Constellations have nothing to do with the star constellations. The word is a translation from the German ‘Aufstellungen’, which could also translate as ‘placements’.

Family Constellation is a powerful method to help you recognise difficult entanglements both in your family of origin as well as in your present family or relationship. A Family Constellation is an experiential process that starts with you and a specific issue or problem.

This work is my passion and I am Co-Facilitating workshops and training here in Australia since 2010.

Systemic Family Therapy was first developed by the German therapist Bert Hellinger. In this therapeutic approach, we consider the individual as part of a greater whole – a family system – rather than as a separate entity.

His individual behavior, feelings and attitudes have to be understood in the context of this larger context.

Instead of talking about the problem or trying to solve it with our thinking mind, the Constellation opens a space that activates awareness of three dimensions of consciousness: personal, inherited and universal

Together, we pick up a thread that traces from the present into the distant past, to the root, the source of your issue in the history of your biological past.

As in any other system, unspoken laws operating in the family guide behavior that we, as family members, are largely unaware of. Suffering usually arises in a family member when one or more members of the system unconsciously violate these archaic laws.

They do this unknowingly, not out of rebelliousness as one might expect, but out of love – a ‘blind’ love. Family Constellations allows us to break this pattern and bring them into the conscious, where you feel the presence of an ancestor whose trauma is at the root.

When they are seen, acknowledged and honored for what they endured, the thread of trauma dissolves.

The way we bring these hidden family dynamics to light is to have the client use the help of other group participants or the counsellor to create a constellation of his or her family. In a Group setting the participants representing members of that person’s family are positioned in the room in relation to each other according to the client’s feeling in that moment.

In this way, we create a living model of their original (or present) family. Each of us, whether participant or facilitator, taps into the information that exists in the field and benefits from the knowledge.

Feelings and thoughts of the people representing family members are very similar to those of the actual family members..

This work has originated in a group setting, but can be also used in Individual sessions. We will use papers, cushions or other symbols to represent the positions of your issues or family members.

Family constellations uniquely uncovers any destructive family dynamic that may be lingering beneath the surface. But that is not all it does.

When we use the responses of those standing in for family members, we find that the relations between members of the family can be modified to establish a new, more natural and healing balance for the whole system.

Love in a family system flows best when a certain systemic ‘order’, or law, is respected. In Family Constellations we try to discover these ‘orders’, make them visible in the group and help a person to fall in tune with them. The newly established order translates into the system of the actual family itself.

Through systemic thinking and systemic therapy we widen the understanding for more complex connections. By doing so we open new possibilies, gain new resources and support the primary movements with life.

I am based in my own personal experiences and the innate strength and wisdom of my clients, to weave a strong net than one alone is able to create Through process and dialogue we integrate the new lived experience and imbed this new picture into your future.

Basic Principles and Ideas from Berthold Ulsamer

1. Right to Belong.
All family members, past and present have a right to belong. the family system does not allow exclusions at the level of the soul. The system is always trying to make itself whole and complete again.

2. Levels of Conscience.
There are three levels of conscience: personal, family, and “great soul.” the personal and family conscience thinks in terms of right/wrong, good/bad, deserving/undeserving, etc. the great soul-or collective conscience- does not distinguish between good and evil and does not allow exclusions. It follows the “archetypal rules of nature” and operates only to bring balance even if it may seem harsh or cruel.

3. Entanglements.
These occur when a current family member (usually a child) unconsciously identifies with a family member of a prior generation who has been excluded, met with a tragic fate, was forgotten or scapegoated, etc. It is as if the child sacrifices himself for the sake of restoring wholeness to the greater system. The entangled person acts out the fate of the former family member. It is done out of loyalty and can be seen as “blind love.” Entanglements show up in many forms including disease, suicide, depression, bad fortune, etc.

4. Purpose.
The major purpose of a constellation is to identify an entanglement more clearly and the dynamics creating it. The healing comes with acknowledging the reality without judgment, thereby freeing the entangled person so (s)he is no longer “needed.”

5. Acknowledging what is.
Reality is never wrong, even if it seems harsh. Healing begins with this acknowledgement.

6. Aspects of family conscience.

• Innocence and guilt. One feels innocent when feeling the right to belong and a sense of safety. One feels guilt when one fears loss of belonging.
• Balance. This refers to the attempt of the system to share equal give and take, especially between spouses.
• Order. Who came first has “more rights.” The older generation must be acknowledged by the younger generation, the first spouse by the second spouse, etc.
• Bonding. This has to do with whatever is “in the service of life.”

7. Victims and perpetrators.
Each must acknowledge each other or there continues to be tension/conflict in the larger system. The greater soul wants to unite what and whom have been disconnected. The movement is towards reconciliation and peace. There are no “bad” people, only entangled ones.

8. Constellation parts.
First: revealing the hidden and compelling dynamics which influence the family. Second: healing movements and statements which help move toward solution-a new balance so that love can flow and strength be restored.

9. Morphic resonance.
Rupert Sheldrake‘s term for the “knowing field” or the energy field surrounding a constellation. Morphic fields have to do with the influence of memory dynamics between the living and the dead and their interrelations.