Pulling Curtains Gently: Does Constellating Systems have a Heart for Complex Trauma?
You will witness and hear how I work with my change seekers in one-on-one, partner, and group sessions, both online and in person. Addressing an individual’s complex trauma benefits from the support of a “systemic village.” Communal holding is profoundly useful when insurmountably painful imprints of early biographical wounds emerge. Their emergence can be met with presence, tenderness, and firmness in equal measure, offered by the facilitator and the “village circle.” Facilitator guidance gently pulls back the curtains from hidden, belligerent, or collapsed survival parts. In doing so, we must avoid re-traumatization by including creative systemic tools when complex trauma arises.
All present in the process need to tread lightly. Issues may reach back to times when nourishment, protection, and guidance in a change seeker’s life were scarce, violated, or altogether missing. Routinely, survival parts resort to
outdated responses: getting through, colluding, (partially) dissociating, and more. For such times, I will share numerous tools and ways of treading lightly: attunement, preparing with initial trauma mapping, use of language and voice, trust-forming comportment, metaphors and stories, procedural pacing, spacing and choosing, creative representation, and more.
Note: This way of constellating is not beholden to classical psychotherapy; albeit, it is profoundly therapeutic. We engage everyone in the “village circle” as resourced temporary witnesses in service of mending community through communal mending—one change seeker at a time.
Quotes:
“We do not comprehend the mysteries of the universe, but we know that relationships help.”
Pádraig Ó Tuama / Host of Poetry Unbound
Short Bio:
Karin Dremel, m.t.s.
For the last 35 years, I have studied constellating, facilitated for 25 years, and taught (my ever-evolving work) for 22 years. Learning from many first-generation teachers has been a privilege and was profoundly formative. My constellator skills are enriched by numerous other schools of thought and study: I am a Licensed German Healing Practitioner (HP), certified in Acupuncture (1993-1995) and Rolfing® (1998-2000), trained in Sensorimotor Therapy (1993-1995), and have extensively apprenticed in Social Trauma, guided by Anngwyn St. Just (CCST 1995-2001), and counting. This array of skills was further integrated (2010-2017) while earning a Bachelor in Social Sciences at MSU Denver and a Master’s in Theological Studies at Iliff School of Theology, Denver. The confluence of apprenticing in personal trauma while developing Systemic (Trauma) Imagination continues to guide my delight and passion for constellating. Since 2022, this self-taught multimedia artist has leaned into artistic talent to develop a visual storytelling tool, which I named constellaging℠; a contemplative form of self-paced, emergent constellating.
Public contact:
WhatsApp: (+1) 303 808 6280
EMAIL: karin@karindremel.com