10 takeaways from the 2017 North American Systemic Constellations Conference in Virginia

 By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP
 
We’ve just finished the final day of the 2017 North American Systemic Constellations Conference.
 
This year’s conference, with the theme of “Bridging the Divide: Healing for the Personal and Collective Soul,” took place Oct. 5-8 in Virginia Beach, Va. It’s the first time in several years that the conference has been located on the East Coast of the United States.
 
We’d like to think there are other noteworthy and newsworthy items that are worth sharing.  Here are my 10 takeaways from the conference:

1. Our conference attracted a lot of newcomers, some familiar with Family and Systemic Constellations and some quite unfamiliar but eager to learn. There was a pleasant gasp of surprise when the question, “Who is here for the first time?” was asked during the opening session and nearly a third of the group raised their hands.
   
2. We hosted a goodly number of young people, which shows us that they are strongly attracted to  this healing, learning and change modality. Carola Castillo, one of the keynote speakers, discussed the perspective of the Millennial generation, their willingness to investigate this kind of innovative work and thinking, and their love of social media to communicate about it.
   
3. People came from everywhere, as keynoters, presenters and attendees. The registration roster included facilitators, teachers and attendees from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Croatia, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Portugal, Russia and the United States.
4. Innovations abounded!  Karl-Heinz Rauscher introduced his Healing Voices, which he describes as an ancient healing language that he receives, during his pre-conference workshop with Anngwyn St. Just and in other sessions. Carola Castillo, a longtime innovator with her systemic footprints and figures, demonstrated her Reconstuctive Constellations, a structure consisting of one client and three representatives where she gives the client his or her issue privately and then opens the field to movement by all. Sarah Peyton demonstrated her ways of working with resonance with two mini-constellations of “time travel empathy” where the client sees and heals a past trauma, then facilitated a longer constellation using the findings of Jaak Panksepp's neural circuits -- where we saw and disentangled the intergenerational entanglement of nervous systems in the wake of tragedy.
   
5. Social justice and collective healing was a key track of the four tracks that were highlighted at the conference, with much focus on the importance of healing of the collective and how facilitators of Family and Systemic Constellations might respond. Thomas Hübl led us into that direction on Thursday night with his keynote talk about the Pocket Project, which aims to explore collective trauma and shadow work. (The other tracks included personal healing, indigenous and natural wisdom, and organizational leadership.)
   
6. A workshop on “Healing the Trans-generational Traumas and Violence of U.S. Slavery” with Tanya Mena and Salome Raheim may have been the best-attended workshop, drawing a large and highly interested group. The facilitators took us on a journey starting with the early slave trade of the 1500s to the present-day lives of African American people today.
7. Judy Wallace conducted a workshop that looked at the “soul” of American democracy. As the workshop unfolded, we saw that American democracy met and connected on the land with the indigenous democratic traditions and wisdom for a whole new potential. Looking historically, she guesses that it is likely the Iroquois nation and confederacy of tribes.
8. John Cheney presented on "Ethnocentric Belonging," a departure from his typical workshops on Five-Element Chinese acupressure. His workshop looked into how a statement that seems ridiculous to the "liberals" has in fact deep roots of necessary survival of the nation's or community's ancestors of the past. The timely example was Pat Robertson's recent statement that the Las Vegas shooting attack was the result of disrespect for President Trump. John found a way to trace this statement to a certain kind of truth through the process of Systemic Constellations.
   
9. Our ears, brains and bodies vibrated to many kinds of music and sound. In addition to Karl-Heinz Rauscher's Healing Voices, we listened when musician Chuck Cogliandro showed us how drumming and percussion can support multiple states of consciousness when we facilitate Family and Systemic Constellations sessions; he also drummed during the fun Saturday night dance. Eily Aurora showed us how to use voice, sound, harp and percussion during her workshop, and Emily Blefeld beat on her drum to shift the energies during the workshop she facilitated with Dan Booth Cohen.
   
10. The workshop titled “Introducing Family and Systemic Constellations” to Your Corner of the Universe” was well attended despite being scheduled among the last workshops of the last day of the event. There’s a clear hunger and urgency to sorting through how practitioners on all levels can educate and inform their communities about their message of the power of Systemic Constellations.

This article is a quick overview of the 2017 conference. In-depth journal  articles about conference highlights will appear in the next issue of The Knowing Field, and we hope to offer future blog articles that report on various aspects of the conference experience. Feel free to share your conference highlights in the comments of this article.

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About the author
 
Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP, served as a member of the steering committee for the 2017 North American Systemic Constellations Conference. She is a board-certified psychodrama trainer and certified constellations facilitator and trainer in private practice in Lancaster, Pa., and  has presented at many state and national conferences, including the 2011, 2015 and 2017 constellations conferences. She is the author of Integrating Psychodrama and Systemic Constellation Work: New Directions for Action Methods, Mind-Body Therapies and Energy Healing and other books about alternative psychotherapies and methods. Learn more about Karen and her books, programs and trainings here.

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Watch for news for the 2019 North American Systemic Constellations Conference at a date and location to be determined. Our educational programs are designed for health professionals, educators, executive and life coaches, consultants, community activists, change makers and others interested in alternative health and innovative practices. More info here. We'd love to have you subscribe to our e-letter here.

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