By Yael Reiss
The pioneering psychologist Erik Erikson observed that from birth in each stage in life we have a developmental task to accomplish. Once we accomplish this task it gives us the emotional, cognitive and motor abilities we need to build upon to move to the next stage and go through and accomplish the challenge to acquire another ability, and so on. It’s as if by acquiring this new found strength, a gate opens up and now we can move on, well equipped for what’s to come next.
If we fail to learn and develop the emotional, cognitive or motor skill in any developmental stage, we still grow old in age, but we don’t really grow up, as we are unequipped for the challenge that the older age naturally brings with it.
That is when we find ourselves stuck and repeating problem patterns and getting nowhere.
Traumatic events can have enormous impact, challenging us on our way to learn and develop the new set of skills that will enable us to mature and live a full life.
Also, simple and common parenting mistakes can block a child from accomplishing their age-appropriate tasks. It doesn’t have to be traumatic. One of the most common and most destructive examples is ‘helicopter parenting’ – bubble wrapping children from having to go through a challenge in life (such as learn how to deal with a difficult social upheaval).
Most parents do this out of a need to protect their child from a pain they themselves experienced as children and weren’t equipped to deal with, because their own parents were hindering them as children, etc.
This is a good example of how generational trauma is created and passed down to the next generations, and an example to how generational problem patterns continue descending down the generations.
Over more than 20 years of working with people I witness again and again how important and effective it is to address the different aspects of a person. I like to call it “the different sides of the same elephant”: Addressing the individual traumas a person has gone through; addressing the generational traumas that were experienced by the predecessors; addressing patterns and burdens passed down to a person; addressing the unconscious levels of our being; the conscious thought process and conscious understanding; addressing the nutritional side of things; the physical aspects; the time perception and organization, and even more, depending on the case at hand.
Attending a Systemic Family Constellations workshop is a most effective way to address the generational trauma and unresolved patterns that have been passed down to you from previous generations.
It is a most effective way to do the work so your children grandchildren and next generations will not have to find themselves stuck in the same rut that you found yourself in.
Perhaps now it’s easier to understand how attending a Systemic Family Constellations workshop is a great and effective way to ‘catch up’ on a developmental challenge that your predecessors couldn’t accomplish. For you and for your next generation’s sake.
