What Are Family Constellations?

Understanding Family Constellations

Family and Systemic Constellations (FC) is a set of practices and principles that allow individuals to explore the relationship between present day challenges and the systems and communities they belong to. FC is a truly unique approach and is remarkable for its ability to bring an overlooked systemic lens to a person’s struggles.

Family Constellations uncover how a person's challenges, which may have previously felt like a personal issue or flaw, are not so simple. Instead, clients seek to explore the way that their lives are on a continuum and are influenced not only by their life experience, but the events and circumstances surrounding their parents' upbringing, their grandparents' upbringing, or their larger family tree.

FC shines a spotlight on the unconscious ways people carry the history of their family of origin. When belonging is explored and various loyalties made conscious, the client is given a more agency to create new ways of being that align more closely with their values.

Systemic Family Constellations seeks to go deeper than the popular binary of choosing between going no-contact or having to sacrifice yourself to the will of the herd. Instead, this approach helps clients explore, without agenda, the complexities of belonging, community, and self actualization. Supporting clients to ‘find their place’ in a way that honors existing realities and helps them move forward.

Although there is no one-size-fits-all agenda to the work and Family Constellations seeks to honor every client’s specific situation, many find this practice family positive, supporting and honoring the connection people wish to maintain while respecting their personal needs and boundaries.

What Happens In A Family Constellations Session?

A Family Constellations session begins with a brief conversation between the client and the facilitator. During the conversation, the facilitator seeks to understand the client's intention for the session. For example, if a client is struggling with a particular relationship pattern, the facilitator may ask "What tells you this pattern is playing out?" After getting a picture of how the issue expresses itself in the client's life the facilitator moves on to ask questions that uncover the role these dynamics play in their larger family or community system.

In group settings, once the facilitator has gathered enough information to begin, the facilitator asks the client to choose representatives for the family members or entities that are relevant to the situation. In a group workshop, this means the client picks people from the group to stand and represent different members of their family. Although the other workshop attendees are often strangers, they can be chosen by the client to stand and temporarily represent their mother, father, sibling, grandparent, significant other, boss at work or the client themselves.

What develops is a 3D representation of the client's view of their family, place of work, or other relevant system they are examining. From the start, externalizing what was previously an internal image begins to draw out insights. Why did the client place their mother so far from their father? Why does the client's representative look like they're in a stand-off with their sibling?

Inevitably, new stories emerge that the client may not have realized were relevant to their intention for the session. As the Constellation progresses, new information continues to come to light while the facilitator guides the representatives and brings in new representatives to test different areas of the client's system. The session typically culminates by finding the configuration that restores order, resources, love, strength and/or gratitude within the client. In fact, it's common for the client to report feeling these new sensations in their body as the session reaches completion.

Featured On Netflix

The practice of Family Constellations was recently featured on the the Netflix series Sex Love & Goop in the fifth episode titled “Thank The Past”. For people who would like to see a demonstration of what the work looks like in a group setting, this episode offers a great example.

Although there are some stylistic differences in the way Family Constellations is practiced depending on the practitioner you’re working with, the episode’s practitioner, Kato Wittich, has an approach is aligned with Nick’s on many levels. For example, Nick sets similar boundaries around the work to create a safe space for this process. And like Kato, Nick does not add a layer of spiritual dogma onto the practice.

How Can A Constellation Help Me?

The effect a person's sense of belonging has on their present day life cannot be understated. When a person feels they are the outsider, or that they aren’t connected, or that people like them are to be shamed or discarded this can seep into every area of their adult life. Therefore, when a Constellation helps some reframe their experience and their place in the world, the effects on their present day life can be astounding.

After a Family Constellation, the steady unfolding of the process in the client's life is often referred to as the 'integration period.' In the days, weeks and months after the session, space opens up within the client without any conscious effort on behalf of the client.

The way the client sees themselves, their sense of purpose, their parents, their significant other or their children begins to shift over time. During this integration period, the client can start to witness the benefits of the Constellation beyond the new insights they received during the session. In the weeks after the session, the client may experience a palpable shift in how they feel, improved communication with family, a sense of clarity in their work or with their goals in life, and countless other forms of reconciliation and resolution depending on the intention they brought to the session.

What's also extraordinary is the symbiotic relationship family members have between each other. As integration continues, clients sometimes report how the family members represented in the Constellation session seem to be subtly changing as well.

Although it's not fully understood, it seems that there's a way in which families are so deeply connected that when one family member steps into a new position within the family, the entire family begins to shift to meet them.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Can Family Constellations be done 1-on-1? I thought it was a group process.

Yes, Family Constellations is just as effective 1:1 as it is in groups. The history of the approach is that, Bert Hellinger, the originator of this work only performed Family Constellations in group settings. This resulted in FC earning a reputation as being a group process in the 80s and 90s. However, over time it's been developed and adapted to be equally as effective in private practice. Today, it's practiced by thousands of therapists, coaches and wellness practitioners in 1:1 settings with successful outcomes.

Does Family Constellations have anything to do with Astronomy or Astrology?

No. The term 'constellation' comes from the way sessions look from a distance. Representatives for family members are placed in the room to help understand how they stand in relationship to the struggles of the client. As the session develops, the 3D representation of the family tends to resemble a map or 'constellation.'

Is this similar to IFS (Internal Family Systems)?

Generally speaking, no. The lineage of Family Constellations and the principles behind it are very different from IFS. Internal Family Systems comes from the United States and is about working with an individuals ‘parts.’ By contrast, a facilitator of Family Constellations strives to reconnect people with the origin of these voices in their family tree. For example, a FC facilitator may ask, "Who in your family would say that?" Family Constellations was created in the 1980s and is widely known and practiced in Europe and South America. In the past 15 years it has steadily gained popularity in North America.

Other Materials

For Further Reading

For those who want to go deeper in understanding Family Constellations and principles surrounding how trauma perpetuates in families, here are three books Nick recommends:

Love’s Hidden Symmetry - Bert Hellinger | Purchasable here

It Didn’t Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle - Mark Wolynn | Purchasable here

Supporting Love: How Love Works in Couples Relationships - Bert Hellinger | Purchasable here

Featured On ‘Interview’ With Andrew Denton

Actor Guy Pearce was interviewed by Andrew Denton and reflected on his experience of participating in a Family Constellation surrounding his late father. Elements of the story offered will be familiar to anyone who has participated in Family Constellation workshops.