Dyrian Benz-Chartrand, PsyD, Santa Barbara Graduate Institute’s Director of External Programs, serves on the core faculty at SBGI and the adjunct faculty at Antioch University. A therapist who practices relational somatic psychology in Santa Barbara, he is also an organizational consultant and international trainer.
In 1979 Dr. Benz-Chartrand co-founded the Hakomi Institute for experiential, mindful, body-centered psychotherapy. Since 1995 he has been a practitioner – and later a trainer – of Bert Hellinger’s Family Constellations work; he and his wife JoAnna Chartrand-Benz currently co-direct the Hellinger Constellation Institute of California – www.essentialsolutions.info.  In 1990, he founded GroupField, a systems-based method for working with groups and teams. In addition, he established the Santa Barbara Psychology Conferences, hosted by Santa Barbara City College Continuing Education, and serves as moderator.

The interviewer: Arabella received her B.A. in Psychology from Stanford University, completed one-year’s M.A. coursework in clinical psychology, and spent many years in business management.  A Buddhist student and practitioner for thirteen years, Arabella has written a book on Buddhist reform that is in its final editing stages.

Arabella: Tell us about Family Constellations – what they are and how you became interested in them.

Dyrian: Family Constellations support the increased flow of love in a family.
We usually see family loyalties across generations run deep and find it important to explore, “How is my life influenced by my ancestors, by the people that actually came before me – parents, grandparents, and so on, the ones both dead and alive, the ones both known and unknown to me?  And what will bring a sense of inclusion and belonging to family members?”

Arabella: Why is the dis-inclusion of a family member an important issue?

Dyrian: Let me give a little background here.  This Family Constellations’ process was started some twenty years ago by Bert Hellinger, a therapist from Germany.
He noticed that the issue of belonging was especially crucial in families.  When the family excludes what actually belongs to the family, it causes problems. 

Just as we know in Psychology, when I repress or deny something that is very real or try to act as if it isn’t so, it usually has a way of blindsiding me.  When we exclude something in the family – when it’s not talked about or is just whispered – then it’s usually about somebody that’s considered bad or undesirable. Often it is something concerning criminality or sexuality.  Those are generally the triggers that cause families to exclude somebody.  But what tends to happen, surprisingly frequently, is that someone else in a later generation seems to take up what the family tried to exclude. 

It is almost as if the family, as a whole, is a kind of pattern that tries to keep itself intact.  When someone tries to exclude a part of the pattern, it is as if that family pattern, or the family soul, tries to activate someone else in the family to act like that excluded part, unconsciously, without their knowing.  This sort of pattern or disturbance seems to be kept in the family long enough so that the family finally recognizes it or pays attention to it, or says, “Yes, that’s part of our family.”

Arabella: What about relationships that you want to let go of, but something won’t let you?  In such cases, not family members!  But relationships in which you seem unable to avoid the connection?

Dyrian: Sometimes other people are also replacements for family members.  That’s what I was trying to say before…people take up roles that don’t belong to them.  A family member may not be able to let certain patterns go because that pattern keeps someone who the family is trying to get rid of in the family.  So, in a way, that person who is “stuck with it” is stuck with it because of the family’s unwillingness or inability to include what belongs – so, they’re stuck with it in a painful way.  In that sense, our life is not totally in our own control.

Arabella: By re-including this family member, and in addressing the problem itself, how do you reform a new and healthier pattern for the family?

Dyrian: Something seems to change for the person who does the Constellation.  They get a physical picture of a solution that wasn’t there before, and somehow just seeing that and participating in that seems to get a change started in themselves.  Some kind of reconciliation and relaxation often happens. 
What’s a little more curious here is that it sometimes also seems to have an effect on the family members who are not actually there when the constellation takes place.
For example, we just had a Constellation with someone who was estranged from his mother for twenty-some years.  He hadn’t talked with her and they had this very tense relationship.  So he was contemplating a visit back to her – they lived a couple of thousand miles apart.  Prior to the visit, he did a Constellation.

Arabella: By “did a Constellation,” you mean that he participated in a Constellation at one of your workshops?

Dyrian: Yes.  He set up a Constellation that focused on his estrangement, between himself and his mother.  In the Constellation, which happened with a representative for the mother (because the mother was not there herself,) much reconciliation happened between him and his mother.
When he then later actually visited his mom, he told me that he had a completely unbelievable visit with her.  Unlike before, this time they communicated, they reconnected and there was closeness.  He also found his mother to be more receptive.  It seemed as if she was affected by the constellation even though she had no knowledge that it had even happened.
All this supports the understanding that we have some kind of deep connection across time and space with each other, and especially with those who gave us life, our parents.  We may be connected in more ways than just psychologically, emotionally, or biologically.  There seems to be a deeper layer that keeps us connected.

Arabella: And what about all this catches your interest?

Dyrian: This more subtle dimension is something I’m particularly curious about.  Some people think about it as energetic – I’m not so sure it’s just that.  But there is obviously something at work, some force, some underlying movement in these Constellations.  There’s a poem by Wendel Berry that speaks about stopping and waiting to move until you’re moved by what moves all else.  And that’s what I’m interested in.  It includes the emotional and the psychological realm, and it also goes beyond that.  Family Constellations is a method that taps into that.

Arabella: How can our readers participate in Constellations?

Dyrian:  Together with my wife, JoAnna, I direct the Constellation Institute of California here in Santa Barbara.  We both train facilitators in this method and have individuals who come to these weekends to observe a constellation or have one done.  In this work, we also focus very much on the role of the body and we also train the capacity for awareness of the individual.  The ability to cultivate presence is an important ingredient in the way that we do this constellation work and in how we work in our sessions in general.  Even though the weekend is open to everyone, we always extend a special invitation to SBGI students.  What is important to know is that we also do this constellation process in one-to-one individual sessions.  It is surprising how potent such a session can turn out to be.

In our upcoming year of Constellation weekends - along with other themes, such as trauma, health issues, family entanglements, depression, developmental trauma, etc. – we will be focusing on pre- and perinatal (PPN) experiences, as well as on birth trauma.  We have found that through the constellation work, a lot can be revealed about these experiences and much healing can also occur from unresolved trauma related to PPN issues.  For the upcoming dates and for more information, see our website: www.essentialsolutions.info.  Or contact us by email at: dbenz@sbgi.edu.  I’d like to note that SBGI students can receive credit for personal therapy hours from the constellation work, whether it is in private sessions or in the group.  We also offer sliding scale rates to SBGI students.

Arabella: Anything to add?

There is additional work that I do with groups called GroupField, which also includes this other dimension of the inherent potential.  This potential has to do with the group as a whole.  The togetherness of a group creates a kind of field of its own which is specific to each group.  Inherent in this field is what this group can do, what it cannot do, what it’s capable of, what it’s not capable of!  Each relationship field has its potential.

Arabella: Potential toward…?

Dyrian: That depends on the group.  For example, in relationships it’s usually easy to define your expectations and hopes and wishes.  But it is quite difficult to define the potential and the actual capacity of that relationship until you’ve been in it for a while and have a feel for it.  And that is what I mean.  In this same way I see an inherent potential in every group.
Once you can tune into the relational field of the group, then you can get a sense of that potential and capacity.  In my group trainings I teach students how to do this.  With practice it can be learned.  What I’m saying is when we tune into a bigger presence – a little less self-centered perception – then we just get more information and that additional information can be quite helpful.

Arabella: What has been important about being part of SBGI for you?

Dyrian: My connection with SBGI is through somatic psychology.  Because everything that happens to us in life happens in the context of our body, which naturally includes our thoughts and emotions!  There are many so-called religious or spiritual teachings which equate the body with sinfulness, with lust, with desires and with everything not spiritual and mature.  Primarily, spirit or being is seen as light - pure and evolved.  I find that attitude quite limited.  It is my understanding that embodying our presence is a very important capacity for human beings.  All of the joyful moments of our lives actually come through our body.  No one just thinks happy thoughts and then is happy just in their brain.
I think SBGI is trying to look at human beings and their psychology in a bigger context.

Arabella: How does the work that you’ve done with GroupField and Family Constellations relate to addressing group propensities toward cruelty or commission of atrocities?

Dyrian: What we learned from Family Constellations is that there seem to be clear orders of love or patterns that help love to flow.  Strengthening these patterns of love reduces cruelty.

Arabella: I’m fascinated by the notion that a cult, of any kind – including just a group of people – can become a kind of a family.

Dyrian: It is all about belonging.  If I want to belong, I will do a lot.  I think we’ve all been in intimate relationships where we have done things that, later on, we felt ashamed, or regretful about.  If it can happen so easily with one person, then, with more people, of course there is even more pressure!
Usually we think that it will be my conscience that tells me the difference between right and wrong and keeps me out of things like cults.  In Family Constellations we have seen over and over again that people murder people with the best of conscience, saying, “I was just following orders,” “That’s what I needed to do,” or, “I would have been killed if I didn’t…”.  So, conscience is not necessarily a good guide for making me do good things in life.  But, it’s a stronger guide for making me do things to fit in, particularly to fit in with my family.

Arabella: Well, I see that there are levels of conscience.

Dyrian: That’s a good way of thinking about it.

Arabella: What you’re talking about is a lower stratification – group conscience versus a higher conscience that is more right/wrong oriented.

Dyrian: Let’s consider that.  Hasn’t your right/wrong been overwritten surprisingly easily when it comes to trying to fit in somewhere?

Arabella: It can be, but not necessarily.

Dyrian: That is what I mean.  We can hold surprisingly clear attitudes about right/wrong and it’s astonishing how sometimes we can suspend that because we want to fit in and be part of some group.  Conscience seems to monitor this basic need to fit in.  Our desire to be included and belong is immense.