How Family Constellations Work
By rendering the invisible visible, we can heal what is wounded and evolve into greater health, wisdom and wellbeing.
Each one of us is created by a sperm and an egg, and thus by a mother and a father. Whether we know our parents and our ancestors or not, we are a part of a family, whose origins stretch back to the earliest days that humans walked the earth.
Every family is an extensive network of people, connected through time. Even though we may not have ever met our biological relatives, such as in adoptions or other situations where children are raised by those who are not blood relatives, we are a part of the biological family system that we were born into.
Each family system creates its own field of influence – an invisible information network that all the members are a part of, whether they are conscious of it, or not.
Family Constellations work helps us penetrate behind the veils of denial and secrecy that we often use to try to avoid the pain that traumatic experiences leave within both the people who have experienced them and those close to them. By looking with profound acceptance at where things have gotten out of balance, we can get to the root of even long-standing issues and begin to live our lives with greater purpose, freedom, and truth.
Family Constellations is a method developed by Bert Hellinger, a German psychotherapist. Originally developed to be applied in group situations, using actual people as representatives, today many practitioners, including Martha, also use it during individual sessions. (See the picture below).
When there is an imbalance in the family system, due to trauma or to unhealthy beliefs transmitted to the members through the generations, it can create mental, emotional, physical and spiritual levels of suffering within the individual members, which then affects the family system as a whole.
During an individual or a group Family Constellation session, the client presents the issue they are wanting to gain clarity and healing with. The facilitator helps identify and explore the client’s family system and where things may be imbalanced and out of order. (See the Orders of Love by Bert Hellinger).
This may involve using physical objects or, when doing group work, other participants to represent family members or ancestors. Through this process, the client gains insights into the dynamics and traumas within their family system, how these may be impacting their own life in the present, and what they can do to develop a healthier relationship with themselves and with their family systems.
Individual and Group Family Constellations sessions helps us see more clearly where we are stuck in these old patterns that no longer serve us, and can offer us clues as to how we can dissolve unconscious, unhealthy loyalties and instead begin to live more fully in the present.
This brings healing and new energy not only to the individual who has requested a session, but to the entire family system.
Note: Reference to the biological reality of the male and the female does not negate the fact that some people feel they belong to a different gender identification that their body instead dictates.
Within nature itself we can see many forms of “gender fluidity” and within human behavior both gender expressions and sexual preferences have always been much less black and white than many of our cultures have tried to impose. (And there are several cultures, including the Indian Hindus and the Southern Indonesian Bugis cultures, that recognize more than just the gender binary that is commonly recognized in Western culture).
This does not negate, however, the biological reality that for a new human life to be created, a male sperm and a female ovum must join to set off the amazing process that leads to new life.
Thus in Family Constellations work this biological reality is recognized, and at the same time, the individual expression of life of each member of the family system is honored as unique and equally valid as all of the other members
Each figurine in the picture to the right represents a person or an element that is part of the problem the client presents.
By seeing the problem “outside”, and feeling what comes up by seeing the various elements “as they are”, the client can gain awareness into the hidden dynamics within a given situation, and how these dynamics are affecting them, and what they can do to deal with it in new, more loving and life-affirming ways.
For more information on the in-person workshops Martha is now holding in Wisconsin, go to the Family Constellations Workshops page.
Individual Family Constellations sessions can be carried out either in person or online.
I am currently offering in-person Group Family Constellation workshops and you can check out this page for more info.
Questions? Send an email to martha@centerperson.org for more information and to set up your session today.