"What is most important is to acknowledge that all behaviors, as strange as they may seem to us, come from love. Behind all the symptoms present in a person, there is always love behind them. Therefore what is decisive in a therapy is to find where love is concentrated, and from this place a solution is always found."
– Bert Hellinger
"Orders of Love"

What is a Family Constellation?

Family Constellations is a powerful, therapeutic method founded by an innovative German psychotherapist, Bert Hellinger.

Family Constellations reveal hidden familial patterns that may be holding us back in life. Often we do not allow ourselves the freedom to choose what fulfills us. Sometimes we become stuck in ways of being that prevent us from moving forward and living a life we love.

Even though we might want things to be different, they often remain the same because we are entangled with the patterns, feelings, and fates of our ancestors.

Once these dynamics are revealed, movements are made, and sentences of resolution are expressed, a sense of relaxation emerges as we connect with our resources and see that we do not have to suffer in order to belong in our families.

The Method

• A group Family Constellation process is led by a facilitator. Members of the group can explore a personal issue by setting up a constellation.


• After a brief interview with the facilitator, the client asks people from the group to stand in the constellation to represent family members, and sometimes entities such as "depression" or a country.


• The client arranges the representatives by giving them a place in the room according to what feels right in the moment. The client then sits down and observes.


• Several minutes elapse with the representatives standing still and silent in their places. Unlike psychodrama, the representatives do not act, pose, dialogue or role play.


• Emphasis is placed on perceptive intuition and the aim is to tune into what the psychiatrist Albrecht Mahr describes as the "knowing field". The "knowing field" is claimed to guide participants to perceive and articulate feelings and sensations that mirror those of the real family members they represent. The mechanisms behind representative perception are not fully understood. The representatives have little or no factual knowledge about those they represent. Nevertheless, the representatives usually experience feelings or physical sensations which inform the process.


• The facilitator may ask each representative to briefly report how they feel being placed in relation to the others. The facilitator, client, and group members may perceive an underlying dynamic in the spacial arrangement and feelings held by the representatives that influence the presenting personal issue. Often, configuring multiple generations in a family reveals that severe traumas continue to unconsciously affect the living long after the original victims or perpetrators have died.


• A healing resolution for the issue generally is achieved after repositioning the representatives and adding key members of the system who have been forgotten or written out of the family history. When every representative feels right in his or her place and the other representatives agree, the facilitator may suggest one or two sentences to be spoken aloud. If the representatives do not feel at peace with their new position or sentences, they can move again or try a different sentence. This can be a possible resolution of the issues faced by the client. Sometimes the process concludes without a full resolution being achieved.


• When the facilitator feels the healing resolution take hold among the representatives, the client is invited to replace his/her representative in the constellation. This allows the client to perceive how it feels to be part of a reconfigured system. When everyone feels comfortable in their place, the constellation concludes.

“The Method” description above is adapted from a Wikipedia article about Family Constellations.

For further information or to schedule an appointment, please contact me at info@karensyogaandmassage.com.