I. BEGINNINGS

It would be up to the Eastern European Colleagues to say whether the bridge-building conferences on family therapy which Virginia Satir initiated in Prague in 1987 had any measurable influence on the changes in the former East-Block. They were in any case a fascinating window which gave us as western visitors a very exciting view of events which were obviously related to the systemic ideas we were discussing. When we arrived at the second conference in Budapest in 1989, US-President George Bush was in the city and we could feel the atmosphere which led to the opening of the Iron Curtain soon after. The conference in Krakau in 1990, on the eve of German unification, gave us a good opportunity to look at that process from the outside.
Many personal contacts developed in this framework. One was a network of East-European family therapists. Another was a decision made by the Bulgarian Zhenya Georgieva (who with a group had reported on the expulsion of the Turks from Bulgaria as an example of authoritarian family structure as described by the Frankfurt School) and Susan Scharwiess, an American in Berlin, to start an international collaboration. Their first project was a workshop on The Family Therapy of Societies in Transition" held at the Budapest Symposium of the World Psychiatric Association WPA in Budapest just two days after the Moscow Coup in the summer of 1991, which was awarded the Masserman Foundation Award for International Accords. For many reasons - not only on the basis of this encouragement -they wanted to continue the collaboration, this time with a larger professional meeting. Where should it be? and when? and how should it be organized?

PREPARATION

After one further meeting of the co-ordinators, a Berlin Committee met to try to answer these questions. The seven members of this initial group worked in English, since our Polish member didn't speak much German at that time. Although English had been the language of the previous international meetings, we included a question on the language of the meeting in the first questionnaire to potential participants along with the questions on when and where to meet. We had hoped that they might be equally fluent in German because we were unsure of how to find participants from the former East Germany who would feel at home in English. As the answers to the questionnaires showed that the meeting should be held in English, we decided to have a public meeting the last evening where aur conclusions would be simultaneously translated into German. The questionnaires also showed that the meeting should be held in or near Berlin and that November 26-29 would be convenient for the most colleagues.

While the Berlin Co-ordinator was issuing invitations on the basis of these decisions, the Berlin Committee was going through the process of becoming a group. The name was decided upon, a symbol was created (by our Columbian member, using Chinese calligraphy), we designed our letter-paper and enjoyed our meetings as much as possible in order to get acquainted and to build a foundation for the phases of very hard work which could lie before us. One sub-committee looked for housing and found a very nice and economical possibility at the protestant Hirschluch Center near Storkow. Another group wrote the formal invitation according to the Bulgarian suggestion not to offer too much support or to seem over-protective. Gradually, however, we noticed that most people didn't seem to have any idea how to deal with the costs so we founded a Verein (a form of incorporated association) and started to look for financial support. We received quite a lot of enthusiasm from foundations and government offices, who unfortunately had spent all their money for 1992. We were very happy to receive smaller amounts from the Walter Jacobsen-Society in Hamburg and from the catholic Caritas. A group of Supervisors from the Gestalt Therapy Institute in Würzburg underwrote the Croatian participant's flight. And then, while the meeting was already in progress, we received the very good news that the Labor, Social, Health and Women's Ministry of the State of Brandenburg (one state of the former GDR which surrounds Berlin like a doughnut and in which our meeting was being held) would support the main costs of the meeting.

Our thematic preparation began in the summer. We looked for literature which would serve as a theoretical background in common for all the participants. Since the topic is new, we had to look for texts from different sources.' We found implications for the theme of Transition in advanced family therapy literature, in Timothy Garton Ash's remarkable eyewitness account of all the "Revolutions" of 1989, in texts on migration and in accounts of the new scientific paradigms around chaos or dissipative structures. Some articles from the areas of politics or philosophy surprised us with their emphasis on psychological themes such as Trust.

This literature was sent to all prospective participants (including colleagues from Lithuania, Rumania, Slovia and Czechoslovakia besides those who later came to the meeting) as well as to our advisors and the corresponding members in the US, Chile, South Africa and Israel (other countries going through different kinds of changes). A list of the literature is included at the end of this report.

Meanwhile, this more thematic discussion had enabled us to define our goals more clearly. We wrote a description of our project called "What is Systems in Transition?" in order to present ourselves to scientific colleagues and to potential sponsors (also included at the end of this report). Aside from these activities, we continued to try to keep in touch with prospective participants through letters and questionnaires on the formulation of our program in general and to specific themes.

We suggested the following themes as a multiple choice:
Transition
Differentiation and Unification
Nationality, Nationalism, and Identity
East and West
Timing
Trust
Existenzangst
Where do we go from here?
Evaluation of seven returned questionnaires showed the most votes for Transition Nationality, Nationalism and Identity
Where do we go from here? and  Timing in that order.

Our practical work continued with the paper-work for visa applications including health insurance as well as correspondence with the participants about their travel plans. In this connection we got a big surprise: "our" Serb had left Europe and needed a very expensive flight-ticket from us. What could we do? Without a Serbian participant, our attempt to find a systemic view of world events would have been doomed from the start. We decided to try to find a "new" Serbian participant, and luck was with us. But then we had the problem of trying to get a visum for her five days before the meeting was to begin, just as the Blockade of Serbia was being reinforced. When we found out that it had been possible to get her visum, we were very impressed with the positive possibilities of transition.

It is impossible for a retrospective report to recreate the atmosphere in which these preparations were made, because now we know that the meeting actually took place. Beforehand actually until the first participants started arriving -we didn't know whether it would really be possible. That means that the uncertainty characteristic of transition also defined our work (ten days before the meeting, we only had definite arrival times for three people). We experienced the motivating factors of transitional uncertainty as individuals and as a group.

II. THE MEETING ITSELF

Arriving colleagues were met at the airports, as far as possible, took part in further preparations and were brought to Storkow. After supper there - as four colleagues surprised us one after the other with their arrival - we did a round of associations and a "sculpture" with ourselves as building blocks on the topic of transition. Then we introduced ourselves and discussed the program for the meeting. The group wanted more emphasis on the German unification process, which interestingly enough had been "forgotten" by the Berlin Committee.

Friday morning, we began with discussions in small groups, in the afternoon we did role-plays on the topic of Germany, and in the evening we had a look at Berlin. Saturday morning we did role-plays on Yugoslavia and small groups worked again in the afternoon to formulate the reports for the public meeting Saturday evening. Afterwards we had a party to let loose some of the great joy we had found in the meeting, and a sub-group spent the early hours of the morning trying to define "global consciousness." After breakfast, we made plans for our own future (see part V. of this report) until the departure times of the first flights broke up the meeting and those colleagues whose planes were later worked with the Committee to put our house in order.

The Committee was part of the whole throughout the meeting with a special concern to create a structure which would do justice to the needs of the participants as well as our joint purpose. We wanted to be something like a "reflecting team" from the inside, gathering in as many various stimulations or tensions as possible in order to use them constructively for the whole process at our meetings before breakfast every morning. In this connection we can mention that there was relatively little tension and that those which did occur tended to be within rather than between national groups. As far as we could tell, "our" Yugoslavians seemed to be getting along more on the basis of personality than nation, all three seemed to like each other as persons. In the mornings they seemed to be speaking serbo-croat with each other, maybe due to tiredness or maybe because of our loud wake-up music (otherwise English was spoken almost exclusively). The rest of the group had a clear wish to "be there" for our Yugoslavians as much as possible, since they all showed signs of the strain of the war.

III. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF THE SCULPTURE WORK

An important aspect of our planning had been to stimulate sharing and to develop a sort of a think-tank, rather than to have a collection of speeches. We wanted to communicate not only on a conceptual level, but also non-verbally or in metaphors. One method for working with metaphors which is common in family therapy is "family sculpting," using ourselves to create a model of the relationships we are talking about. An inner picture is not described in words but rather presented by "modelling" a role-player. A "director" gives more or less exact instructions according to which the roleplayers arrange themselves in the room with various poses and gestures. The sculpture can be static or moving. This modelling-process makes the inner picture not only visible, it can also be felt. After the role-play, the players (and often the spectators) share their thoughts, feelings, and physical reactions, thus deepening our understanding of the structure that has been modelled.

This technique was developed in the late sixties by David Kantor, Fred and Bunny Duhl, Virginia Satir and Peggy Papp. It is based on the theory of the different functions of the two halves of the brain, in which the left half is connected with verbal-logical-analytical thinking and the right half with a wholistic grasp of connections. "The word becomes an experiential picture, and it is 'led over' (meta-pherein) from the left to the right half of the brain", thus circumventing the control of defense mechanisms (left-hemispheric thinking.)

As far as we know, we were the first to apply this technique to experiencing the systemic realities of international problems. We were all surprised at how effective it was. We never would have thought, for instance, that East- and West- Europeans could take roles randomly as "Wessis" and "Ossis" inplays about German unification and describe in such detail exactly the emotional impressions which we ourselves had had in the situation (with exchanged roles: Eastern Europeans or an East-German reported just as accurately in a "Wessi" role as vice-versa). This exactness together with the changes of role and perspective due to three different presentations in quick succession made feelings and attitudes into objective realities, independent of whether the other "means well" and also not inborn. We understood that a person's feelings had something to do with his situation and with the system of which we are all a part, and that anyone in his place could have his (or her) feelings.

This realization increased our respect for each other and for all our different interpretations of the world around US. The usual tendency to harmonize and "get along" was not so much rejected as complemented by a friendly need to name our differences.

Another effect was the realization that we had all been in an "involuntary role-play" by virtue of our own nationalities. These roles became more relative by having experienced the planned role-plays. If one person really was a "Wessi" or a Serbian and someone else had experienced this position in a role-play, both could take this position in a discussion. This reduced polarities and freed all of us a little bit.

One thing we cannot judge is to what extent our training made this work possible and how far it would be transferable to other populations. It did seem that those participants with less therapeutic experience were more skeptical of the role-plays. They seemed to think there was some kind of hocus-pocus in the way the role-players got into their roles. For most of us it seemed quite obvious.

OUR SCULPTURES

Sculptures on the German Situation

1. Director: USA/Berlin
Instruction: The West-Germans hold hands and dance in a circle. Suddenly, they drop their hands; this should symbolize the fall of the wall.
The East-Germans come into the circle and walk around silently among the "Wessis".
At some point, the Director says "now."
That is unification.
Reactions to 1:
The "Wessis" (especially the West-Berliners) developed nostalgic feelings for the community they had felt before the fall of the wall. They felt blocked and confused in the new situation.
The East-Germans felt unwelcome. They hadn't wanted to intrude, but now they were here and wanted to be seen for who they are.
2. Director: Sweden
Instruction: The Wall holds the East-Germans back. The Wall disappears. What will happen?

SUMMARY:

The main feelings, especially in the first two sculptures on the German situation, were fear, uncertainty and blocks.
These led to a crippled feeling and a sense of inability to do anything at all.
In the plays, there were almost no efforts to overcome these feelings and to try to do something, not even within one's
own group ("East" or "West").
Only the attachment to "East" or "West" remained. Loyalty to one's own group seemed important.
In the third sculpture it became clear that the feeling of being dependent on the one side and of being exploited and abused on the other led to huge amounts of rage on both sides.

Working through this was only possible with the help of a third party (in this case, a Polish therapist).

Sculptures on Yugoslavia

1. Director: Croatia
Instruction: The players move in a circle, copying a Leader's steps exactly. He is taken out. What will happen?
Outcome: After the Leader was taken out, nobody knew what to do any more. The whole play fell apart quickly.
Reactions:
The Director of the play was surprised that it was over so
fast. Should she have put in a new Leader? The Leader in
the circle had felt how frustration was building up and had
begun to get feelings of insufficiency.
In this play, there were two Leaders - one in the circle and
the Director of the whole play. Maybe the Director stood
for ideology.
2. Director: Bosnia
Instruction: 4 players are supposed to do something together,
while 5 others do something individually.
The "Group of 4" should try to do something with the "5 individuals."
Then everybody should let go and be "free" together.

Cultural differences could be part of the reason for thelack of clarity in this family, such as differences of opinion about what a family is, when it is time to go, and who decides.
It was very hard for this family to "differentiate." (Bowen)
Gradually, a therapeutic strategy emerged:
a) Supporting father and son around their singing.
b) Acknowledgement and support of mother, so that she can give up her resistance.

IV. RESULTS

1. Orientational Paradigms for Transition

We see the metaphor of the family as a useful aid to understanding what is going on in our societies. It is particularly helpful for questions dealing with the connection between historical development and the current situation. The contextual school of family therapy which deals with issues involving several generations is the most useful one in this connection.

Beyond the metaphoric level, our work is based on the ecosystemic approach which is being developed within and between various sciences and is used as a theoretical background for therapeutic work with families and is also appropriate for understanding larger systems.
The systemic approach includes:
- circular explanations rather than linear ones at all levels.
- the question of the function or meaning of the symptom (i.e. questions such as 'how is the scape-goat helping the system to which he belongs' or 'which conflicts between which other parties are being detoured at his expense?') rather than the search for a final verdict on who is right and who is to bear the guilt for having caused the problem.
These and many other concepts partially derived from them were the theoretical background of our work in Storkow. All of these, and also related ideas which came up in our preparatory reading, were written on large cards and distributed on one wall of our meeting room in Storkow.
Further themes that have been developed in eco-systemic
thinking include:
a) Chaos as a necessary and unavoidable aspect of growth- and developmental processes. Chaos - like the concept of crisis - bears the potential for a complete re-structuring of a system at a higher developmental level, more suitable for both individual and collective interests at a given stage . Besides this positive potential, there is also and simultaneously the danger of falling back into the most rigid form of the former equilibrium or homeostasis. Our discussions pointed out that conscious processing of the loss and mourning which are a part of any change-process can enhance the possibilities for positive development.
b) The concept of global thinking points to an awareness of our increasing world-wide interconnectedness, for instance with regard to natural resources. It covers everything from small and apparently private problems to big political questions. In this sense, "Be global!" is a challenge to responsible action with respect for the reciprocal dependency mentioned above.
Many participants referred to the ideas of TÖFFLER, BATESON, AUERSWALD and others on the developmental stages of societies:
Stage 1: hierarchical and collective organisation, so-called macho-dictatorships with many close relationships and a high valuation of the collective but little personal freedom;
Stage 2: individuation, generated by industrialization with a high degree of personal freedom but a lack of belongingness and community.
The narcissistic personality seems to be the classical disorder of this stage.
Stage 3, which can not yet be found on our planet, seems to be the task set for humanity at the present moment in global development: creation of a new quality of life and a new synthesis which offers pathways for living together and for international cooperation with understanding for our interconnections and common responsibility, but only the essentially necessary degree of hierarchy on the one hand and on the other appreciation of the uniqueness of each person without the price of exaggerated individualism and the loneliness which is typical for modern industrial societies.

All of our societies are different combinations of Stage 1 and Stage 2 which means that each of them can contribute to solving the problems of humanity in a different way.

An essential condition of being able to reach stage 3 is a conviction of our basic equality without regard to race, sex, culture or material wealth, as well as a fearless respect for each other which recognizes the differences between people as a potential for joint growth, rather than fighting them out of a fear of threats to one's own rights.

In spite of our clinical experience with families in growth crises, none of us has a clear view of the result of the developmental process which societies will go through after the chaos phase.

What we know is:
that we are all involved. There are no experts, no therapists for society as a whole, and no God behind the one-way mirror (or our ear-piece isn't working). We could however reach an agreement that some of the less involved parties assist those who are part of a given conflict as a kind of a "reflecting team" (See footnote 3 on Page 6).
What we need is trust:
The next immediate steps involve dialogue and the sharing of fears and capabilities as well as the creation of a culture of communication and cooperation.
We have reached the limits of "neutral observation" of what is going on around us; we must accept responsibility and take action so that we all can survive.

Encouraged by our meeting itself, and building on our systemic basis, we developed some fantasies for peace which we want to make public because it seems that the more established paths to peace have not achieved it yet. We hope that some aspect of our brainstorming could provoke someone to a good idea.

Setting: If a family therapist had to work with a family the way the peace mediators have had to work with the warring parties, he or she would scarcely have any chance of success. Their earlier trips back and forth between the fronts and now the Vance-Owen-Plan leave the "burden of proof" with the mediator, who thus can much too easily be caught "in the system" or him/herself become the "identified patient" (see Footnote 6 on page 22). A more favourable setting would be a meeting in a room where the parties themselves were encouraged to find a solution with each other.

Peace-"Power": Why do we all seem to think that the Great Powers are most likely to find the peace? Actually, we don'tseem to think that is the whole story, because we look for morally respected representatives of the powerful nations to do peace work. Are the U.S. and the European Community really the most appropriate "peace-agents" for Yugoslavia? Couldn't their own neighbors be more help than the EC? (Would the EC have even considered an application for membership from Yugoslavia?)

Systemic View: In general, there seems to be more of a scapegoat-hunt with coalitions than a systemic view of the problems in former Yugoslavia. Germany is one example with its early recognition of Slovenia and Croatia and strong judgement of Serbia. Let's just say that if France had strong traditional ties to Serbia, it would be possible for instance to support Serbia in order to "discretely" work out some kind of tension with Germany. Similar examples could be constructed in all directions.

Such coalitions could have developed around a demarcation between Christians and Moslems running through the middle of Yugoslavia, much as the line of division between Communism and Capitalism which went through Germany for so many years.

(And by the way, who managed and how to keep the struggles around the Iron Curtain "cold"?).

A systemic understanding of these coalition processes could enable each one of us to make a contribution to peace. if for instance Germans notice that they - even just as TV viewers - are being drawn into "coalition-conflicts" with France about Serbia, then they can try to clarify any issues there may be with the French directly, so these won't contribute to "heating up" the conflicts in Yugoslavia. if all the neighbors could clean up between themselves all the conflicts that could contribute to the war, then they could become a peace team. This team could offer the exhausted and abused warriors a haven where they could find some contact to each other.

If this large view is too optimistic, maybe it would be easier to get a peace-team from somewhere farther away, for instance a group of black and white South Africans. it is always inspiring to see men of peace from crisis areas (our Jugoslavians inspired all the rest of us; some conflicts in Berlin were cleared up as a result). Of course, it would be especially nice to do peace-work "bi-focally" - but the Yugoslavians may well be too exhausted for that at the moment.

Reflecting Team: A technique from family work which could be used to integrate the view described here with classical diplomacy is the reflecting team (footnote 3). While the family is working in front, consultants sit behind the one way mirror. Then the lights are turned on behind the mirror and the advisors talk about the family. Then the family talks about the views of the advisors. It is conceivable that the diplomatic process could be accompanied by an international group of systemic advisors in a similar way.

4. Possibilities of East-West-Cooperation

East-West-Relationships are naturally on the one hand examples of international cooperation where - as in any exchange or multicultural gathering - the following themes are important:

- Stereotypes, which we should become more aware of and research in detail, in order to deal with them wisely - Experience: walk a mile in your neighbor's moccasins ... - Language, concrete as a means of communication (we used English and we think that the use of English will continue to increase) and also in a figurative sense: we have no language to describe what happens when systems (of the family or of larger units) and certainties break down - most of the expressions we do have are disparaging and problem-fixated.

In another sense, we saw our meeting as a practical experiment in specific aspects of East-West Cooperation:

We saw "differentiation" as a very important topic for many East-European participants. The Eastern Europeans seem to feel caught between adjustment to the old monolithic system and to the system of the "New" world with different rules. They need time to find themselves and their own individual values and feelings, and they need recognition from the West-Europeans for this process and for their uniqueness.

The West-Europeans themselves are caught in another kind of a trap. Their behavior oscillates between over-eager and indifferent or between the isolationist view that "nothing has changed" and a community-oriented view that we have to share and that the reward is more contact to other people.

Those West-Europeans most willing to share are at the same time often the ones who bear the brunt of the Eastern-Europeans' need to differentiate and who paradoxically are seen in the character-mask of the capitalist system (which of course would be more deserved by the "carpet-baggers", the profiteers of unification and transition.)

These views articulated themselves at our meeting in the loaded question of "equality" (a word which can only be correctly used by East-Europeans; in the mouth of a West- European it will sound disparaging).The "East" thinks of equality in terms of differentiation, intellectual abilities and creativity, far from the financial situation - which of course, however, should also change. The West-Europeans must of course do a lot about that, which on the other hand accentuates their position of strength again. This contradiction is open to abuse on the part of the East-Europeans, who can let the Westerners who want to help "run aground" in an almost sadistic way (as an East-European said at our meeting).

A further dimension of these three themes is whether they seem to be fate or whether they seem to leave room for individual responsibility. Fateful differentiation or engagement or running aground lead to stress, privatism and simplicistic values. Responsibility leads to active neutrality and a systemic view. Active neutrality in Yugoslavia would mean "taking away the stick " from the fighters.

Concrete suggestions on the basis of these themes include:
- keep trying, don't give up!
- avoid polarity, find a third party to mediate
- avoid single-theme-discussions. There is more than one
unsolved problem and another issue could show both of us in a different light
- share responsibility
- enjoy people who bring in surprising new accents
- be aware of one's own characteristica: maybe "they" are not so "different," maybe it's us.
Basically, East-West-Relations are one example of the fact that we have become a global society, that we belong together and that harming one of us harms us all.

V. LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE
Since the participants wanted to continue the process, the Bulgarian co-ordinator invited us all to Sofia for the fall of 1993.
The organization there will be taken over by a Bulgarian Committee. She asked the Berlin group to continue to work on international communication.
It was decided to expand our networking into the former USSR and also in the direction of the Middle East.
Beyond that, the Berlin Committee will be looking for good ways to stay in touch with the corresponding members in the rest of the world.
We would like to have a somewhat larger workshop in 1994 in connection with an international conference. Maybe after that a large symposium on the topic of "Systems in Transition" could become a reality.