A conversation with Bibi Schreuder

‘This work I can do, this work I want to do and this work I am going to do’. That sentence, which was completely foreign to me, came out of my mouth the first time I experienced systemic work, at a constellation workshop in Germany in 1995. I was still happily working in education at the time, but I was literally gripped by systemic work there on the spot.

My husband Jan Jacob [Stam] and I took that first constellation workshop in Germany on the recommendation of a friend. We were quite sceptical beforehand – but mostly curious. I was enormously impressed by the way the guide worked, but especially by what it triggered in me.

In my parental family, a little boy was born before me, who only lived a few days. That was never really talked about and that was far away for me. The strange thing was that in that workshop, trying to speak perfect German, I answered the question about how many in the family I was with: ‘Ich bin die fünfte von vier’ (I am the fifth of four). I heard myself say it and I thought: this is not right. And a moment later: ah, this is just right. In this way I noticed that in the constellation something can have a place that never had a place. That was a real eye-opener.

The first constellations I did were life-changing for me. I really have a life before and a life after. I got insights that really made me look at life differently. For example, in the past I could not connect well with my femininity. It was only when I realized that I was always doing boyish things as a child too, and got the insight that somewhere I was doing my best to live the life of that little boy before me, that space for my femininity opened up.

Jan Jacob also fully embraced systemic work. He trained in Germany and opened the Bert Hellinger Institute in 2000. I grew into that. Systemic work was very unknown at that time. But we found it so interesting that with our didactic background we felt that people should be trained in it. We then developed the course Systemic Work with Family Constellations together – and I was the first student.

Teaching is the best way to learn. All the questions we got from students gave us new insights. How do systems actually work? I still find that the most exciting part of this work, to learn every time: how does it work here? It’s different every time, you never know what’s going to happen. Hopefully a marble gets rolling, but you never know at the time. Sometimes you see something happen immediately, often it comes later.

Constellations are a wonderful way to explore an issue visually. Also, for example, with papers. For example, I recently had a coaching session with someone who had a systemic background herself and she also said: ‘The crazy thing is that you know it all quite well. But when you see it laid out like this, it gives so much more insight.’ You can look at the patterns from the outside instead of being trapped in the patterns. That is unique about the method constellations.

In doing so, it takes a lot of courage to ask a question. It is terrifying. Does someone want to look at the loyalties and patterns and is he willing to start making a move in them? And it’s good to experience that yourself from time to time.

As a representative, people often find me difficult. Because I feel a lot. But I always distrust myself. Is this Bibi or is this what I am representing? So I give this doubt a place, by consciously parking the Bibi piece for a while and then keeping my mouth shut. But there are also moments when I feel something I have never felt in my life. Once, for instance, I was a representative of a suicidal person. I really felt capable of jumping out of the window. That is a feeling I don’t know at all about myself.

As a facilitator, in the beginning I attached great importance to: what does the constellation show? That was also my focus. Now that is more of a check for me, because ultimately my focus is on the client and especially the client’s body: what can be taken there and can be set in motion there?

These days, I work almost exclusively with pronouncing sentences. I do work with floor anchors and representatives, but even then, I let the client speak sentences out loud. When your own body pronounces it, it’s very different from when it comes from outside. You can immediately feel: does it resonate, yes or no? A client may pertinently not want to speak a sentence. Yet I ask them to do it, to see what it does. When the head says don’t say don’t say don’t say, that sentence can be just the valve the system needs, that finally the naked reality is spoken.

That gives me satisfaction: getting movement in a stopped movement. I also see this as a force of nature. The other day I stood for a very long time watching a poppy unfold. I find that so fascinating. It’s like a constellation unfolding. How does a movement unfold in someone, so that suddenly another perspective can be taken? As a facilitator, I get to witness that. Being fully there in the moment.

The funny thing is that sometimes fifteen minutes later I have almost forgotten about the set-up. It is so intense in the moment. What is liberating is that you work without judgement; then something is not violent, it just is. Something wants to have a place.

I especially enjoy satisfying my curiosity. How does it work? I have been asked the same question maybe 100 times. For example, people who are totally ready to start their own practice, but just don’t cross that threshold. Why don’t I do it, they ask me. Then you might think: it’s easy as pie, we’ll do the set-up again. But it doesn’t work like that. Time and again you must find out: what is this obstacle connected to? That what is seen as a problem, to what is it a solution? To whom or what from history is the questioner loyal?

There is no point in making assumptions from your experience. The only thing that can be helpful is that you can follow some kind of checklist. You can go through a number of questions. For instance, you can realize that some topics used to be suppressed that are quite normal today. A grandmother might have been disowned in the past because she was pregnant before marriage. You can ask about that.

What can touch me the most is when I hear afterwards that people have been changed by a constellation and therefore can do things differently for their children. It is so fascinating how children react to what their parents cannot yet give a place to. Children just work hard for the system. In that, I do notice that I can go just a bit further, from that love for children. In fact, I know: I just have to get that little marble moving. But when it comes to children, I do go on and on and on. Until I am sure: are you really going to pick this up?

However much I enjoy doing constellations, I said from the start: within 10 years we won’t need these constellations anymore. We can work systemically without constellations.

Within that period, I developed the course Systemic Pedagogy. Many people asked for it. And I thought: constellations in the classroom? We shouldn’t do that, we would cross borders. A teacher is a teacher, not a therapist. But it can be very helpful for people working with children to know how children react to a system in which something has not been given a place. Or how you as a parent or professional have fallen out of order, causing children to fill your place too. There must be another way to bring the systemic view into practice.

We have learned so much about how systems work through all the constellations over the years, we can use that knowledge differently. It’s about the systemic attitude. That you don’t go looking for the solution but open yourself up to what presents itself here? What wants a place here? We took this on board in the Systemic Pedagogy course and later in the Systemic Coaching course, which is also based on systemic work without constellations.

I am kind of the custodian of that body of thought. And I also get to be the tribal elder. That makes me proud.