Constellations are a method developed by German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger, which provides us with numerous insights into how our relationships function — from the most intimate ones to those on a national level. Today, the constellation method forms an entirely new, comprehensive doctrine of human relationships that has gone beyond the boundaries of psychotherapy and now represents a new science of relating and support in the domain of human connections.
Hellinger introduced into his work the idea of morphic resonance (according to biologist Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, the morphic field represents an invisible organizing structure of an individual, which contains the blueprint of organisms and, through resonance, draws the individual toward its unique form and purpose in space and time).
Bert Hellinger
(1925 – 2019)
Bert Hellinger is a German psychotherapist known for his exceptional and profound contributions to the field of psychotherapy, as well as for his comprehensive insights into the realm of human relationships on all levels. He is the founder of the method of systemic constellations.
He brings into his work the rich and diverse experiences of his life, including his many years as a priest and sixteen years of missionary life in Africa with the Zulu tribe.
He believed that his parents and his childhood were the first fundamental influences on his later work. Hellinger lived in South Africa for 16 years. During those years, he served as a parish priest, teacher, and principal of a large school. He spoke the Zulu language fluently, participated in Zulu rituals, and developed a deep respect for the Zulu worldview.
Another significant influence on his life was his participation in an interracial, ecumenical group dynamics training led by Anglican priests. They had brought from America a form of group work that placed special value on dialogue, phenomenology, and individual human experience. It was during this time that he first encountered a new dimension of soul care, which would later form the foundation of his work.
Constellations, according to Dr. Bert Hellinger, are a phenomenological (experiential) technique that does not use the conventional psychological and psychotherapeutic approach.
Group and individual constellations
Constellations are a method practiced both in groups and individually..
Group constellations involve individual personal sessions and participants who are chosen as representatives of people, emotions, objects, or illnesses within the system. Individual constellations consist of one personal session and objects (chairs, figurines, various colored items) that represent the focus, problem, abstract parts—in fact, parts of the system whose balance has been disturbed.
After a brief interview about key facts from the client’s past, the facilitator gains insights for each individual element and accordingly places it on the surface. The morphogenetic field reacts to this arrangement and seeks resolution.
A personal session can last from 30 minutes to 2 hours. The number of participants is not limited in either format.
The price of a session in a group
The price of a session in a group: 62 EUR.
actors participate for free
The price of an individual session
The price of an individual 1:1 session: 62 EUR.
find the answers to the questions
With thousands of family system constellations, Bert Hellinger reaffirmed the importance of understanding love within families, which is so powerful that it overwhelms a person and changes their life. Interrupted love in earlier generations is the cause of suffering and hardship for the following generations, and the solution requires repositioning members of previous generations into the correct family order. One of Hellinger’s most important insights is that the same love that caused the disturbance can be used to resolve it.
What attracts Bert Hellinger and his method of establishing the order of love through family constellations is the simplicity with which it leads people to the realization of the source of problems that have hindered the flow of love for generations. Without many words or theories, it resolves the most difficult family issues with great humility and respect for individuals and their families.
Participants are almost always surprised anew by the complexity of the problems this method addresses, as well as by the elegant simplicity of the solutions, even for the most complicated life situations. The atmosphere is always filled with attention and respect from all participants toward each other and their life circumstances.
Each participant has the freedom to choose their level of involvement, and in the vast majority of cases, they experience constellation workshops as an exceptionally positive and enlightening experience, sometimes even as an event that visibly changed their future.
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This approach does not give importance to the subjective perspective, rational analysis, explanations, or the individual’s life "story."
More important than that are the facts of significant events from personal and family history (such as the abortion of a first child unknown to the children born afterward, or illness as a burden of deep trauma in the female or male ancestral line). The direction of the work focuses more on resolution than on the problem itself, which involves finding the physical and spiritual position that enables a more conscious, complete, and healthier life here and now.
A person who places their problem into the morphogenetic field chooses, based on intuition, participants in the workshop to represent the problem, illness, relationships, and/or family members. These representatives, of course, do not know anything about the people they represent in the constellation. The person setting up the work also selects the focus (representative) for themselves in the constellation.
This ensures the impartiality of the information we receive from the setup. After selecting the representatives, the person arranges the constellation by placing the representatives in spatial relationships to each other that reflect the internal image of the relationships between family members or the personal relationship with the illness.
The representatives enter into resonant energy with the energy of the family member they represent, and in this "role," they often experience various sensations, emotions, physical reactions, and the like. The hidden dynamics of the family come to the surface through the representatives’ statements and the facilitator’s observations.
As the causes of the problem gradually reveal themselves, through healing statements and changes in the representatives’ positions in the room, the constellation facilitator finds the path to resolution, such as:
The connection of what has been separated
The inclusion of what was excluded
The balancing of the family system
In this context, it means releasing tension or feeling a sense of ease “as if someone has lifted a burden off the shoulders.” Life energy that was tied to unhealthy dynamics from past events is freed from its burden and becomes available for the life tasks of the present.
Emotions that caused pain, conflict, and tension withdraw, replaced by a healthy and unburdened image of the present that allows for a free and creative future. The person becomes capable of living their own life here and now. The resolution of the constellation is felt by all participants in the workshop.
Often, the resolutions experienced by the people working on their issues are also the resolutions for those participating as representatives in the constellation circle of the workshop.
