Should family therapy include your deceased great-great-grandmother? Epigenetics meets after-death c

II didn't want to communicate with dead people. My Dad, however, came through and I was convinced enough that it was him. He gave some advice which seemed clear and coherent. My question to Marla after our session ended was this. Even though this was my Dad, how am I to know that his perspective is any more accurate than mine?

Another great question! A bit of background first: In most therapies, the client comes to the therapist with a problem and is looking for help or a solution. The work is problem driven. This is not suitable when engaging with second dimension consciousness. As a result, we only begin to work when the client states a clear intention for the work. e,g, "I am depressed" does not give us a suitable starting point. The reason is when we open the field to the ancestors, they often come with their own intentions which may not be in alignment with what the client wants to work on. The ancestors can hijack the process when the intention is not clear. "I want my depression to lift," contains a clear intention. With this we can open the Field.

We don't accept as a given that the consciousness of ancestors is necessarily omniscient or more accurate in its perspective. Their cognitive functioning is simplistic. They can be obsessive emotionally. The factual information drifts in time.

What they do provide is the capacity to take back the impact of trauma that has infected subsequent generations and blessings to open a pathway of life/love consciousness that solves the modern existential dilemma.
 
Cool.

I've wondered similar things (as how much more insightful a deceased person's opinion is than mine).

Reece , I think it is no different than among the living. There are people in our lives we would not dream of taking seriously, others we look up to because we feel they have qualities and wisdom we aspire to. Dead relatives can share insights you were not privy to yourself and that perspective can proof invaluable, but being dead does not make anyone a spiritual master. That’s just my opinion.
 
I participated in a family constellation some ten years ago and am only realizing through my attempts to formulate an opinion, how much harm this session has done. In my case the scenario was abstract, did not lead to any meaningful answers and brought up a lot of fears I had to deal with on my own. Both the therapist who referred me to this work and the therapist doing the work were not willing to support me in processing the adverse reactions.

This touches the heart of Skeptiko's mission, With consciousness beyond the ordinary debunked, dismissed and denied...when those with intuitive gifts are labelled crazy, unfit and unemployable...with the universe of licensed professionals confined by the tyranny of the materialists...how are we as a society able to develop effective therapies that access second and third dimension consciousness and train competent practitioners?

Otto Rank, considered to be one of the great geniuses of early 20th century psychiatry noted a hundred years ago that psychology was at a crossroads between two paths. One led towards developing tools and techniques to control or manipulate the behavior of other people. A second path led towards aiding people to increase self knowledge. He correctly predicted the profession would move towards the former and abandon the latter. He summed it up this way; Controlling other people has practical value. Increasing self-knowledge is often disturbing and it doesn't always help.

It sounds to me that your process touched a core wound in a way that was disturbing and didn't help. Unfortunate.

Eighteen months ago I engaged in a series of mediumship readings that brought light to the dark secret my family is hiding and perpetuated through both ancestral lines for several generations. I have no conscious memory of anything happening to me; however carried the symptoms of PTSD since infancy.

The PTSD did not stem from any physical trauma, but the daily violations that were required to keep a victim quiet, doubting her own experience and crush every attempt to have a voice and the pain validated.

You articulated what I consider the definition of "crazy-making." It is when a child's inner knowing truth is severely denied by the family's external narrative. It may happen in thousand of ways, but common events are cases of incest where the victim has to sit at the holiday table with the abuser and all the grownups fiercely suppress the secret. Or when a baby (born out of wedlock) is given away or sent to an orphanage; the siblings in the family feel their missing brother in their hearts but the parents pretend there is no brother. Or a child has a different father from the siblings, but the reality is denied. This creates trauma that repeats and flows through the generations. When the truth is acknowledged and the excluded family members on the second dimension are honored and given a place in the heart, the entanglement releases.

Needless to say talk therapy produced few meaningful changes and more often than not triggered new violations, when I dared to suggest that the therapist was on the wrong track or simply a certain approach was not working for me. The same pattern played out with energy healers, practitioners of traditional or alternative medicine and any relationship I got into, be it personal or professional.

The mediumship readings have shown to be a turning point in my life, where I am no longer fighting unseen forces, understand what happened, and was able to start the forgiveness and healing process.

To answer Alex’s question: yes, psychotherapy does need to change to bring in a form of after-death communication. Frankly, I don’t care what you call it and if these are truly dead relatives or just an energetic field that affects us. I learned firsthand how unprocessed trauma is passed down generations and the charges are sitting in our bodies or energetic fields and play out ad nauseam until we get the message and process them.

It is so heartening to read this words. Perhaps you can imagine what it's like for us to discuss our work with professional peers. As Emily and I said in the podcast, getting the messages and processing them doesn't take months or years of weekly therapy or a lifetime of medication. I had a meeting a few years ago with the corporate director of clinical services for a chain of addition rehab centers. He told me that their typical clients goes to rehab 7 times before they are addiction free for life. I told him about the Constellation process and asked if they would be interested in conducting a trial to test whether Constellations could clear addiction in an single 30 day treatment program. His response was, "Do the math. If it worked, we would end up closing 6 out of every 7 centers we operate."

My caveat to all this is good risk management. Harm does happen when a therapist, energy worker or medium does not understand what he or she is dealing with or simply brings unprocessed baggage into a session. Both Dan and Emily seem to understand this and are impressing with the knowledge and care in this forum.

Yes! Thank you!
 
Really interesting. Thanks for sharing that. I'm also someone who has been swimming upstream my whole life, fighting unseen demons on a daily basis. And sadly, I see my children fighting these same battles. We have a couple of suicides that were surrounded by silence of course. One wonders not only about what drove those actions, but what went on before that, and before that? Whose battles am I actually fighting? They certainly have little to do with the direction I would chose in life.

It pains my heart to read these words. Whose battles am I [and your children] actually fighting? The answer can be known.
 
Otto Rank, considered to be one of the great geniuses of early 20th century psychiatry noted a hundred years ago that psychology was at a crossroads between two paths. One led towards developing tools and techniques to control or manipulate the behavior of other people. A second path led towards aiding people to increase self knowledge. He correctly predicted the profession would move towards the former and abandon the latter. He summed it up this way; Controlling other people has practical value. Increasing self-knowledge is often disturbing and it doesn't always help.
wow... stunning. I guess he could have added that controlling other people can be more easily monetized than increasing self-awareness.
 
Reece, to be honest with you, I really can't remember. We have become friends since then. I will ask her that question again and as soon as she gets back to me I'll give you her answer. Promise!
Reece, I just spoke to Marla. Her answer was that even though she communicates with folks that have passed, she only passes on information as she receives it. As to the validity of the information or whether people have more insight, she can't say. She suggested a couple of interviews she participated in with Tom Campbell ( My Big Toe ). Just google their two names together.
 
I enjoyed this podcast episode a lot. It gives more context and pieces to the puzzle regarding after-death communications and our relationship with our departed ancestors. I have a couple of questions for Dan Cohen or others:

1. My wife is adopted. She knows very little about her birth parents and has never contacted them. She has had great relationships with her adoptive parents, siblings (3 brothers- not adopted), grandparents, and other extended family. She has actually had an ADC experience with her departed adoptive grandparents. Would an adopted person undergoing this type of therapy interact with her departed birth relatives, adopted relatives, or both? Have you had any particular experiences working with adopted clients that could shed light on this?

2. There has been a lot of interest in genealogy research in the past few years, with companies like Ancestry and others having a lot of growth and success and generating TV shows such as "Who do you think you are?" Do you see genealogy and family history research as being related to what you do, and perhaps being therapeutic for people?
 
From the transcript:
Dr. Dan Booth Cohen: But it’s not collapsing and it depends on consciousness being located in the brain. No one’s going to take that pill unless they believe that their consciousness is in their brain; and that the problems they have regarding their emotions, their behaviors, their relationships, their mind–[all of] that is brain-based. And then the pill. But if you think that consciousness is a phenomenon that we’re immersed in, why would you take a pill? Why would anybody take a pill for it? It’s ridiculous.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/hea...isk-of-suicide-biggest-ever-review-finds.html

Antidepressants can raise the risk of suicide, biggest ever review finds

Antidepressant use doubles the risk of suicide in under 18s and the risks to adults may have been seriously underestimated, researchers found

 
1. My wife is adopted. She knows very little about her birth parents and has never contacted them. She has had great relationships with her adoptive parents, siblings (3 brothers- not adopted), grandparents, and other extended family. She has actually had an ADC experience with her departed adoptive grandparents. Would an adopted person undergoing this type of therapy interact with her departed birth relatives, adopted relatives, or both? Have you had any particular experiences working with adopted clients that could shed light on this?

Emily and I frequently work with individuals and families around issues relating to adoption. We find many troublesome emotional, behavioral and relationship issues follow pathways of consciousness through the biological lineage. Even in the most nurturing, loving and supportive adoptive families, adopted children bear the wound of being separated from their mothers, fathers and siblings. We come into being and grow into our human form in our mother's womb and remain emotionally connected throughout our lives. This is a biological fact.

Adoptive grandparents and siblings who have passed can be present as resources. However, when looking for the source of generation trauma, the pathways of consciousness we explore brings us to biological parents, grandparents and beyond. Even with a complete absence of factual information about the birth family, it is possible to tap into second dimensions consciousness and make contact with the family members whose traumas remain active in their living descendants. These healings are quite beautiful and potent.


2. There has been a lot of interest in genealogy research in the past few years, with companies like Ancestry and others having a lot of growth and success and generating TV shows such as "Who do you think you are?" Do you see genealogy and family history research as being related to what you do, and perhaps being therapeutic for people?

Unearthing facts about family history and genealogy has a palliative effect, but it rarely offers that powerful healing experience so many people are yearning for.
Our scientific-technological culture is lost in time and suffering from a kind of collective amnesia because we don’t remember who we are or where we came from.
Our minds are polluted with negative thoughts and dark emotions. Beyond the facts, it is possible to feel the core of our existential crisis. Here, we return to the womb and meet the gateway to our mother, our mother’s mother, and so forth. From this awareness, we create a living connection with ancestral consciousness and the Fields of memory and awareness that are beyond human scale. Our work eases the darkness and embodies the strength and love within the family lineage.
 
Here, we return to the womb and meet the gateway to our mother, our mother’s mother, and so forth. From this awareness, we create a living connection with ancestral consciousness and the Fields of memory and awareness that are beyond human scale. Our work eases the darkness and embodies the strength and love within the family lineage.


Hi Dan,

I found that Desmond Tutu has some valuable insights in The Book of Forgiving that illustrates many of your points. He says that telling our stories is vital to start the healing process from trauma. In order to do that we need to access the two types of memory we hold.

Explicit memory is what we consciously remember and generally refer to as memory. Implicit memory is where we do not remember the event but respond with fear. For example a person who was attacked by a dog as a little child, but does not remember it and now flinches every time he or she sees a certain type of dog. The reconstruction of this type of memory is vital for the healing process.

He also quoted a study by Marshall Duke from Emery University, where researchers explored resilience in children and found that the more children knew the stories of their families’ history – the good, the bad, and the ugly – the more resilient they turned out to be. That the best single predictor of children’s emotional health and happiness was knowing their families’ story.

Further he referred to Neuropsychiatrist Dan Siegel, who explains that the best predictor of how well a child will be attached to his or her parents - have a positive, loving relationship – is whether the parents have a clear and coherent story about their lives and the traumas they have experienced. With other words by knowing our stories, we are likely to be more skillful parents.

This does not automatically imply that the same is true for inter-generational memory. But in my own experience, not being able to reconstruct my implicit memory held me back, and being able to finally know it and understand it in the context of the ancestral lineage was the turning point.

I believe your work is essentially reconstructing the implicit memory of the family lineage, and that that memory is passed down biologically.
 
In America, specifically Flint, Michigan, there's a lot of controversy on how the government let the town be poisoned by lead in the water. In the news they keep talking about the permanent damage these kids will face to bodies and minds (which they apparently know because of science).

I just wonder if some alternative medicine strategies could be used? I get that certain alternative medicine treatments can interfere with conventional treatment but it seems there are some that wouldn't?

Not directly related to the topic of family therapy but seems like a place where they could theoretically use some expanded viewpoints instead of harping on the irreversible damage these kids will now endure.
 
Hi Dan and Emily,

Quite commonly people who have significant emotional problems hear disembodied voices and this often adds to their distress. The conventional psychiatric response is to classify them as schizophrenic and treat them pharmacologically. However some voice hearers have chosen rather to enter into dialog with their 'voices' and continue their lives in the midst of their 'community' of personalities. This phenomenon is described on the web sites 'www.hearing-voices.org' and 'http://www.madnessradio.net'.

I found your show with Alex very interesting and while I was listening it occurred to me that the 'family constellation' you talk about might be the source of the 'voices' that voice hearers experience. I was wondering if you have any thoughts or experience about this?

Since between 5 and 10% of the population apparently experience 'voice hearing' at some or another stage in their lives this adds up to a very large number of experiencers many of whom have the experience on a consistent and repeatable basis. It has seemed to me for some time that this field would be a fertile ground for parapsychological research because of the consistency and repeatability of the phenomenon. Of course most voice hearers don't share news of their experience widely for fear of losing control of their lives by being diagnosed as mentally ill.

Best regards,
Robin
 
Yes, consciousness aggregates and many different levels. Here an animal communicator spoke with the great white shark species to get a better understanding of why great white sharks sometimes bite people in the water.

Here is a longer documentary for anyone who is interested. It includes several examples when the communicator obtained veridical information.

There's a thread about her here:
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/anna-breytenbach-animal-whisperer.2130/
 
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Hi Dan and Emily,

Quite commonly people who have significant emotional problems hear disembodied voices and this often adds to their distress. The conventional psychiatric response is to classify them as schizophrenic and treat them pharmacologically. However some voice hearers have chosen rather to enter into dialog with their 'voices' and continue their lives in the midst of their 'community' of personalities. This phenomenon is described on the web sites 'www.hearing-voices.org' and 'http://www.madnessradio.net'.

I found your show with Alex very interesting and while I was listening it occurred to me that the 'family constellation' you talk about might be the source of the 'voices' that voice hearers experience. I was wondering if you have any thoughts or experience about this?

Since between 5 and 10% of the population apparently experience 'voice hearing' at some or another stage in their lives this adds up to a very large number of experiencers many of whom have the experience on a consistent and repeatable basis. It has seemed to me for some time that this field would be a fertile ground for parapsychological research because of the consistency and repeatability of the phenomenon. Of course most voice hearers don't share news of their experience widely for fear of losing control of their lives by being diagnosed as mentally ill.

Best regards,
Robin
nice connection, Robin. thx.
 
I am listening to the podcast again and have a couple more questions for Dan and Emily if you are still around.

1. Epigenetics appears to me to be an area of science that falls more in the arena of scientific materialism, independent of theories of a field of consciousness. The trauma would have to happen before the birth of the offspring in order for the trait to be passed on. It is hard to see how a couple of therapy sessions could change an inherited biological trait. A field of consciousness would seem to be a completely separate mechanism, where trauma happening after the birth of the offspring could also be passed on, and would seem more amenable to your type of therapy. I think that epigenetics is an interesting scientific theory, but relates less to what you do than does the field of consciousness. They seem like two different things.

2. Does our constellation of ancestors have to be only about episodes of trauma? What about the positive traits and experiences of our ancestors- do they affect us, and is there a way to access them?
 
I am listening to the podcast again and have a couple more questions for Dan and Emily if you are still around.

1. Epigenetics appears to me to be an area of science that falls more in the arena of scientific materialism, independent of theories of a field of consciousness. The trauma would have to happen before the birth of the offspring in order for the trait to be passed on. It is hard to see how a couple of therapy sessions could change an inherited biological trait. A field of consciousness would seem to be a completely separate mechanism, where trauma happening after the birth of the offspring could also be passed on, and would seem more amenable to your type of therapy. I think that epigenetics is an interesting scientific theory, but relates less to what you do than does the field of consciousness. They seem like two different things.

2. Does our constellation of ancestors have to be only about episodes of trauma? What about the positive traits and experiences of our ancestors- do they affect us, and is there a way to access them?

I doubt there is any reason to suspect that the trauma inherited by offspring in epigenetic inheritance experiments is not useful. Assuming that this inheritance is some sort of distasteful thing that isn't useful doesn't make much sense to me.

In a long term stable environment I'd assume that traditional learning from mothers asserts itself more strongly over later generations, but in unstable environments, the ability of the father to pass specific information regarding threats/associations to offspring (even if absent/dead) seems like a pretty damn useful mechanism. Sure, such an ability might produce unexpected problems in our modern society, but should the environment turn unstable, such a mechanism may be vital to survival.

It also seem that identifying the trauma, and labeling it correctly, (creating new network associations) can allow some sort of isolating effect, that suggests - to me at least - that a network pattern, as well as an interference type mechanism is at work.

As regards positive traits of ancestors, I think one just needs to follow ones heart (ones motivations), and clearing away some of the past baggage that one feels is getting in the way seems like a good way to do this.
 
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