Systemic family Constellations
Systemic Constellation Therapy is a psychotherapeutic approach that looks at any psychological – mental, emotional, relational, behavioral – issue as a systemic phenomenon.
It is a uniquely effective technique to understand not only the deeper dynamics of an individual person, but those of couples, families, businesses, and organizations as well.
Systemic Family Constellations Therapy can reveal unconscious family dynamics, transgenerational influences, and other ’systemic’ entanglements with a unique plasticity and an unprecedented emotional impact. It also provides a distinct perspective into the complex ‘systems’ and conflicting parts of our personality, our career, and our business endeavors.
Systemic Constellation Therapy usually leads to profound insights and cathartic experiences, and sheds light on areas of our unconscious landscapes that other techniques have never revealed with such clarity before.
When the work of German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger – originally called Family Constellations – started to gain momentum in the 1990’s, it spread across Europe with an unprecedented speed and popularity. Over the last few decades, the original theories and techniques have undergone profound modifications, development and integration with other psychotherapeutic modalities.
Systemic Constellations has long established a solid place in the world of Business and Corporate/Executive Coaching as well.
Historical Perspective
Originally, Family Constellations concentrated on the unique potential of this technique to reveal transgenerational traumas, family secrets, unconscious bonds and entanglements in our extended families – complications that might lie at the root of our emotional and psychological issues today.
As Sigmund Freud’s method revealed how early experiences keep influencing us throughout our lives, Bert Hellinger’s technique seemed to cast light on the influences that our multi-generational family – our most important human “system” – exerts over us.
And Hellinger’s work conquered Europe with the speed of a revolution.
However, as more and more therapists started using this new technique, its potentials soon appeared to reach far beyond family systems and transgenerational family dynamics.
Practitioners started referring to the method as “systemic constellations” rather than “family constellations” because the technique seemed to function as an X-ray or CT-Scan for all questions and phenomena that could be conceptualized within a systemic framework.
By today, Systemic Constellations Therapy has grown into a complex psychotherapeutic method that can be applied to all psychological problems.
It has its roots in family therapies, group therapies, Gestalt therapy, psychodrama, hypnotherapy, Transactional Analysis, and a number of other disciplines. However, it is also distinctly different from them.
As a result of the fast and complex developments, Bert Hellinger himself and the rapidly developing new schools in Systemic Constellations soon felt the need to part ways.
Since the early 2000’s, the two communities have been following clearly different paths. Bert Hellinger adopted a more spiritual – nearly mystical – approach that has raised a lot of criticism over the years.
The large international community of professional constellation therapists seems to represent a more clinical, psychotherapeutic, and pragmatic approach that is open to continuous development, empirical objectivity, and research.
Today, Systemic Constellations Therapy is one of the most popular and fastest developing psychotherapeutic technique in Europe.