Q What is a family constellation?

A First, there is a family conscience whose function is to ensure that everyone in the family has equal right to membership. It operates beneath the conscious level; we don't feel it (like we do personal conscience). If someone is cast out of the system, or is unacknowledged in some way, someone else (often in a later generation) will feel systemic pressure to represent the excluded person. Confusion results regarding who belongs in which place in the family; this is called an entanglement.

Examples of how members are often unacknowledged include: miscarriages, abortions, stillbirths, suicides, murders, lost loves or former relationship partners, tragic accidents, and those with difficult fates. Living and dead members have the same weight in this model; everyone has their own rightful position in the unconscious soul. Other significant influences on the unconscious family system include immigration, war, and victim/perpetrator dynamics.

The family constellation tool is a systemic approach to healing that uncovers and restructures unconscious family blueprints. It is a respectful, yet powerful, way of gently bringing to light the hidden workings of a family system. In doing so, it is possible to find ways to resolve entanglements and become free from restrictive family ties.

Q What happens in the workshop?

A Constellations look like a living tree or genogram. An individual physically places people who represent family members in the room according to her/his heartfelt, inner picture of the family. This creates an energy field, where the representatives experience thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations related to the actual person they are representing. Once the unconscious system is revealed, it can be restructured into a more whole, life-giving picture. This makes a tremendous difference for the individual and for many of their family members.

Q What does the term "orders of love" mean?

A Orders of love are hidden (unconscious) natural laws that shape and constrain the behavior of human relationship systems.
Examples of orders are:
– Every member has a rightful place which must be respected and honored
– Relationships need a balance of giving and taking
– Parents give and children take

Three common harmful patterns regarding child (including adult children)/parent:
– Children refuse to take their parents as they are
– Parents try to give and children take what is harmful
– Parents try to take from children and children try to give to parents

Q Who developed this approach?

A Bert Hellinger, a German psychotherapist now in his seventies. His rich and varied life experience includes many years as a priest, his work as a psychotherapist for 20 plus years, living with African Zulu tribes for 16 years, and growing up in Nazi Germany with war-resistant parents.

Q It sounds kind of "woo woo" or new age-like.

A Yes, it does. Words like "energy" "soul" and "vessel" are not typically associated with traditional psychotherapy. Hellinger says that each family has its own soul, also part of a Greater Soul. We carry our families with us like a hologram; in the workshops, we externalize the hologram and, for a brief moment, have glimpse into deeply unconscious patterns in the system.

What's undeniable is that this approach has revolutionized the therapeutic circles of Western Europe, is rapidly developing interest in the states, and is organically spreading across the global community. Hellinger is now working in all seven continents; he is increasingly focused on serving at the international level with communities in conflict.

Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist whose life work is studying morphic energy fields. He wrote the book Seven Experiments That Can Change the World, and says that the first time he ever witnessed a live morphic energy field was when he watched one of Hellinger's constellation workshops.

Q Does someone need to be in individual counseling in order to do a workshop?

A No. Some people are introduced to the work via their counselors; others through many other venues. Unlike traditional counseling, Hellinger cautions participants not to talk about their constellations too much after doing them. By doing so, people become pulled back into old stories and into their heads, thereby unraveling any solutions which came out of the work. The idea is to let the more complete picture of one's family from the constellation move in your soul and in your life — not to analyze it, or get back into the problem. In this way, the work is very solution-oriented and organic. Its focus is on solutions — not problems — even when our rational minds may not fully understand either the problem or solution. Going with the wisdom of the soul, carried in the body, seems to lead people to lasting solutions.

Workshops can be an extremely useful adjunct to traditional psychotherapy, and vice versa. The individual counseling relationship can be a place to support integration of family material from the workshop. For others, the experience stands best alone. It also appeals to some who might not be drawn to traditional therapy.