“When a wrong is committed against someone, they suffer helplessly. The more helpless the victim, the more severely we judge the offender. But the injured partner is rarely completely helpless after the harm has been done. They usually have the opportunity to act—either to end the relationship or to demand atonement from their partner, and by doing so, to end the guilt and create the possibility for a new beginning.
When victims do not take the opportunity to act, then others act for them—with the difference that the wound and the injustice coming from those who act on their behalf are often worse than if the victims themselves had acted. In human systems of relationships, suppressed feelings of hatred emerge later in those who are least able to defend themselves; most often, these are the children and grandchildren who experience earlier anger as their own.”* — Bert Hellinger, “Love’s Hidden Symmetry”
I continue with quotations and examples from B. Hellinger’s book Love’s Hidden Symmetry, because it offers a different perspective on understanding the invisible dynamics within family systems.
In this case, Hellinger gives the example of a woman who attends a seminar together with her husband, yet behaves toward him in an extremely rude and contemptuous manner — the complete opposite of how she behaves toward the other participants. She also very demonstratively announces in front of everyone that she has spent the previous night with her lover.
The other participants cannot explain this until the woman’s theme is worked with and it becomes clear that when she was a child, she, her mother, and her siblings were sent to the countryside during the summer. During that time, the father remained in the city, where he lived with his mistress. He and his lover would sometimes even visit them in the countryside, and the mother behaved kindly and politely toward them, as if everything were fine. Inwardly, however, she was furious, and although she did not show it, her children sensed it.
*”We might be tempted to call the mother’s behavior praiseworthy, but it was a false innocence, and its effect was destructive.
The daughter reacts to the injustice done to her mother by punishing her husband for what her father did, but she also demonstrates her love for her father by acting in exactly the same way he did… A better solution would have been if this woman’s mother had confronted her husband with her anger. Then they would have had to make a decision—they could have reached a mutual agreement or made a clean break.
Whenever the innocent continues to suffer despite appropriate action being possible, more innocent victims and offenders will soon follow. It is an illusion that we avoid participating in evil by clinging to innocence instead of doing what we must do to confront the offenders… Love requires the courage to also become guilty to the corresponding degree.”* –Bert Hellinger
The hidden dynamics of family systems are very different from what we usually see or believe. In order to connect with them, we not only need such a magnificent tool as the field of knowledge, which acts like litmus paper and brings the hidden to the surface. We also need the objectivity and impartiality of Bert Hellinger, with which he is able to see the Whole:
“When you work systemically, even when trying to find a resolution for the client, you must serve and protect the integrity of the system. Therefore, you must connect with those who are excluded. Until you are able to give the offenders a place in your heart, you cannot work with the whole system… For this reason, I constantly ally myself with the excluded and the offenders.” –Bert Hellinger
Although this sharing by B. Hellinger is addressed primarily to practicing psychotherapists, I find it extremely valuable and believe it is important for more people to know — including non-professionals. Because this is not merely the viewpoint of someone who works professionally with family systems; it is the viewpoint of a person capable of thinking in a more complex way and allowing for the possibility that what is hidden beneath the surface may be the exact opposite of what one sees with one’s eyes.
“If you really ‘see,’ then you can see that those who claim to be innocent have not done much good. There is a rule in systemic psychotherapy: the truth is usually the opposite of what people tell you… In a constellation in which the father is presented as the ‘bad guy,’ you can automatically look for the destructiveness and confusion of the mother. When the mother is presented as the ‘bad one’—look at the father.” –Bert Hellinger
I conclude these rather long quotations from this extraordinary book with the hope that these ideas about the hidden dynamics in human systems will help more people to look at what they see with greater complexity and less prejudice.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
Love’s Hidden Symmetry: What Makes Love Work in Relationships
