does it work? While still in the “project”, inside the mother, the child already becomes the object of expectations from his family: who the child will be born into, whose hopes he will justify by his birth, etc. Many parents want to find out the gender in advance in order to choose a name. Often, a father or mother wants to name a boy or girl in honor of their ancestor. And when the child is already born, they will certainly find “ancestral traits” in him.

If there is an external resemblance to one of the relatives, there are often expectations that the child will be similar to him in behavior and character traits (especially if we are talking about a family hero, a role model). But it also happens that this person is associated not with heroic deeds, but with bad memories. Then they try to talk about him less often or remain silent altogether: otherwise the child may follow in his footsteps. Alas, the mechanisms of the “ancestor syndrome” inevitably come into play here: if expectations turn into fears, the child will still unconsciously copy the behavior of the ill-fated relative.

It does not matter whether the expectations of relatives are expressed out loud or implied “by default.” The important thing is that they involuntarily form a “past scenario” for the child’s future life. And a family secret always only increases the likelihood that descendants will repeat the negative experience or difficult fate of family members who lived earlier.

A small example for reference.

A., 42 years old, auto mechanic at the service center of a large car dealer. His seven-year-old son was in a car accident. The accident occurred at the end of August. When analyzing the past, the following emerged. When A. was 7 years old and he was going to school for the first time, an accident occurred that frightened him greatly. Surprisingly, his father, when he was going to school for the first time, was involved in a traffic accident. But grandfather A. had no accidents on the way to school for the reason that he did not go there. His father was killed in World War II, the family was left without a livelihood, and his six-year-old son was sent to work in the fields on a collective farm instead of going to school. Since then, in every generation, the beginning of the school year has been marred by an incident on the way to school. And this is not an accident. The feeling of resentment that great-grandfather A. experienced when he was sent to do hard work instead of school began to be inherited. It caused an unconscious feeling of guilt in subsequent generations and a desire, as it were, to punish themselves for the opportunity to receive an education. Moreover, the following is especially striking in this situation: all accidents occur at the end of August, the beginning of September - the month when school starts

Something like this. But let’s not be sad, but let’s move on and slowly sort everything out.

What are the mechanisms of transmission of the “ancestral script”?

It is necessary to separate two forms of transmission of “family scripts”.

First– this is an inheritance from previous generations, based on personal communication (what we learned by communicating with our parents, grandparents, what family values ​​and attitudes they instilled in us during our upbringing). This form of transmission is largely based on the verbal mode of communication. And if from childhood a girl saw how her mother, grandmother (and great-grandmother too) lived according to the formula - “kitchen-husband-children”, then most likely her main asset will be: a Tefal frying pan, a Samsung vacuum cleaner, a couple of TV series, math homework and the Russian and the “eternal” hope that today “darling” will buy her flowers. And professional self-realization is unlikely to be a priority for her.

To recognize direct transmission signals, it is enough to analyze the most repeated phrases of your mother or grandmother. As a child was most often called in childhood - “oh, my beauty!” (programming for an extroverted style of behavior), “oh, my smart girl!” (bookmark of the importance of intellectual characteristics), “you are our firstborn and favorite!” (programming for a leadership position) - etc. Moreover, very often the assessment and expectations of parents can radically diverge from the true personal characteristics of the child. In addition, something like “in our family it is not customary to get married before the age of twenty-five” or “we are mental workers, there will never be artists or other comedians in our family” could often be said...

To move on to the second type of transmission, consider the following point.

Like most scenario moments, the “ancestor syndrome” refers to mechanisms that are unconscious to humans.

In 1978, two French psychoanalysts Nicolas Abraham and Maria Törek introduced the concept of “crypt” and “ghost”. The authors explained these phenomena as follows:

“A ghost is a formation of the “unconscious.” Its peculiarity is that it has never been conscious (that is, we may not know that there is some kind of secret, but our unconscious reads and perceives information that is a secret). The "ghost" is the result of transmission from the unconscious parent to the unconscious child.

“Ghost” is the work in the unconscious of the “secret” of another, the presence of which cannot be admitted (incest, crime, illegitimate child, ...). What obsessively haunts us is not the dead, but the gaps that remain in us due to the secrets of others. Its manifestation, its pursuit is the return of the “ghost” in strange words and actions, in symptoms and illnesses. This is how what is revealed and hidden is what rests as the “living and dead” science of the mystery of the other.”

A little powdery, now I’ll try “shorter” and “in Russian”! The unconscious is already present in the child when he is in the womb. And in this unconscious, a certain area is allocated (like a “black box”), where a “secret” or “ghost” is laid down, which then, throughout a person’s life, will periodically crawl into the light.

And now let's talk about second type of transmission!

Second type– transgenerational transmission. It occurs over several (sometimes very distant from each other) generations and is based on non-verbal language. To understand the mechanism of transgenerational transmission, one must understand the essence of family nonverbal attitudes. For example, you may not know anything about your great-grandmother because neither your mother nor grandmother ever said anything about her. But the subconscious is much more attentive than you; it does not miss a single gesture or action that indirectly reveals a connection between any event and your relative. Let's say a great-grandmother was widowed at 31, a year after the birth of her child. Moreover, somehow she caused the death of her husband and never remarried. Of course, the details of the tragedy in the family are kept silent. And even your grandmother may not know what happened to her father. But exactly one year after your mother was born, she divorces her husband. And she never gets married again. Your mother, in turn, loses her husband - your father. Would it be surprising that you still have not found marital happiness or have had experiences of failed relationships?

The attitudes of ancestors may be different. But no matter how they sound, they always evoke a high degree of trust in a person. After all, we hear them from early childhood and from the people who matter most to us.

What else would you like to say? As in traditional scenario theory, there are also several directions. I won't list them all. I will say the following as an example.

"Replacement child and restorative child"

“Inexplicable facts have also been noticed in cases where we are talking about a “replacement child,” that is, when a child is conceived to replace a recently deceased small child or relative. Often the newborn is named after the deceased and/or is born on the anniversary of the death, although no mourning has taken place. If this deceased is not remembered and mourned, then the life of the surrogate child is not in the happiest way...”

Anne Anseline Schutzenberger

The "strong word" effect

“Without believing in a curse, one might wonder about the effect of a strong word accompanying a strong emotion, especially coming from an authority figure—a priest, a parent, a teacher. It is precisely because of the unconscious nature of the influence of what is said or predicted that I do not trust astrology, fortune telling on cards, reading lines on the hand, clairvoyance, since no one knows whether the predicted misfortune is sometimes realized precisely because of the uttered strong word that in people's minds leads to failure, death, accident and thus makes them possible or predictable, thereby influencing changes in the body - space - time - future (this seems to bring the “automatic fulfillment of predictions” closer and, as it were, creates the stress of prophecy ). This is precisely what may be the evil eye, familiar to us from numerous fairy tales, legends, stories about sorcerers and the vicissitudes of fate. But stress can arise from a negative prediction; similarly, the situation can improve with a favorable prediction and a positive outlook...”

Anne Anseline Schutzenberger

"Anniversary Syndrome"

“The unconscious has a good memory, and it seems to us that it loves family connections and marks important events in the life cycle by repeating the date or age: this is the anniversary syndrome.

We have often observed that birth often occurs when it seems necessary to remember an important event in the family, sad or happy.

Many children are born as if to celebrate the anniversary (birth or death) of the mother’s mother (I deliberately say and write “mother’s mother”, not grandmother, since for the unconscious this changes the meaning. It hears what is said. ), as if recalling the mother's connection with her own mother (or father), the same place of birth - as if there was an agreement between the mother's unconscious and the preconscious of her unborn child that these birth dates would become significant.

Thus, it is often possible to decipher the meaning of a premature or late birth in relation to an important family member - dead or alive..."

Anne Anseline Schutzenberger

There are several other “past scenarios”. But the main question is:

“What should we do about it now?”

I will give several options for working with this syndrome. Please note that this is just an example, as... It is difficult to do this on your own.

1. 1. If the family is a source of mental trauma, then many problems can be overcome by “plunging” into the history of family relationships and resolving the original conflicts there. If our destiny is connected with the history of our family, then we can “replay” the events of the past, weakening the influence of fatal circumstances. You can “meet” one of your ancestors, clarify your relationship with them, get permission or another message from them, using them as a resource. One of the techniques that solves such problems is the “parent interview”, borrowed from transactional analysis, which consists of treating the parental ego state and “clarifying” the relationship with the real parent. A psychodramatic “dialogue with an ancestor” is similar to a parental interview, but it has a different task - to weaken the harmful psychological connection with the problems of ancestors, to separate one’s own and other people’s destinies, or, for example, to free oneself from the “curse of the family.”

1. 2. One form of working with early scenario decisions is the technique of “re-decision therapy,” which is well implemented using psychodrama techniques. For this purpose, there is an early childhood scene in which the child makes a scenario decision, which becomes the basis for future scenario beliefs. This scene needs to be replayed psychodramatically, helping the “child” make a new decision that “cancels” the previous harmful script beliefs. Using such techniques, you can work with any script prohibitions. To overcome the prohibition “don’t live,” for example, they “replay” the scene of a person’s birth, organizing the game in such a way that the person gets a new experience of being accepted by the world.

1. 3. Many of our problems have a longer history and are related to the context of family history. We receive messages from the depths of our species, among them there are positive ones (playing the role of our resources) and negative ones (creating unconstructive fears and restrictions). Some of the positive resource messages do not reach us for various reasons. Like post restante parcels, they are waiting for their addressee. This occurs due to a disrupted communication system in the genus system, when important information is hushed up, repressed into the area of ​​the genus unconscious. A very interesting method is “reconstruction of the clan” - a synthesis of the methods of psychodrama and genosociogram, which allows you to work more fully with the clan system. With the help of a “recreated” family, you can solve many therapeutic problems, first of all, receive powerful resource support from your ancestors, accept initiation, “take” the positive from the group unconscious and “give” the negative, which in this way can be realized. A psychodramatic conversation with a significant ancestor, which is part of this technique, should consist of strengthening the resources that he gives us, and at the same time separating one’s fate from his fate, in autonomizing one’s own life.

I agree, much is not clear. And it is for this purpose that I am launching a training seminar and a series of webinars. In addition, based on the results of seminars and webinars, a contact group will be created where I will help sort out emerging issues.

In my opinion, in psychological practice, be it individual or group work, the context in which a person lives now and in which he grew up and was brought up is of great importance, first of all - the circumstances of the life of his family and clan as a whole. Without taking this information into account, psychological assistance may be incomplete and sometimes ineffective. As A.A. wrote Schutzenberger, " If we treat the individual without addressing the family as a whole, if we have not realized that transgenerational repetitions exist, then we have not done anything meaningful in therapy. At best we can only get temporary relief" On the contrary, taking this important information into account provides new opportunities for psychological interventions and provides resources for solving many problems that would be difficult to resolve without this context.

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My research on genosociograms and anniversary syndrome Schutzenberger Anne Anselin

Anne Anseline Schutzenberger ANCESTOR SYNDROME. Transgenerational connections, family secrets, anniversary syndrome, transmission of trauma and practical use of the genosociogram

Anne Anseline Schutzenberger

ANCESTOR SYNDROME. Transgenerational connections, family secrets, anniversary syndrome, transmission of trauma and practical use of the genosociogram

(translated from French by I.K. Masalkov) M: publishing house of the Institute of Psychotherapy, 2001

1 (p.13)

It's safe to say that in our lives we less free than we think. However we can win our freedom and avoid repetitions, understanding what is happening, realizing these threads in their context and complexity. In this way, we can finally live “our own” life, and not the life of our parents or grandparents, or, for example, the deceased brother whom we “replaced”, sometimes without even realizing it... These complex connections between generations can be seen, felt or anticipate, at least in part. But most often we don’t talk about them: they are lived as elusive, unrecognized, unspoken or secret.

2 (p.168)

One of the most amazing examples- the life of the artist Vincent Van Gogh, born on March 30, 1852, exactly one year after the death of his older brother, also Vincent. The family did not want to talk about him, but the child was given his double name without changes - Vincent-Wilhelm. Vincent Van Gogh's life was tragic, as if someone forbade him to exist. His paternal half-brother, Theo, with whom he was very friendly and who loved him, got married. He had a child, and he named him Vincent-Wilhelm, precisely out of love for his brother. A few months later, Theo writes to his artist brother about his son: “I hope that this Vincent will live and be able to realize himself.” After receiving this letter, Vincent Van Gogh committed suicide. As if for him there could not be two living Vincent Van Goghs at the same time. It was as if his brother had pointed out to him the incompatibility of the presence of both.

3 (p.75)

Secret- this is always a problem.... Freud reminded us that he who has eyes to see and ears to hear states that mortals cannot keep any secrets. “The one whose lips remain silent blurts it out with his fingertips. He gives himself away at every pore.” This leads us to understand and properly appreciate the importance of non-verbal communication and expressing feelings both through body language and eloquent silence.

4 (p.68)

Nicolas Abraham(1968) tells the story of a patient who knew absolutely nothing about his grandfather's past. This gentleman was an amateur geologist. Every Sunday he went to look for stones, collected them, and split them. In addition, he hunted for butterflies, caught them and killed them in a jar of cyanide. What could be more banal! However, this person felt very uncomfortable and tried to find a way to cope with his condition. He was treated by several doctors, including a psychoanalyst, but without much success. He felt uncomfortable in life. Then he turned to Nicolas Abraham, who came up with the idea to conduct research on his family, rising several generations higher. And then he finds out that the patient had a grandfather (mother’s father), about whom no one told! It was a secret. The therapist advised the client to visit his grandfather's relatives. He found out that his grandfather had committed acts that were impossible to admit to - he was suspected of robbing a bank and, perhaps, doing something even worse. He was sent to the African battalion, to the quarries, and then executed in the gas chamber. And the grandson knew nothing about it. What did our patient do on weekends? As an amateur geologist, he knocked off stones and, while hunting large butterflies, killed them in a jar of cyanide. The symbolic circle closes, he expresses a secret (that belonged to his mother), a secret unknown to himself.

5 (p.31)

This leads to the concepts justice and family justice. When justice is not observed, it manifests itself in unbelief, exploitation of some members by others (sometimes in flight, revenge, revenge), even in illness or accidents. Conversely, when justice is observed, there is affection, mutual respect among family members, "family accounts" are conducted carefully. We can talk about "family account balance" And "family ledger", where credit and debit, debts, responsibilities, merits are visible. Otherwise, we have a number of problems that repeat from generation to generation.

6 (p.37)

This is where you can see, as Alain Mijolla showed, to what extent the family problems, for example, of the poet Arthur Rimbaud, prevented him from living: he was unable to solve them, and he fled. One of his problems was the departure of his father, a military man, when the boy was 6 years old. But if we turn to previous generations, the same fact is observed: a hundred years earlier, his great-grandfather left his son at 6 years old, and paternal men continued to leave their sons at the same age, leaving or dying: these were “unpaid bills of the original family." It is this reactivation at the same age that Josephine Hilgard calls anniversary syndrome or “double anniversary” (if the phenomenon repeats with each of the children).

7 (p.146)

In every person's life there are bad periods, black series of troubles and failures. People don’t know what’s tormenting them, they feel uneasy, they don’t sleep well, they don’t feel well, they catch any infection, they get the flu, or a minor traffic accident, or a sprained ankle, or something more serious, and sometimes fatal. They often experience malaise, which cannot be detected by either an x-ray or a blood test. They experience a streak of failures without knowing why. They go to doctors who reveal nothing. But sometimes they are diagnosed with cancer or urgently need surgery, and something happens to them during the operation or post-operative complications arise. When compiling genosociograms, that is, a family tree on which important life events, dates and ages are noted, one can notice that very often all this happens during the same period and at the same age at which someone in their family died or separated from someone something, or was in the hospital. […] Let us recall that President Kennedy himself refused to put a bulletproof top on his car in Dallas on November 22, 1963, “forgetting” about the threat of death and the fact that his grandfather’s father Patrick died on November 22, 1858. He forgot about this event , but didn’t forget to take risks.

8 (p.105)

Starting formulate historical-economic-sociological hypotheses, you notice that if before this time the client said that he could not remember anything, then at this moment you can say that some kind of “latch” opened in his head, and he will now exclaim: “Oh, yes, this However, I remember that the family became very poor not during the Panama events, it happened at the time of the Suez Canal events, when (my father or my grandmother) changed schools because complications arose.” Entire blocks of memory suddenly open up- simply because, so to speak, the locks have been removed from the memory zones: free associations begin to arise, and people are able to remember extremely significant things that they knew without knowing it. After this, they will be able to remember that they knew a great-aunt, a neighbor of their godmother or grandmother, a regimental friend of their grandfather, with whom the great-aunt is still in contact... They will finally be able to make inquiries.

9 (p.112)

I became together with Helen look for the meaning of her name and suggested that it could be an abbreviation - L.N., “el”, “en” (Americans like to give names with initials). I thought that we were talking about a secret reminder, about a travesty name, about a secret meaning that needs to be unraveled, about initials. Then I advised her to look at the list of professors and teachers who might have worked at that college during her mother’s studies. Helen searched for names on L.N. and found a certain Louis Nicolas. She went to him and asked if he knew her mother. It turned out that this man was indeed her father; he did not know that the student had become pregnant from him, and was happy that he had a daughter.

10 (p. 161, 164)

Not believing in a curse, you can think about the effect strong words, accompanying a strong emotion, especially coming from an authority figure - a priest, doctor, parent, teacher. […] During the revolution, the peasants of Savoy hid the priest, but after the terror he came out of hiding. He thanked them and blessed them, saying: “Let the eldest child in every generation be your guardian.” Since then, for two centuries, the eldest child in each generation has become, as it were, a “heavenly angel” and guards their peace. … I talked at length with this lady and explained that everything can be understood differently, that there is a difference between a blessing and a curse, that the phrase “The eldest child in each generation will be your keeper” can be interpreted differently depending on the frame of reference used. ... You can take care of your family in different ways... Either treat (doctor, nurse), or be a useful member of society, an assistant. So we put the phrase and the prediction in another semantic frame. Since then, something has changed in her vision, in her life, and the baby has recovered. Ten years later, she is still alive and well. For the first time since the revolution, the eldest child in the family does not die. The repetition of events in every generation for two hundred years - how is this possible? Why? What's happening? Where is this recorded in the family and personal unconscious? How is the transfer carried out?

11 (p.182)

To put it simply, at birth and even in the womb the child receives a certain number of messages: he is given his last name and first name, expectations of roles that he will have to play or avoid. These role expectations can be positive and/or negative. For example, the idea that he is “a copy of his grandfather’s brother Jules” may be projected onto a child, and everyone around him begins to think that he will be an adventurer, a “disreputable citizen,” like his grandfather. The child will be made a scapegoat; he will not be “put on the clothes of the deceased”, whom he will have to replace. Like the fairies around the cradle of Sleeping Beauty, they will predict a lot of things for him - instructions, scenarios, the future. This will be said explicitly or will remain unspoken and will be implied “by default” and kept strictly confidential. However, explicit or implicit expectations will “program” the child.

12 (p.188)

...with the current level of knowledge we, clinicians, should observe and describe these phenomena - say, strange cases of transmission from one unconscious to another, collect facts, clinical descriptions, publish them, conduct clinical and at the same time statistical studies (as Josephine Hilgard was able to do on the anniversary syndrome). Then, perhaps, understanding these “phantoms” of the unconscious, these “repetitions”, “anniversaries”, will bring us closer to understanding interacting beings who have intuition and language, i.e. us. The dead man grabs the living, as the saying goes and Roman law.

http://www.psy-analyst.ru/autoref/3schut8.asp