Bert Hellinger’s Family Constellations : what are they and what is their purpose.

What are “Family Constellations”?

“Family Constellations” are a useful tool to set order in our life, they can be valid for : sicknesses, blocks, anxiety, fears, but also for symptoms, addictions and even those situations that during a life’s path, keep on recurring.

Where do they apply ?

They are a tool aimed to life, which means they can be applied to any scope of life whether it be working, professional, cognitive, relational; starting from the relationship we have with ourselves to get to the relationship we have with our parents, children, siblings, partner, but also to more specific aspects of our life such as money and our professional accomplishment.

What are the principles that inspire them.

The leading principle of Family Constellations is that between us and our ancestors there is a bond, a connection; this is made up of many positive memories but also a quantity of loads and baggage which we don’t know anything about or where they belong to. We take charge of something that is not ours, these are conditionings that sometimes lead us to do things which push away from ourselves and drive us to live something not exactly ours. The aim of a Constellation is to reveal these mechanisms and work on them.

Examples of Constellations

I remember an example of two brothers who kept on quarrelling and nobody could get them to make up. Thanks to a Constellation, I found out that in their family genealogy there had been two other brothers who hadn’t been speaking to each other any longer; that was the reason why they would tend to repeat the same behaviour. This mechanism is a common feature in families and is called “Family System Loyalty”. In this case they were repeating a pattern that had already taken place, so they were showing to be good members of the family. The consciousness of a family system doesn’t mind if the behaviours that we apply are “positive” or “negative”, they are simply part of that system and when we repeat them, we are good members.

How do they work ?

Firstly it all starts with a question, an aspect of our life that we want to investigate; the person who asks the question is called client, there are then other participants arranged in a circle who are called observers and some, called representatives, who will be asked to “enact” inside the circle. The circle is called field or Morfogenetic Field thanks to the studies of Rupert Sheldrake. First he investigated flocks of birds, water crystals and subsequently protein molecules and DNA cells; he detected the presence of an invisible force that acts in the system; it is not identified with the members but with the system itself, and is responsible for its structure, form and organization, force which would also have a memory of the system.

Secondly a person is chosen in representation of the client, then according to the question, another will be chosen for the father, for the mother, siblings, grandparents, or the partner. At that point something really magical happens : the representative people in the field start to comunicate and take position either in a clear and direct way, or simply in more subtle ways through a glance or little movements. These are indicative and clear moves for the therapist in order to understand the dynamics of the family and its system.

Example of representation.

The participants form a circle, the client chooses a representative for himself, then the representative person first places himself in front of the representative of the client’s father, who is a bit alone in another area of the circle, then in front of the mother’s.

The client seems little interested in the look of the mother because he feels he is unseen by the father.

The client may go towards the father and say : “ I’ve never felt loved by you”. This type of phrase, that would be difficult to say in real life, is possible in Costellation and may produce a different image; for example in the representation, as the client is in front of his parents and their eyes are watching him, that’s how love begins to flow again, in this way an important balance is restored.

We can therefore conclude this introduction to the world of Family Constellations by claiming that “they give us the possibility to say what in everyday life would be much more difficult to say and they give us the possibility to see a picture of what we have witnessed about the dynamics operating in our family system and carry it with us.

For further information on this topic or for a session of Family Constellations you can contact me on :

website : gaiatortolina.eu

e-mail: info@gaiatortolina.eu gaiatortolina@gmail.com

In my next articles I will continue to talk about this topic and about the Orders of Love and life necessary for relationships to flow wonderfully