Family Constellation work in the tradition of Bert Hellinger posits the larger system, or energy field, of each person. This encompasses all the members related to and influencing the well-being of that person. The larger, whole system can be accessed in this model through a process of representation. Within a workshop setting, the client (the person presenting a problem to the facilitator) chooses representatives for significant members (mom, dad, siblings, for example) and places the reps in a contained space. Often this workspace is an open area. The reps then focus on their experience in that grouping (or constellation) and speak of the experience felt at that moment. Much information emerges from the constellation experience that relates to the client’s situation, even though the reps know little of the persons being represented.

The facilitator listens carefully and suggests options for healing the distress/discomfort felt by each. The goal is to provide a flow of Love or enlivening energy which, until this moment, has been blocked by subconscious entanglements from the past. Options for change might include moving, speaking, repositioning, testing for missing or shunned members. Often spontaneous rituals of inclusion, connection, and clarification will be created and tested for their impact on the individual or the system.  The client mostly observes until the constellation work is ready for his/her direct involvement in the dynamic of the working group.

Basic tenants of the constellation theory are called Orders of Love. These include but are not limited to:

1.  the need to belong (bonding, similar to the focus of attachment theory by John Bowlby)
2. the need to maintain a balance of giving and taking (in other words–equilibrium, as well as the importance of hidden bonds and loyalties described by Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy)
3. the need for the safety of social convention and predictability (order)

These three needs emerge differently in each person’s life and can be known through experience of guilt and/or innocence enticing and driving choices in service of, or opposition to, these needs.

In my work with clients I screen for disruptions in each of these three Orders:

For instance, each person needs a strong sense of belonging and sense of place in the system in order to thrive. Without these, anxiety takes over.

Each person needs clear permission to make personal choices in support of well-being. Often parents have been unable to generously give love and attention but have rather required the child to care for the parent’s sense of worthiness. This might emerge as guilt and confusion while making personal choices.

Too often unpredictability or disruption in the family system will reveal itself as depression in the individual. Or “too much or too little giving” indicates imbalance in the sense of order experienced by the client within the family system.

Clients can change by modifying the life circumstances experienced in any one of these orders.

A client might reconnect with those who have been separated from contact or enhance a connection that is too “thin.” In session, we might create rituals of healing that can improve the energy felt by system members either in imagination, role play, or using figurines to reimagine relationships. Sometimes just talking about experiences of belonging, giving-taking, or sense of order can initiate changes in a client’s experience.

This modality has been very useful in launching young adults from family of origin, healing wounds from early childhood, honoring lost relationships (first loves, adopted children, early deaths, injustices), managing illness, and ancestral entanglements. The introduction to Bert Hellinger’s book, Love’s Hidden Symmetry by Gunthard Weber states, “Bert Hellinger’s spirituality is close to the earth, embodied, passionate, life-affirming. It embraces the everyday lives of average people struggling with their suffering and with their greatness. It draws us into life rather than seeking to lift us above it. It celebrates the simple and ordinary, speaking to everyone who is wrestling with whatever limits the soul’s longing to reach its potential in the world. This book is about remembering how to listen to your soul and the to the Soul of the Greater Whole.”