What is Family Constellation?
Family Constellation, also known as Systemic Constellation and Systemic Family Constellation, is a therapeutic method which draws on elements of family systems therapy, existential phenomenology and Zulu beliefs and attitudes to family. A Family Constellation session typically begins with a group of participants sitting in a circle, facilitated by a trained practitioner. The person seeking healing, known as the “issue holder” or “seeker,” presents the issue they wish to explore. This could range from relationship struggles to health problems, emotional trauma, or unresolved grief.
Practitioners claim that present-day problems and difficulties may be influenced by traumas suffered in previous generations of the family, even if those affected are unaware of the original event. Hellinger referred to the relation between present and past problems that are not caused by direct personal experience as systemic entanglements, said to occur when unresolved trauma has afflicted a family through an event such as murder, suicide, death of a mother in childbirth, early death of a parent or sibling, war, natural disasters.
The method has been described by physicists as an example of quantum mysticism, and its founder Bert Hellinger incorporated the existing pseudoscientific concept of morphic resonance into his explanation of it. Positive outcomes from the therapy have been attributed to conventional explanations such as suggestion, empathy, and the placebo effect. Because of the subjective therapeutic process and experiential nature of family constellations, family constellations therapy is not an evidence-based approach.
Origins & Lineage
The term “Family Constellations” was first used by Alfred Adler to describe the relational position of an individual within a family system and the influence of family dynamics on psychological development. The contemporary therapeutic approach known as Family Constellations was later developed by Bert Hellinger in the late 20th century. Bert Hellinger, a German psychotherapist, was born in 1925. Bert Hellinger was a German psychotherapist and family therapist who was a former Catholic priest. His time in Zulu land as a priest informed him of family grouping, loyalties and what is required for a healthy sense of belonging for the group and for the individuals within it. He left the priesthood to become a family therapist.
Throughout his career, Hellinger worked with various psychotherapeutic approaches, such as psychoanalysis, hypnotherapy, and transactional analysis. In the 1970s, Hellinger began developing his approach to Family Constellations, which drew inspiration from his experiences working with indigenous tribes in South Africa and his studies in group dynamics and family therapy. In the early 1980’s, Dr. Hellinger began to integrate Virginia Satir’s family re-construction process with group and family therapy, particularly Moreno’s Psychodrama. This was when Hellinger began using group members to mimic a family system—the basic format of what was to become Family Constellation work. Gestalt therapy training was followed by NLP, where Hellinger resonated with the concept of working with resources rather than problems. Immersion in the hypnotherapy approach of Milton Erickson also featured during this time, alongside other modalities too numerous to list here.
The term “Family Constellations” was coined by Hellinger to describe his unique approach in the 1990’s. It wasn’t until the 1990s when psychiatrist Gunthard Weber helped Hellinger publish a collection of books that helped popularize family constellations.
How It’s Practiced
The participant selects individuals from the group to represent family members or significant figures in their life. These representatives are positioned in the room in a way that reflects the participant’s inner image of their family system. Without prior knowledge, these representatives often experience thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, or insights that reflect the person they are representing’s experiences. Hellinger insisted on giving representatives very little background information, which he believed allowed them to access the deeper, potentially hidden dynamics of the person they were representing.
Family constellations stimulate change through the following ways: 1) making visible the spatial arrangement of relationships within a conflictual system; 2) providing access to the insights of unrelated third parties regarding the sensations, feelings, and thoughts they experienced while representing family members within the constellation; and 3) making observable (from the outside) and experienceable (from within) the transformation of the problem constellation into the solution constellation. Through gentle movements, healing sentences, and acknowledgement of what has been excluded or unspoken, balance and order can be restored to the system.
Having successfully arranged family members to ease the tensions, the client replaces their stand-in and allows themselves to be affected by the experience. It may be accompanied by a therapeutic ritual such as an embrace or repeating a sentence. A constellation session is a one-time event, with no follow-up. It may take place in front of a large audience. For private sessions, floor markers and visualizations are used. These visual cues make them just as effective and accessible as group sessions.
Family Constellation Today
The growth of Family Constellations as a therapeutic healing modality in Germany and elsewhere in Europe has been profound. There are now thousands of facilitators practicing this work. Family Constellations are not as widely known here in the United States, but this is changing rapidly as more and more facilitators are learning this work every day. In recent years, elements of family constellation therapy have moved out of a group setting to include individual therapy and organizational consulting, revealing and initiating shifts in the dynamic nature of human systems.
Seekers typically encounter Family Constellation work through weekend workshops led by trained facilitators, multi-day residential retreats, or individual sessions adapted from the group format. Its popularity may be in part due to the brief nature of the therapy and its unique method of resolving challenges in which others are involved without necessitating the presence of those other individuals.
Common Misconceptions
Family Constellation is not a replacement for conventional psychotherapy or medical treatment. Family Constellations diverges significantly from conventional forms of cognitive, behaviour and psychodynamic psychotherapy. The work does not require extensive personal history or talk therapy; rather, insight emerges through the spatial and embodied experience of representatives.
The method is not evidence-based or scientifically validated in the conventional sense, despite claims about “morphic fields” or quantum phenomena. The method has been described by physicists as an example of quantum mysticism. Positive outcomes are better explained through suggestion, empathy, and the placebo effect.
Bert Hellinger’s legacy, however, is less positive. Today, we can look back at Hellinger’s writing and easily spot sexist and homophobic ideas. Fortunately, many clinicians more brilliant than Hellinger have proven that family constellation work can be applied without harmful vitriol. The German critical agency Forum Kritische Psychologie reported four cases of people seeking treatment for obsessions they reported developing as a result of attending Hellinger’s family constellations workshop, and a Dutch psychiatrist reported an additional four cases of individuals experiencing mental health concerns they said developed after they attended a workshop.
How to Begin
For those curious about what is family constellation work and family constellation meaning, the clearest entry point is attending a group workshop led by a certified facilitator. Organizations such as the North American Systemic Constellations Association maintain directories of trained practitioners. Those seeking an introduction to family constellation for beginners may consider starting with a book such as Gunthard Weber’s Love’s Hidden Symmetry, which documents Hellinger’s early work, or attending an introductory online session before committing to in-person group work. Practitioners trained in trauma-informed, contemporary approaches are preferable to those adhering rigidly to Hellinger’s original methods.