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FAMILY CONSTELLATIONS
What is Family Constellations?
Family Constellations is a healing modality used to gain insights from our unconscious mind, such as hidden childhood memories, ancestral history, and possible dysfunctional belief patterns that affect the reality we are creating for ourselves.
The goal is to help the client or “seeker” work through a concern or develop better insight into a conflict as they observe real-life interactions between characters.
This type of role-play is a form of psychodrama.
You can participate for free in a Family Constellation.
Thursdays 6 PM ET
How does Family Constellations work?
During the constellation, the person seeking deeper understanding and resolution of an issue, who is referred to as the “seeker,” chooses representatives as family members or other characters involved in the conflict and assigns one person to take the place of the seeker’s Soul, to act out dynamics related to the conflict.
The use of the characters illuminates the disharmony within the family, job, relationship, health, etc., as the individuals participating can feel and experience the emotions of the person whose role they have taken on.
The participants connect with a morphogenic field. They experience a sense of connectedness and feel sensations throughout their bodies; they often report an awareness of specific emotions and feelings directly related to the seeker's situation. Using biodecoding, the sensations are translated to retrieve the information stored in the unconscious mind. These include childhood memories, gestation, family beliefs, and the understanding of the experiences lived by their ancestors.
Note: A morphogenetic field is an energetic grid that contains the information of a living thing and shapes behavior and coordination with other beings. The morphogenetic field concept was first introduced in 1910 by Alexander G. Gurwitsch.
The facilitator may ask the characters to explain what they are feeling; this may shed light on specific emotions and relational aspects that can be connected to the issue being addressed.
The seeker watches from the outside to gain a new perspective on the situation, and even when the constellation process does not fully resolve the issue, they may still gain insight into the issue to recognize the action needed to get closer to a resolution.
- None of the constellation characters know the seeker’s question or the character they play or are aware of the underlying issues brought forth by the seeker.
Following the constellation, the facilitator and the seeker connect in a private meeting to analyze the information brought up during the constellation.
Reasons to consider constellation:
- To overcome childhood trauma.
- To heal relationships.
- To release limiting beliefs that affect our connection with abundance, health, success, etc.
- To break dysfunctional or harmful relationship patterns related to dynamics learned from the family.
- To gain insight into how patterns from childhood continue to impact our mental, emotional, and physical health (including depression and anxiety).
- To resolve family entanglements.
- To confront an abuser from childhood who is deceased, unreachable, or the client does not feel safe contacting.
- To cope with a significant trauma or loss.
- To better understand our emotions. When a couple wants to understand each other’s history better and how their families of origin affect what they bring to the relationship.
Benefits of Family Constellations
Family constellations create a safe but powerful space for processing traumatic events from our past, drawing our attention to patterns and dynamics that we had not previously considered, and helping us develop improved insight into our behaviors and how we react to the environment.
We might experience a catharsis that will allow us to work through conflict, trauma, or difficult past experiences, bringing the knowledge and the new understanding as tools to reshape our reality.
Things to Consider
Family constellations can be intense and might bring up strong feelings or memories related to traumatic or stressful events. Clients considering this modality should ensure that they feel comfortable with their facilitator and ask any questions or present concerns they have about doing the Family Constellation.
Because this experience can be emotionally charged, they should have a self-care plan to ensure that they can cope, in a healthy way, with any emotions brought up to the conscious mind. They might need ongoing therapy following the Family Constellation to address traumas, memories, and upsetting dynamics that came up during this activity.
If they are already working with a therapist, the therapist should be aware of and approve of their participation. The therapist can be invited to accompany them.
Development of Family Constellations
This approach draws from several other modalities, including Gestalt therapy, Virginia Satir's family sculpting, systemic family therapy, psychoanalysis, psychodynamic therapy, hypnotherapy, biodecoding, and Zulu beliefs.
German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger developed it in the mid-1990s.
Family Constellations therapy evolved from his work as a family therapist and his belief in the energy field (morphogenic field) found in familial bonds.
I was certified as a Family Constellations facilitator by Dr. Liliana Arbelaez, director of GaiAhMa center.
Note: While keeping this modality's core, my approach differs from its original development and Bert Hellinger’s views of conflict resolution.