A special edition news magazine from the Dutch Bert Hellinger

Institute

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Transformative impulses in health and Healthcare

The designBy Jan Jacob Stam

It all started when Barbara Hoogenboom, one of the owners of the Dutch Bert Hellinger Institute came up with an assignment: 'I want you, together with Stephan on stage, for an audience of a couple of hundred people, co-creating on the subject of illness, health and healthcare'.

The good thing for me inaccepting such an assignment, is that it brings me into places I haven't been before. It forces me to think, to develop and to be creative. The hard thing for me is that such an assignment makes me uncertain, fearful, wanting to run away from loading tons of responsibilities on my shoulders. Can we reach the people working in healthcare? Who do I think we are to offer such a seminar?

What I realize, only after the seminar is over, is that this seminar has been a major step for systemic work in the Netherlands. It is the shift from demand-centered systemic work into actively offered systemic work.

The last two decades - when systemic work has been getting more and more rooted and accepted as a meaningful approach for personal, organizational and societal issues - we, systemic workers and constellators, have been sitting and waiting for the issues (and clients being attached to them) to come find us.

We didn't come into action, so to speak, until there was a clear question, a clear demand towards us. And now, with of during this seminar, the movement took a different direction: a movement initiated by us, into society and the issues it is struggling with. We were actively offering systemic work to a field where we suspect, think and hope that this approach can be a contribution. And, it scared the hell out of me: why would the field of healthcare accept such an offer?

For me, I realized once again in hindsight, my decisiveness to actively offer systemic work to the field of healthcare, was unconsciously formed after a constellation with a manager in a hospital. The issue she came to me with was that after a mistake in the hospital the media damaged so much that it took her years to put back the pieces in her department together again. That was the moment a judgment formed

IntroductionThe lights on stage reduce toone spotlight. The sentence from the societal constellation that has just finished, is still hovering in the air: 'I, society, made a promise I cannot keep'.

The representatives just left stage. Regilio, a dark colored man in a white shirt steps into the light and begins to dance. He is dancing, moving on the resonance of the constellation that just finished. His movement is touching hearts, touching souls and is experienced as both nourishing and healing.

We are in Re-thinking Healthcare, the morning of the second day. Slowly we, organizers, facilitators and participants can start to relax. The pain I've felt in my stomach the last couple of months about this seminar is gone. The coming out of systemic work is a fact.

This whole newsletter is about the concepts, the organization, the programming and the results of this seminar. We would like to share written contributions by the organizers and participants, but also short films we used and some made during the seminar.

'Re-thinking Healthcare'...The coming out of systemic work is a fact. The aim of this newsletter is mainly to share with the community of constellators the design, the considerations, the mistakes and what went well in this adventure.

We are aware there is a lot of text in this newsletter. And we hope you find your way through that, what is interesting and meaningful for you

Enjoy!

Jan Jacob Stam and team

'It's ok for me to be part of the problem'in me: 'the media have destructed more than necessary. Media sending wake up calls: that's fine, great! But media destructing so much that whole parts of organizations get paralyzed and frozen over longer times...? I think the price we have to pay in regards to the collateral damage is too high, compared to the gain. But who am I?'

My awareness increased when I realized that I, again unconsciously, had decided some years ago that it's OK for me to be part of the problem. To use a stronger expression: as a citizen I co-create the present problems in society and healthcare.

I mention this because I think this attitude was a 'not unimportant' ingredient of the seminar.

Jan Jacob Stam

ContentIntroduction 2

The design 2

The program 4

Mistakes & trouble 6

Taking Responsibility:what does it mean? 7

A visible flock of birds 8

Appreciation 9

Impressions & thoughts 10

A mission accomplished 11

Growing beyond the good and the bad medicine 12

Additional Content 13

In this magazine: Jan Jacob Stam Bibi Schreuder Salome Scholtens Stephan Hausner Jan Andreae Barbara Hoogenboom

ColophonThis is a special news-magazine edition of the Dutch Bert Hellinger Institute.RedactionJan Jacob Stam, Mayna Feijen, Barbara Hoogenboom, Jolanda TeijemaDesign and layoutMayna Feijen

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The design andchoreography of the two days was created by Jan Andreae and Jan Jacob, surrounded by a very close reflecting team of Stephan, Bibi, Barbara and a wider team of the office of the Dutch Bert Hellinger Institute.

We were very aware of the fragmentation in the field of

The 250 participants wereseated around the podium in a way which would guarantee maximum intimacy and connectedness. The sound was triple checked and of excellent quality. We realized that it was as important to able to hear every single word as it was to see every detail.

We chose to use English as the main language, even though ninety percent of the participants were Dutch. We didn't want the disturbance of translation or headphones with the risk of causing a delay in translation. We didn't want Stephan to feel like a guest if his own work would need translation and this would have been the case if the main language would have been Dutch.

We chose not to use large screens to film and project on what was happening on stage. This as well could create a filter between participants and stage. Because we wanted participants to co-create, we offered exercises in triads and mini-constellations. On the first day we worked with a microphone you can throw into the audience. It worked well, although the throwing and catching was a bit too disturbing (and landed on a few heads).

So next day we fell back on hand-helped microphones.

The reflecting team was asking critical and clarifying questions and functioned as a body of resonance.The office checked if our plans were feasible. They wrote scenarios in detail and organized all the subscriptions, dealt with questions, complaints and feedback.

They designed and tested the Power-Point presentations needed to explain the group exercises. Art would be a part of the design: a female dancer after the first constellation for a client with cancer, a choir at the end of the first day, and again another dancer on the second day.

The art worked well as time for reflection and digestion. The breaks were short and lunch was offered in the theater, in order to keep the energy in one flow and not have it interrupted by going out for lunch in Amsterdam.

A group of volunteers gently collected participants at the end of the breaks, or coordinated work in smaller groups, which added greatly to the flow of the whole event.

'What does it mean to take or decline responsibility?'

The two days would move from personal issues on illness and health, onto organizational issues, and into societal issues on the second day.

All the time the leading question being: what does it mean to take or decline responsibility?

Jan Jacob Stam

healthcare. We were also aware that patterns have a tendency to jump over to other parts of the system, in this case us, the organizers. So we knew we needed us, as a team, to be very relational in order to prevent that we got fragmented as well.Jan played a major role here, all the time relating, reflecting from a meta-position, and encouraging with a high quality of listening.

Stephan, Bibi and I have beensitting many evenings, live and on skype, on the aim of this seminar.

What do we want to reach? Do we have a message? Do we want to change anything?

Well actually: no and no. But: we think that the systemic perspective can contribute to societal issues and help to access perspectives and subtle information, by seeing the issues in a different and meaningful light.

The aim of the seminar was: to explore what it means to take responsibility for health, illness and healthcare.

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DA

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The focus of the first day was onpersonal issues, facilitated by Stephan, to function as a platform for questions like: 'How do we relate to health issues?' 'What does it mean to be confronted with someone else's health issues, and what does responsibility mean to me?'

At the end of the day we broadened the focus to a more societal view. A leading concept here was: container . Stephan introduced this concept, coming from Thomas Hübl: we experience something as a problem, it overwhelms us, when our container is not big and wide enough to contain the issue. So one of the approaches Stephan works with, is to widen the container of the client.

Part of our experiment of the whole seminar was: 'Can we create a container, co-creating with all the 250 participants, that is wide enough to contain not only personal issues on health, illness and symptoms, but also the societal issues in this field?'

And for me, Jan Jacob, a major harvest and result was that we succeeded in doing this. I think major factors here were: not having a message, not wanting to change, no blaming, and a high quality of listening and presence.

listening and presence.

The program Opening by Jan Jacob, including asking participants to identify and specify to which groups they belong; Who is a patient? Who of you is suffering from a symptom? Who of you is working in healthcare? Etc.

Reading the message sent fromthe Dutch Inspector General forHealthcare. She would be a clientfor an issue, but had to canceldue to an accident she had twodays earlier while sporting.

pharmaceutical industry.

different if they would

shift this inner place.Good bye!

A short film of a Dutch youngsurgeon: 'Illness as a businessmodel'. We wanted this messageto be brought from inside thehealthcare system and not by us,outsiders.

Read here the message from Ronnie van Diemen

Watch here the video of Emma Bruns with subtitles

Two constellations by Stephan fora patient with a progressive muscle disease and a patient with cancer. The clients had been chosen before the seminar and had an intake intervieuw with Bibi Schreuder.

In between: dance and triads for reflection.

Watch here the dance for reflection

A third constellations with aclient from the audience (onglaucoma). We decided tochoose a client from theaudience in order to have moreinteraction with them.

Mini-constellations in groups ofsix participants, forming a mini-society and possibly a container ,while one of them wasrepresenting a health issue to beexplored.

Closing the day with a choir.

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listening and presence.

The program

DA

Y TWO

After opening, we started with a societallandscape constellation on thehealthcare field, facilitated by Jan Jacob.One of the participants, Imre, gave voiceto a question. When asked about it, shesaid the question was expressed onbehalf of many, many people. Otherparticipants could add to this question,and representatives showed up bythemselves. Death, Life, Patients,Children and many elements appeared.Suddenly, the representative of society,Imre, shouted out a sentence: 'I, society, made a promise I cannot keep '.

Shivers in the room. Deep exhalation a sense of relief because some truth had come to the light. A hidden system sentence came out of this constellation, resulting in Imre's letter she wrote a day later: 'to all doctors in The Netherlands'.

A two minute dance, inspired by thisconstellation.

A constellation with a director of thepharmaceutical industry, his questionbeing: 'At one hand our image is lowerthan the image of the tobacco industry, onthe other hand there is a huge demand forus to keep producing new medicines. How to get out of this polarity? '

We won't go into details about this constellation, about governments, pharmaceutical industry and their open and hidden contracts. But the result of this constellation is that 250 people - witnesses - were experiencing a shift in their perspective on the pharmaceutical industry.

I, Jan Jacob, have the strong feeling that we, as human beings, outsourced our responsibility and skills to find the healing plants and medicines we need, a long time ago. This way, co-creating the space that could be occupied by what we are now calling the pharmaceutical industry.

pharmaceutical industry.

Constellation on the question of Kirsten Dabekaussen, a medical student and PhD researcher:'What are we doing that makes it acceptable that doctors work ten hours non-stop, and a bus driver has a mandatory rest every three hours?' 'When did we turn medical specialists into gods?'The question flips out of her mouth. And the constellation that followed, showed that what we are putting on the shoulders of doctors are mainly our expectations about life, eternal life, healthy life without suffering.Later on a participant reflects: 'Not so long ago we placed the decisions about life, death and illness into the hands of God. Now there is a vacancy for the function of God. And we placed doctors into this vacancy...

Harvesting by participants and sharing in public.

Closing with a group process with all participants about the question: from which (inner) place do we approach the issues in healthcare? A giant field was laid out on the floor: Ba (the origin of this all), recent history, the present, with some representatives of healthcare issues, the plannable future, the upcoming future, and Ya (that, where this all might be leading to). All participants could explore by walking through, and sensing in this field from where they usually approach these issues and what would be different if they would shift this inner place.

Good bye!

issues and what would be different if they would

shift this inner place.Good bye!

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I, society, made a promise I cannot keep!

Read here the letter to all doctors, by Imre Tijsse Klasen

Watch here the dance inspired by the constellation

...there is a vacancy for the function of God. And we placed doctors into this vacancy...

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Mistakes & trouble

By Jan Jacob Stam

Of course we faced problems and made mistakes on the way to the seminar. Although I organized quite a few congresses and seminars before, there were a couple of mistakes I don't want to make again. And here they come.

Unclear goals. The whole event started with Barbara's impulse to have Stephan and Jan Jacob together on a podium and facilitate constellations. So, over time, we slowly developed more and more what we wanted to achieve. But this meandering goal influenced our communications and most likely could be sensed by the potential participants.

Date. The beginning of June is not the best period for a seminar. But it was the first opportunity in almost a year that both Stephan and Jan Jacob were available to work together. In June people want to work in their garden, summer holidays are approaching, so in the workspace a lot has to be done, attention is likely to be elsewhere than on a seminar. Moreover, successful systemic conferences in the Netherlands either are schedule at the end of April (spring is in the air!) or the end of September (contemplation time).

Location. The theatre in the centre of Amsterdam was great from an energetic point of view, but impossible to park, hard to reach, unaccessible for wheelchairs and pretty expensive.

Who do you think you are?! We never had so much aggression and critical reactions projected on a proposal for a congress or seminar. It seemed that the unsolved patterns in healthcare were projected on us. We knew this might happen, but the intensity surprised us.

Price. The cost of the seminar was €335. Details about the program and location were put on our website, but unfortunately the price was the last thing we added. The result was that many people became very enthusiastic and forwarded our announcement of the seminar to their friends, before they were aware of the price. So when they became aware of it, some of them felt cheated, logically. Also, this amount was too high, for instance, for students and people who simply didn't have so much money to spend. We applied a reduced fee of €90. Later, we decided that money should not be a restriction for those who really felt they had to join the seminar. So, since this seminar is about responsibility, we took ours, and tried as well as we could to admit our mistakes and be flexible. The goal of the whole adventure was to financially end with a slight plus, as a sign of health. But we ended with a solid minus.

Subscription. We forgot to ask participants about their field of work. As a consequence, we had no idea to what extend we were reaching our target group: people working in healthcare. It was a big relief to find out after ten minutes that the vast majority of them was working in healthcare.

Language. Although we envisioned this seminar to be international, we realized a month before date that 90% of the participants were Dutch. For a couple of weeks we had the intention for the seminar to be in Dutch, meaning translation would be required. We decided it was easier to go back and stick to the original idea: the language being English.

Well, despite these mistakes, we are all extremely grateful for what was made possible, and for what this seminar has set in motion.

Jan Jacob Stam

'Who do you think you are?!'

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Taking Responsibility:what does it mean?By Bibi SchreuderPrior to this seminar I was personally moved, when I asked myself what taking responsibility for your health actually means. What does that mean for my way of life, my way of looking at health care, dealing with aging, my hope of getting good care when I need it?

A month before theseminarI got a Lyme infection after a tick bite. I went to our new doctor, whom I had never met before. She looked at the circle and immediately said: "That will be a course of antibiotics". The circle disappeared after four days of using it. I know people whose lives have been ruined by Lyme disease, so I was very grateful to be able to use the antibiotics. Is this taking responsibility for my health?

During the same period, I tripped over a small pavement and sprained my foot. Again that question: how do I take responsibility for healing my foot? With rest? With exercises? By taping it?

Many different people, came up with many different advices. I decided to feel myself what exactly my foot needed. Sometimes it was moving it, sometimes resting it, bringing it up on a chair and sometimes it felt good to put a stretch band around it. I didn't take any painkillers because I wanted to be able to feel when my foot warned me. Is this taking responsibility for my health?

I found out that this question was applicable on so many social issues: how do we take responsibility for our education, for our personal environment, our citizenship and politics?

I soon noticed that, simply by asking myself this question, I felt overwhelmed by too much

responsibility on my neck. Oh, that's why we gave up responsibilities, to our government, to our parliament, to insurance companies, to the pharmaceutical industry, to science, to statistics, to the inspection officer, to the media... some of these responsibilities have been given away centuries ago by our ancestors, others I have given away myself regarding my own life and that of my children...

If I realize that, it feels like I have given my responsibility into custody. Something like: "Take good care of what I am responsible for and, beware if something goes wrong". And, of course, that's not fair. I am far from getting answers myself and I demand that others have more than 100%

responsibility and come up with an answer. In stepping away from responsibilities, we - humanity - have built a world with experts in every field.

The expertise has grown enormously, and we have come to believe in the illusion that all this expertise has a solution for everything we have no answer to. And that what we fear the most, death, can be prevented because of it.Every time that illusion does not materialize, we blame the responsible au-thority for not having acted correctly.

Through all these thoughts in preparing for this seminar, I learned that taking responsibility for (my) health means that I have to take responsibility for my illusions, my expectations and need to face my fears.

Bibi Schreuder

Every time that illusion does not materialize, we blame the

responsible authority for not having acted correctly.

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A visible flock of birdsBy Salome ScholtensSalome Scholtens is a Programme Manager and Researcher at the University Medical Center Groningen, in the Netherlands. She has a background in nutrition and epidemiology research, and studied disease patterns and health behaviour in large populations.

Coming from an academic background and working in an academic hospital, I

actually felt a bit like an intruder or impostor. Although Iʼm trained in systemic work and I support and love the work, I was happy not to be to visible. I felt ashamed at some moments, and the preparations of the symposium made me nervous once in a while. The interviews I did prior to the seminar with a wide range of people working in the medical setting, made the pressure, tightness and entrapment of the medical field very clear and tangible to me. The interviews often felt heavy and I was happy when I could leave the room. I'm so happy I did not have their job!

The system that medical setting is right now, is not working anymore. It doesn't feel healthy. It feels like the system does not know how to heal itself anymore.

The seminar was wonderful, intense and heartwarming. It felt like a veil was lifted. I wondered: where do all those people come from? It amazed me that there were so many of us! During the seminar, I loved looking at the audience, the crowd... enjoying that all those people were present and that I was part of this 'flock of birds'. I also realized that luckily there were many more people (intruders) like me.

Or maybe everyone was an 'intruder' somehow…

I had many nice encounters with lovely people during the seminar and made new contacts. For me, the most impressive was not the touching constellations, performances or new solutions. That was all good. And I sure loved seeing Stephan and Jan Jacob at work. The most impressive for me was that the seminar made the swarm visible. A flock that reaches beyond the borders of systemic work, the medical setting, alternative medicine, or whatsoever system…

'It feels like the system does not know how to heal itself anymore'

We all know now that we are also part of this system, this flock. And I realize now how important that is, to make a movement or system visible to the individuals who are part of it and to others. It is reassuring, healing and gives confidence.

Salome Scholtens

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Watch here the video played everytime we entered or left the auditorium

AppreciationBy Stephan Hausner

Stephan, originally a Homeopath and Natural Health Professional, is a very precise constellator, specialized in the field of diseases and symptoms. He is constantly developing the foundations of his work. In recent years he has immersed himself in the work of Thomas Hübl, which adds an extra layer of consciousness to Stephan's constellations.

Stephan Hausner

The movement towards healing then needs to take the opposite way: finding the resources, so that the filters can be deconstructed again and we can expand into a bigger space with more possibilities. This includes that now we are capable to relate and deal with what has been difficult before or so far. This also means: The healthier we are, the higher is our ability to respond. This principle works for individual and for societal questions. The difference with societal questions is, that mostly an individual is too small to host a societal or global issue. That's why we often feel overwhelmed and paralyzed when we hear about difficulties our world or any greater system or organization than ourselves is struggling with and so we shrink and disconnect and let go or give up our response-ability.

A vessel big enough for societal issue can only grow when people come and stand together in a group. Taking that principle into account, the participants in a constellation workshop are not any more observers, they become witnesses by holding space and holding

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Thomas Hübl

The problem is, often these filters get conditioned and the boundaries we created once in order to survive determine our life and become our limitation.

awareness of their ability to relate, to respond and to presence what is unfolding through the constellation. Thomas Hübl speaks about Global Social Witnessing as a practice to relate to the conflicts and difficulties and crisis our planet is somewhat going through.

ConclusionStill busy with digesting and presencing the journey of the event, my main sensation is deep appreciation and respect for the courage to reach out and invite to standing together facing a societal issue that is deeply touching, scary and concerning everybody as its existential. Gratitude for all the contributions, especially also from the participants and the revelation, that an adequate and healthy inclusive relating to death as being an indispensable part of life is key for sustainability in the system of health care.

This amongst many other things is what I take from the seminar as personal contribution.

With deep gratitude,

Stephan Hausner

If I am asked to describemy approach in Systemic Constellation Work today in one sentence, I would use a quote of Thomas Hübl: "Anything relating might be healed". This sentence is key as it describes a basic principle of how change might be induced by facilitating a constellation process for a client or a group. This principle is also basic in trauma therapy. Trauma is defined as a state of being overwhelmed. There is too much to hold and contain for a vessel that is too small. In order to handle the situation and survive we create filters to protect ourselves from what is overwhelming - means we step out of relationship, we disconnect and dis-sociate. Dissociation is our natural response to overwhelming situations.

"Anything

relating can be

healed"

First of all I want to express my deep gratitude to Barbara for her initiative.Already since a few years I wonder how the insights and knowledge that I was allowed to gain from systemic constellation work with individual health issues could be applied in societal questions in a meaningful way. And of course my gratitude goes to Jan Jacob for stepping in and setting up this event.

I am grateful to Bibi for her contribution, she provided confidence and security as she is the one who knows Jan Jacobs and my work best as we held already (6?) trainings together at the Bert Hellinger Institute.

I am grateful to Jan Andreae and his open, sensitive and proficient way of holding the space and bridging Jan Jacob and myself and the audience. And not to forget the team of the Bert Hellinger Instituut and all helpers who did an amazing job to make this event as successful as it became.

I also want to thank Jonine Lee Gabay who supported Jan Jacob and myself in giving us space for a first workshop together at the AustralAsien Constellation Intensive in February 2018 that has helped us to find our place next to each other and together in front of a group of participants.

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Impressions and thoughts By Jan Andreae

Most impressive to me it was to

have a systemic view on national and internationalhealthcare. It's like looking at society with its neo-liberal and capitalistic principles in which the dominant economical paradigm looks for growth and profit.

It consolidates the worldwide inequality, won't allow any fundamental change in human rights or will stop the climate change. And prevention of illness is still second to cure.

Said shortly: there are no investments in care because there is no short-term profit from it.

Or: the patterns of healthcare are like those of society - the motor is stuck but we are fixing the wheel.

52% of the Dutch general practitioners is (almost)burn-out the pharmaceutical industry makes greateffort to contribute to human health but has a badimage, worse than the tobacco industry

Our life expectancy grows but more and more peopleare asking for voluntary euthanasiaA few lines in the painting of a paradox system

Jan is change and development professional en motivational speaker. In the Netherlands, he is an authority in connecting personal and societal leadership.

He works worldwide in the fields of empowerment, leadership, changing strategies, and dealing with conflicts.

'There are no investments in care because there is no short term profit

from it.'

In the 23 richest countries of our world there's a strong correlation between income inequality and the index of health and social problems.

This index includes levels of trust, life expectancy and infant mortality rates, mental illness, obesity, educational scores, teenage birth rates, level of homicides and rates of imprisonment, and social morbidity. (Picket and Wilkinson)

'Health has a heart and we cannot deny it.The higher the social inequality the lower the score on this index.

That became visible to me, in everything people brought up in the seminar.

But surprisingly we also saw that healthcare has a heart. Probably the only subsystem in which

people do not give up, stay involved no matter how much it takes.

The probable reason for this is that healthcare has a strong relation with our deep, intrinsic experience of our own well-being and of our loved ones.

It's one of the few remaining sectors showing solidarity.

After all: we can't deny that our body is a system that seeks balance, is highly dependent of the functioning of many subsystems and is in an ongoing mode of balance seeking and regeneration.

In short: health has a heart and we cannot deny it.In so many ways presented at the seminar.

'The patterns of healthcare are like those of society - the motor is stuck but we are fixing the wheel.

What to do next?We need to expand our analysis, build new narrative and advocacy strategy that must include a compelling request for a different economic paradigm.

We also need to look at the motor, not just the wheel.

Jan Andreae

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A mission accomplishedBy Barbara HoogenboomJan Jacob Stam and Stephan Hausner are both highly skilled systemic constellators and both wanted for workshops and trainings all over the world. Both working very hard with busy schedules and traveling a lot. And although neither one of them wants to hear this: they are considered to be 'gurus' in their fields of work.

All of a sudden it struck me: what awaste that in our own beautiful location in Middelbert (Groningen) only about a maximum of 30 people can enjoy either Stephan or Jan Jacob when they give a workshop or training!

In hindsight, this was the first trigger for me to suggest the idea to Jan Jacob to do an event with Stephan for a larger audience. Both Jan Jacob and Stephan became excited about the idea of working together; although they had been friends for a long time and had seen each other's work several times, they never cooperated as constellators in an event of their own.

Since Stephan's expertise is in the field of health and illness, and an expertise of Jan Jacob is to do constellations on societal issues, it was obvious that the seminar would aim for the issues in healthcare.

untary euthanasiaA few lines in the pai

nting of a paradox system

'This sensation is so overwhelming that it has the tendency to be petrifying.'

healthcare industry as a whole for the better. But I strongly hoped that it would have some impact. Impact on individuals, who then would take that into their daily life and work situation. Impact in the sense that one would have a different view then before. New insights. Insights would make room for different solutions on small scale. I hoped there would be people from many different areas to exchange. Not only managers and consultants, but also patients, caretakers, pharmaceuticals, familydoctors etc.

And most of all I hoped that the 'parts', the individuals working so hard in healthcare, who can feel so lonely, would after this seminar

The healthcare industry, that is dealing with so many challenges and that as a whole is gearing towards exhaustion. Many people can sense the urgency for change on a larger scale. This sensation is so overwhelming that it has the tendency to be petrifying.

By the way, this is not only the case in the segment of healthcare. I am very aware of the fact that also the field of education and the financial industry face similar challenges…a seminar on either of those societal issues could also easily be filled…

For me, what led me after Jan Jacob and Stephan committed to getting this seminar Re-thinking Healthcare in the air, was the idea that a large audience would experience systemic work as a way of looking at, coping with and growing beyond problems. I never had the illusion that this event would forever change the

have more sense of belonging to a whole.

Sometimes, when Jan Jacob told me about his stomach aches, I felt guilty. What did I get him and ourselves into?! My biggest fear was that the audience would be mainly people who know systemic work and are fond of seeing the gurus at work, but who would not be representing the target group. How could we attract the people from within the healthcare industry, and patients and caretakers? And we made a stupid mistake, well we made more mistakes, and this was one of them: we had not asked in the registration form to let us know your profession or working sector. So beforehand we had no clue about the backgrounds of the participants.

And when at the start of the first day, it became clear who was in the audience, there was a true variety of participants. From everywhere in the medical field.

Doctors, surgeons, patients, directors of hospitals, researchers, pharmacists, consultants, health innovators, nurses, etcetera.

And it touched me deeply. And I was relieved. Here they were. People from the field, curious enough to spend two days in this seminar, already showing the preparedness to take responsibility.

And over the course of the two days, I saw people connect, share experiences, open up, form new liaisons, gain new insights.And it was a great bonus to realize about these new relations that people formed.

I have heard about several examples of people who met after the seminar to exchange more. Not only did people take out insights for themselves, it continues to grow, through them and through the newly established connections.

So my place now is to stay in deep and utter gratitude. To each and everyone (still) contributing to Re-thinking Healthcare.

Barbara Hoogenboom

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Growing beyond the good and the bad medicine By Bibi Schreuder

Before Re-Thinking healthcare actually took place, I asked myself many times, what it meant to me and what I hoped it would bring.

The first question I couldn't answerbeforehand. Mainly, I felt stress on practical issues: there is so much we need to do.

But, what I was hoping for, was that we could create a small movement by reaching out from "alternative" healthcare to the world of "regular" medicine.

I've noticed many times when we did constellations around illness, that people could be very negative about regular medical care, of course because they were not helped in the way they had hoped. And because of that, it seems difficult to me - from a systemic perspective - to strive for healing in health care. Unfortunately I hear so many people who strive for healing and connection express sharp criticisms and condemnations about regular health care and the pharmaceutical industry.

This was the reason, I was truly hoping for someone from the pharmaceutical industry, who could bring in a question to be able to

'rethink' with each other. Unfortunately, we weren't able to find such a person from the industry beforehand.

The first day we focused on questions on personal health.Prior to the seminar, I spoke with clients who wanted to do a constellation with Stephan Hausner about their own health. I still feel the word "progressive" resonating in my body when a man told me that he had a progressive muscle disease. Later, I realized the consequences of such a word.

In addition to being incurable, having a progressive muscle disease also means that your physical ability, and later, life will gradually diminish. The way in which this man expressed the word progressive resulted in a series of questions on my side.

What happens to you when your doctor diagnoses you with a progressive muscle disease? What does the word progressive do with your ability to take responsibility for your health? How do you relate to your body that is doomed to gradually fall out? How do you deal with fighting against, surrendering to, and with your life itself?

A few sentences later he uses the word 'patient'. Immediately someone interrupted us from theaudience: 'I seriously object to the word patient!' and just moments later, the audience tries to start a discussion again. I can feel the aggression from the audience to this man. Aggression from an audience that wholeheartedly wants to bring healing and is completely dedicated to healthcare and systemic work.Jan Jacob is able to give the public the recognition for their input and to continue with the question: the double bind of the pharmaceutical industry and society.

A little later everyone is witnessing the line-up that chillingly reveals which responsibilities the society and the government have placed in the hands of the pharmaceutical industry. 'It's all about identity' comes from the mouth of Jan Jacob.

Something has clearly changed in the room. A deafening silence, a silence that shows that many are touched, that many are in process and are changing positions.

I feel radiant inside and tears run down my cheeks.

This is what I had hoped the seminar could do. That there is a growing awareness of how we, each of us, can change our minds. How we, instead of condemning and "knowing" how it is, suddenly realize that we all participate in maintaining problems and at the same time, don't know how to solve them. Aggression seems to have dissolved into a space of humility.

Bibi Schreuder

After the first phone conversation, this man tells me that just thinking about the possibility of a constellation about his illness has put a lot into motion. He had no hope of healing, but he now realized that with letting go of that hope, he had also removed the thought and perhaps the responsibility for the slowing down of the disease process.

I feel radiant inside and tears run down my cheeks.

During the break on the first day I spoke with one of our students. She proudly told me that she was able to take her husband with her, 'because he is not at all into constellations, he works in the pharmaceutical business'. She introduced me to him and immediately he starts to defend the pharmaceutical industry. I asked him if he could be tempted to think about a question from a pharmaceutical angle, regarding rethinking healthcare. 'As long as I do not have to be in a constellation myself', was his first reaction.

Next day he sits down next to Jan Jacob on stage and he addresses the impossible choking position to the audience: 'On one hand we - the pharmaceutical industry - have a worse image than the tobacco industry and on the other hand we get the assignment to find and produce better medicines. How can we grow out of this dilemma?'

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Additional contentIn hindsight , the seminar Re-thinking Healthcare hasserved us - organizers and participants - as a insightful and informational platform. During (and after) the seminar, networks have been established, healthcare professionals had the opportunity to contribute to each other, there was great interaction between professionals and civilians, and many discussions were raised up, bringing all of those present to a realization of what our responsibility actually is as patients, as healthcare professionals and as society, when it comes to health, illness and the healthcare system.

It also helped us to see that blaming others for the malfunctioning of the system or for anything that does not work properly or as we wish it would - as if by doing so we will become part of the solution -, is easier then it is to accept that we are actually part of the problem. And perhaps the latter might be more efficient, as it may enable us to let go of patterns that doesn't serve us anymore, and make room for new, transformative and healing patterns.

During the seminar we projected some slides on the screen. The slides contain quotes and sentences used during the two days, but also sheets of presentations that were held during the event. In this part of the magazine you can find these slides.

After the seminar we were also presented with a very thorough report written by Karen Tjaberings, one of the participants during the seminar. In this report, you will find very detailed and incredibly useful information.

We hope you enjoyed this special edition news-magazine. Feel free to share it with others in your environment.

Warm regards,Jan Jacob Stam and the team of the Dutch Bert Hellinger Institute

Slides Re-thinking Healthcare

Additional content

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Report by Karin Tjaberings

Read the report from Karin Tjaberings here

Karin Tjaberings is one of the participants of Re-thinking Healthcare.A few days after the seminar she presented us with a very detailed and very informative report she made of this 2-days adventure. In the report she describes the whole seminar as she experienced it, with an amazing eye for detail and relevance. We really advise you to read it as it is a great source of information.

You can find the whole report in this page. Enjoy it!

Next big systemic event: IOCTI 2018, in Slovenia. Click here for more information