The family constellation approach as developed
by Bert Hellinger is a process by which we can access the
deepest dynamics in our family system in order to find new
sources of healing and strength. The purpose in looking at
these dynamics is to better understand forces at work in the
system that may not be known to current members, including
hidden loyalties, subliminal identifications, and embedded
patterns established long ago. Once these entanglements are
revealed, they can be integrated into a solution picture that
encompasses everyone and everything that belongs to the family,
without judgment.
The following is a very general description
of how a constellation unfolds. Most facilitators work in
a group setting. A client states his or her issue. The facilitator
listens for the place in the client’s description where
there seems to be energy enough to start the work. The client
is asked to select from the group a number of people to represent
certain members of his or her family. Perhaps the facilitator
asks for the mother and father, or perhaps the five siblings,
including the brother who died at birth. The facilitator will
follow his or her intuition in this.
The client, then, positions the representatives
in relation to one another. Facilitator and client wait. What
are they waiting for? They are waiting for the movements that
emerge from a shared plane of existence – what some
call the knowing field, or the morphogenic field.
As all the participants in the constellation
– client, representatives, engaged witnesses –
tune into the family, essential information emerges and the
representatives begin to “receive” an understanding
of those they represent.
What the client always thought of as the
“bad marriage” of her grandparents turns out to
be a complicated but loving relationship. What another client
saw as sternness in his father is actually a holding back
from life because his mother had committed suicide and he
felt guilty for going on. Still another client, who finds
she is always angry with her husband but doesn’t know
why, realizes that she cannot bear to be happier than her
mother was. But when she sees that her mother smiles on her
as she stands beside her husband, she can look toward him
with new eyes. And on and on.
What we experience in the constellations
is that our symptoms -- physical, emotional, psychological
– are related to events and to people outside of our
immediate experience. They are connected to deeper longing
in the system, such as the longing to be remembered, or acknowledged,
or heard. Once we are able to identify where the natural flow
of love was diverted or blocked, perhaps many generations
back, we can become the memory, acknowledgment, or the listener.
This deep and humble movement may very well
release the spell of denial so that the whole family system
can find balance. At the very least, we find our own place
and are able to experience the humility and power of being
one of many versus one alone.
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