Family and Systemic Constellations are a living and growing body of knowledge that is mostly discovered through an experiential method of inquiry.
It successfully resists any attempts to be comprehensively defined. As soon as we say anything about it, including how it came about or who “invented” it, as soon as we call it this or that way, there is a myriad of voices who offer a different perspective.
Risking that, I offer my view that Family Constellations have been developed by Bert Hellinger, a German psychotherapist, as an innovative and original approach, through synthesis of many different modalities and strands of knowledge coupled with his own phenomenological insights.
It was originally applied within a psychotherapy framework as a method of offering professional help in ameliorating some of life’s difficulties which are encountered in everyday living. At the beginning it was maybe merely a method in which unrelated persons were set up to represent family members, and through which we gained a direct insight into the dynamics operating in the system being set up.
A peculiar phenomenon which became apparent through these “set ups” was that strangers somehow picked up the information about the family members when they were set up to represent them.
This phenomenon of “representative perception,” which was informed by what was later referred to as “the knowing field” allowed us to gain insight into the particular family dynamics, the blockages and all, and then also to balance, to unblock, to restore, or to include, which often brought relief and healing.
The phenomenon of the knowing field and of the ability to gain direct knowledge about any human system through representative’s perception has become a hallmark of the constellation method which distinguishes it from any other. So, “constellations” are a method of setting up, the doing of it aptly named “constellating.”
As constellation after constellation was set up, with the same phenomena being observed, firstly by Hellinger and then many others, and in many different cultures all over the world, it became obvious that we are not only dealing with a method of therapy but also learning something important about how our relationships operate.
The universal laws of life, often called the “orders of love” started to emerge and revealed a view of most intricate, co-dependent network of interrelationships in human systems, governed by mighty forces which followed their own logic, unrelenting in pressures they exert on us. And which we are totally oblivious about. Through constellation method, we started to re-discover the ancient knowledge available to many traditional tribal cultures, all but lost for us, the inhabitants of modern world.
This knowledge, this time coming to us through the phenomenological insight gained through many constellation set ups, became intrinsic to what we today refer as the Family or Systemic Constellations approach.
It is a new body of knowledge of human relationships, which concerns the orders that operate in our relationships, the importance of systemic conscience as well as the awareness about how these are being played out in partner or parent-children relationships, relationships to our ancestors, relationship between victims and perpetrators, national conflicts and reconciliation, and relationship to the Spirit.
It allows us to look at some of the most difficult issues we as humans face in our lives and it guides our interventions. It also sometimes allows the opportunity to alleviate profound suffering. In that it is the most powerful approach I have come across, and many others who encountered it around the world agree. Its popularity has been increasing steadily, the enthusiasm and acclaim by which it is met only matched by the controversy it also regularly elicits from more established disciplines.
Out of this experiential knowledge gained through many a constellation, the view of the world emerged which we can not ignore but by which our established worldview is deeply challenged and with it some crucial concepts that it rests on: like the very notion of good and bad, conscience, independence, freedom, free choice, rationalism and individuality, dualism of matter and non-matter, separation of body and soul – and other.
However, if we take the phenomena we observe in constellations seriously, then a whole new world opens up to us. This world is uncharted, reveals itself to us only in the next step, is mysterious, deep and powerful, limitless, conscious, living, breathing and above all – loving.
Available to us only if we approach it from below, humbly, sticking closely to the ground, with respect and no intention, only helpful if nothing is demanded. Learning how to navigate through this world requires years of learning, purification and spiritual discipline, the learning that never stops as new, ever more astonishing vistas open in front of our (closed) eyes.
So, what is a constellation? What does it mean to constellate? Who or what helps in constellations? Can it be practised within a psychotherapy or any other framework?
One can, maybe, only use “constellation method” without applying “constellation approach,” or apply “constellation approach” without adopting the “constellation world view” which lurks behind.
The question of “what is a constellation” or “what is a Family Constellation” can only be answered by individuals who are on different stages of walking the constellation path and the answer will be different for everyone. Also, constellations keep changing, growing from method into a science of human relationship into a world view.
The insights gained through constellations also reveal that the “orders of love,” whose universality and immutability we only just discovered, might be changing. In addition, the founder of the constellation approach keeps developing it further, claiming that what we have put much effort to learn so far is already superseded by new ways of family constellating.
No wonder we have difficulty explaining what it is we do when we offer constellations! No wonder every attempt among the practitioners to find this one definition of “Family Constellations” remains elusive.
This also makes Family Constellations a unique discipline, different from any other. It is in constant flux, can become known only through our own personal, individual perspective, is experiential and essentially undefinable.
If I have learned anything in my twenty-something years of “constellation contact,” it is that it always keeps me on my toes, requiring constant learning, re-learning, letting go, challenging assumptions and change. By now, I am certain there is no end to that – there is always more!
By Alemka Dauskardt, M.A. Psych, first published at North American Systemic Constellations Blog
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Essential aspects of Systemic Constellations
Constellations are a SYSTEMIC APPROACH
“In family constellations one uses a systemic approach. Systemic work depends on obtaining a view of the totality, the whole. So, those who have been excluded from the system, who are denied acknowledgement or love, must first be sought out. My heart belongs to them right from the start and this enables them to be re-embraced in the family so to speak. This way of working requires the therapist to side with the whole system and not with any individual person. This change of emphasis demands reorientation from the others. Thus, when I ally myself with the whole system, the other family members achieve a new connection with these excluded members.” (Bert Hellinger)
Constellations rely on the in-formation from the FIELD
“Family constellations produce an energy field. When you enter this field as a representative for a family member you behave and feel as though you belonged to it. For many people family constellations have given rise to confusion and bewilderment because they contradict many of our most cherished beliefs. In a constellation something profound is brought to the surface in a every simple way. Then solutions can be found with the love that has become visible, solutions that can have a healing effect in the soul – simply because a reality has been made visible.” (B.H.)
“The family constellation experience shows us that there is a connection with the larger whole, with a spiritual field. In this spiritual field all the members of the family are present, including the dead ones, and everyone is in resonance with everyone else.” (Bert Hellinger)
In constellations we observe that we are part of SOMETHING GREATER
“There is obviously a dimension of awareness that we all share. We all participate in a common field. The soul is something in which we are, in which we have a part. We are part of something greater. We open ourselves up to a broader context and out of this place knowledge emerges, directly, knowledge that is experienced. On this totally different level information, experiences, communication and solutions all happen.” (B.H.)
Constellations require a PHENOMENOLOGICAL STANCE
“A family constellation is a result of a phenomenological stance. A phenomenological stance means, philosophically speaking, that a person holds herself back and is without intention, without fear and without wish to help someone else. The constellations unfolds in front of the therapist; something happens outside the therapist. By holding back she does not engage with it. It is this way of holding back that creates the space in which the decisive movements can come to light. The representatives move under the influence of the soul and find solutions that lie outside the influence of the therapist who basically doesn’t need to do anything. She isn’t passive, however. In holding back she is completely present and so sees when it is appropriate to intervene and does so. But it is without method. So in a way, this phenomenological stance succeeds only if one forgets what one knows about family constellations. One also withdraws and clearly gives space to whatever arises of its own accord.” (Bert Hellinger, “No Waves Without the Ocean”, 2006)
“An exercise for the helper is to withdraw to an empty center. In this empty center we are without intention, without fear, without memory. We are fully recollected. When we succeed in this recollection, things happen around us, as if they were done by us. But we did nothing…But this non-doing is utmost presence. It is non-doing in complete mindfulness. In the presence of someone who is non-acting in this way, the other person can do what really needs to be done.” (B.H. “Rising in Love”, 2008)
Constellations rely on the phenomenon of REPRESENTATIVE PERCEPTION
“In constellations we are confronted with the phenomenon of representatives having access to knowledge or awareness that actually belongs to the people they are representing. In other words, the representatives are aware of feelings and relationships of someone they don’t know. Without this key concept as an underlying assumption of the work a family constellation would be inconceivable.” (J.Schneider “Family Constellations”)
“The energy and dynamics which arise through the therapist’s posture of attentive reserve and representations, create a space in which relationships and entanglements can emerge and move towards resolution. In this process, it seems as if the representatives are being influenced by a powerful external force that appears to direct them in some way. Our established psychological and philosophical approaches are not sufficient to explain the phenomena which can be observed here.”
Constellations reveal the ORDERS that operate in our family systems
There is a basic underlying order in our relationships. Our lives unfold in accordance with certain predictability, in relation to what extent we align ourselves with this order. Life and love follow certain orders which are about balancing, belonging, inclusion, wholeness and priority. Even though we are not conscious of these, they determine our relationships, our success and failure, our illness and health. It is through constellation work that we get to know about them and understand how they impact our lives. We can also learn how to be in alignment with them, so that we can experience harmony.
Constellations work through MULTIGENERATIONAL patterns
If there is an unresolved trauma from an earlier generation, members of the family in later generations will feel the consequences through entanglements with older or deceased members fate. Sometimes through a repetition pattern and sometimes through the process of an identification of a descendant with a member from a previous generation.
Constellations include & honour ANCESTORS
Like many indigenous cultures of the world, Constellations share the notion of the spiritual continuity of present and future with the ancestral past. The continuing and interconnecting relationship between past, present and future is achieved through knowing where we come from and through this knowing we develop strength for living our lives in the now. In indigenous cultures as part of the ritual ceremonies people are reminded of their responsibilities, of the need to mend and preserve relationships between the living and those gone, also between the people and the land. In Constellation approach too, we often find that it is these relationships which have to be looked at and be mend for our present difficulties to be resolved.
“As long as our ancestors are still suffering within us, we cannot be truly happy. If we make a step with awareness…we do this for all the past and future generations. Then all arrive at the same moment we arrive and we all find peace at the same time.” (Thich Nhat Hahn)
Constellations show us we are all CONNECTED
“What is now so clear from the movements of the soul is wonderfully presaged by Confucius – that we have no choice but to stand together because what is split and opposed constantly unites itself and orders itself and respects the separate parts.” (B.H.)
Constellations take many different roads
“When the chickens have been hatched, they run off in all directions. They build their own nests and have their own chickens. Like this, family constellations and the movements of the soul also grow in manifold ways. I support all these endeavours with good heart feelings and good thoughts. I can see that all the different ways, if they respect one another, contribute something special to this richness. When we approach a destination from many different roads, greater fullness is gained for all. To me, all paths are useful and valuable. I am happy to see the seeds I was allowed to scatter sprouting and thriving and bearing fruit, wherever they fell on fertile ground. (B.H. )
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More on Systemic Constellations you can read an article and an …interview with Alemka by a Master of Psychology student here:
Systemic Constellations: A New Approach to Psychotherapy
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