Relationships matter because we are social beings. We are born into families, culture and society and we thrive on human connection..
And yet we are individuals. We live a combination of both the personal and social aspects of ourselves simultaneously.
Our entry into the world is our first experience of others and provides an initial impression of who we are through their eyes. Through this we form an image or feeling of who we are and this forms a deep psychological imprint from which self worth arises.
Children are egocentric in nature, in the way they think the world revolves around them. This means they easily assume the way people respond, behave or treat them is because of them. They assume they are the sole cause of responses in others.
If our parents are delighted to have us in their lives, we interpret this as being loved. We feel valued.
If our parents are going through difficult times or are distant, cool, sad or angry we take this on board too. We interpret this as them not being happy with us and we don’t feel valued. This may lead to seeking approval throughout life of partners, friends and colleagues.
The problem is if these early bonds are not formed well we carry them into adulthood. We take this evaluation of ourselves into the world or feel responsible for the feelings of others. Feel guilty, sad or angry for no apparent reason. In my experience this is the basis of most self-esteem issues.
Self esteem is the core foundation for worthiness. Once we know this it is easy to see how our sense of worthiness affects our choices in relationships, career, success and wellbeing.
This is important for children and parents alike. As parents most of us love our children deeply and are unaware of what we carry in terms of emotional burdens and its affect on them, even with the best of intentions.
Feelings such as sadness are easily passed through generations via relational bonds. It’s easy to see how a sad mother rears a sad child and down the track a sad grandchild emerges.
This is a family system problem and yet most counsellors and psychotherapists are trained in personal therapies only that perceive clients as isolated beings on the whole. Most approaches are not equipped to look at the relational aspects of the human condition unless they are relationship or family therapies. Because of this many therapists feel the need to do further training in relationships or family therapies to spread their portfolio of offerings to clients.. Unfortunately each style of therapy is separate and often cones from a different philosophy and uses different terminologies which can be confusing for the client.
Hence we have a psychotherapy culture that is striated, resulting in therapists either doing endless training in different modalities to manage a range of client issues or sending their clients to specialists in specific areas..
While psychotherapy outcomes may indeed include encouraging personal responsibility and autonomy for their clients, in discovering who they are and how they perceive the world, the affects of family of origin bonding are often not addressed and remain unresolved.
If how we feel about ourselves is due to our early bonding or family patterns, this is not a purely personal problem and is likely to be unresolved if treated with individual psychotherapy when the family system is the fundamental issue.
Seeing many psychotherapy clients over 17 years I have noticed that individual approaches are unhelpful for deeper issues and particularly for those that have their roots in the family system.
My discovery of Family Constellations was a revelation in showing me another way to assist people in finding a better place with their family of origin and hence a better place within which results in higher self-esteem. More importantly the Family Constellation process is experiential and brief rather than lasting for months or years.
I have trained in many psychotherapy approaches including hypnotherapy and NLP and find value in each of them. However for those people who have spent their lives receiving psychotherapy or personal development who have not found a solution to their issue of (for example) poor self esteem, dealing with it in the context of the family system with the modality Family Constellations is often a powerful solution.
I look forward to a time where Family Constellations is as popular here as in Germany, Spain and South America where groups and private sessions take place in many suburbs and is embraced by the community; parents, children and grandparents alike as a practical solution to life issues.
I see a world where a more unified approach to counselling and psychotherapy is common place so as to work with both the personal and the family system issues that we carry in a unified and wholistic way.
I am excited to have developed the modality Rapid Core Healing which is presented in my book to be launched on 26 May in Brisbane Australia. The modality is presented with case studies and transcripts showing how it may be used by ‘people who help people’ in a seamless wholistic way for the benefit of all.
Book Launch 26 May 2017 Brisbane Qld
Yildiz is the founder of two psychotherapies, a psychotherapist, clinical hypnotherapist, Family Constellations facilitator and educator/trainer and author of three books. Her latest book Rapid Core Healing Pathways to growth and emotional healing (2016). Yildiz lives and runs a private practice in Brisbane, Australia, travelling nationally and globally to train clinicians and run workshops for the general public.