Family Constellations: An New Paradigm for Deep Healing

Family Constellations is a wonderful diagnostic as well as a healing tool to heal issues from a deeper perspective. It helps understand the Family System i.e. the DNA system and the entanglements lying within. These entanglements interrupt the flow of LOVE and LIFE resulting in roadblocks for its descendants.

Hence, understanding this modality can open new gateways to healing yourself as well as understanding the spiritual essence of your own DNA.

This article will explore the birth, existence, development of Family Constellations as well as how is a typical Family Constellations session done.

For your deeper understanding, I am also sharing a case study to help understand how entanglements affect the flow of LOVE and LIFE.

Timeline of the Birth, Existence and Development of Family Constellations:

- The father of modern psychology – Sigmund Freud, was the first to discover that the relationship with our parents affects our psychological development to quite an extent. He went on to demonstrate how the relationship with our mother forms the basis of our development.

- In 1960’s, psychiatrists like R.D. Laing, Thomas Sazz and many others started looking at other members of the family and explored the other dynamics of the family. They demonstrated that it is not just parents, but the entire system influences us and has effects on our being because of the same DNA.

- In the 1990’s Virginia Satir further developed the concept that the laws and influences governing the Family System have an effect on our being. She used representatives to enact the family scenes but in a symbolic manner. She worked with the actual family rather than with representatives. She is considered to be the mother of “Family System Therapy.”

- In the 90’s Bert Hellinger refined her work further by introducing representatives in the Energy Field – known as the “ Knowing Field ”. He brought in completely strange people as the representatives for the family members. They were given very little or no information about the issue, which he believed allowed them to be non-judgmental and have access to the hidden dynamics of the Family System. This is where “Family Constellations” as a therapy evolved as known today.

What is Family Constellations?

Family Constellations is a profound method of looking at the entanglements affecting one individually as well as collectively as a family. It is method to discover the disharmony in the Family System where one can see the unprocessed anger, depression, rage, illness of the ascendants.

This in turn affects the descendants of the DNA. Family Constellations aims at resolving the unprocessed emotions, feelings and trauma to restore the beautiful gifts that our ancestors have to offer us.

Following are the major reasons for Systemic Entanglements:

- Exclusion of a family member including adoptions, abortions, miscarriages and stillbirths

- Interrupted bonding between a parent and a child

- Untimely loss of a parent, child’

- Murder or suicide

- Unresolved feelings and emotions towards former partners

- Family Secrets like second marriage, children born out of wedlock, exclusion of a member from the family never talked about

- War experiences where the trauma was never resolved

- Immigration – where one had to leave their home and relocate without any choice or with a feeling of guilt or other feelings of despair, depression or sadness

- Murder or suicide

- Serious illness of a family member like cancer, AIDS, autoimmune diseases, etc

- The presence of victims and perpetrators of crime and injustice

With the help of Family Constellations, one can explore the deeper dynamics at work which are affecting the system. New insights and new dimensions of healing can be explored by restoring harmony in the Family System.

Process of Family Constellations Session:

There are two ways in which a Family Constellations session can be done – in a group setting where representatives play the role of the Family System members, and they get connected to the Knowing Field of the system.They are not given much information about the client and are asked to take their position in the Knowing Field. They feel the physical sensations, emotions or urges which do not belong to themselves, but to the family system of the client, they are representing. They receive this information from the “Knowing Field” or the “Family Soul.”

The facilitator then asks questions, observes the movement happening the field. The facilitator suggests the healing statements and release of the emotions, thereby restoring the flow of love and harmony in the system.If the client is physically present, then the representative is replaced by the client, and he/she is asked to feel the resolution and participate in the healing movement within the field and the system.

Also, the second way is to do a personal session involving only the facilitator and the client who wants to address the issue. This can be done by asking the client to go into a deeper movement using papers or dolls acting as the representatives of the Family System.

The facilitator asks the client to feel the sensations and feelings of each prop used for the representatives. Once again, appropriate questions are asked and a deeper healing movement takes place.

Both the methods of doing the constellations are good, it is an individual choice as to what does the client prefer. In both the methods, we access the Knowing Field or the Family Soul for identifying the entanglements. They both aim at the same motive – restoring peace and harmony in the Family System.

Which areas can be addressed with Family Constellations?

This powerful soul work assists in creating positive shifts in:

- Relationships

- Success in life

- Recurring emotions (depression, fear, anxiety, sadness, feeling unworthy or unrooted, blockages, stagnation etc.)

- Achieving life goals

- Finances

- Unexplained symptoms & chronic illness

- Health

- Self-sabotage

- Infertility

- Addictions etc.

Case Study on Family Constellations:

Issue : A client of mine had approached me for being unable to conceive after eight years of marriage. For understanding purpose, let us call her “C”. This was C’s second marriage. Her first marriage dissolved after 3 years. She tried all the medical treatments available on the planet to no avail.

This was making her depressed. When she came in, she said – “I am not able to experience the most beautiful feeling of motherhood and this breaks my heart. I feel like I am not a complete woman.”

During her initial interview, she said her relationship with her mother was torn and beyond repair. She had a toxic mother who blamed her for every wrong in her life. The father had abandoned the family right after C’s birth. Hence, her mother blamed her for the father leaving the family.

C’s mother never married again. In fact, she became an alcoholic. She was practically raised by her aunts and maternal grandmother as her own mother was emotionally never available.

Resolution: This was a group setting of Family Constellations. C selected the following participants:

M- Mother

F – Father

P1 – Former husband

P2 – Current husband

C – Self

The participants intuitively took their positions in the Knowing Field. It was very evident that the mother and father of C were just not looking at each other. M was looking at the floor constantly, while the representative for F had his back turned.

M went on the floor sobbing, and seeing this F too lied down on the floor. A new representative was introduced on the floor. Both M and F reported to be feeling like this is their child. On enquiring with “C”, it was clear that this new representative was her older brother who died just two months before “C”’s birth.

The grieving process was completed between the new representative, M and F. This made the representative of C feeling safe. C was now able to look at her parents. Her representative said that she was carrying the heavy burden of her elder brother who died as well as the pain of losing a child of her parents. The necessary therapeutic steps were taken to release this. Upon doing this, C felt even more calm.

She was now constantly looking at P1. And he was looking at the floor too. It was discovered that both of them had lost a baby in miscarriage. C did not mourn for the child, while P1 was carrying the grief in his heart.

Upon enquiring with real C, it was discovered that she did have a miscarriage at two months. And within five months after this incident, C and P1 had separated. Again the entanglement between C and P1 was resolved with the baby given its due position. This made P2 feel more powerful and happy with C.

Both C and P2 felt more in love and complete. The representative for C now reported to be ready to conceive and bring in a new life into this world.

After a year, I received a call from C and P2 stating that they were pregnant 7 months without any complications. And then after the baby was born, they both visited me.

This is how Family Constellations reveals the hidden dynamics of the Family System at play which are the roots to the issue one is facing.