History of family constellations by Bert Hellinger
Bert Hellinger is the founder of Family Constellations. After being priest for years and working as a headmaster at a school in South Africa he pointed his heart on the human consciousness and development. He created family constellations in the nineteen eighties from an interplay between Freudian psychoanalysis, bodywork, familytherapy, NLP, gestalt therapy and religious rituals from primitive tribes and christians. From there originated the phenomenon of family constellations
Family Constellations arose especially from his work with groups. Within a group session family constellations there arises a field which is guided by a invisible force. The human openess to let you guided by his attitude and his own awareness and viewpoint as leading factors made him develop this work further.
Because of it’s objective advantages in daily life and the deep impression it left it has spread across the world over the past 20 years. The practice of family constellations has now spread almost all over the world, including it’s derivatives like organisation constellations, career constellations and illness constellations.
When one looks at the development of family constellations over the past 25 years one can clearly distinguish 3 different phases.
It’s a large movement departing from therapy through the art of living to the more spiritual.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HELLINGERS SPECIAL WAY OF DOING FAMILY CONSTELLATIONS.
The first phase was characterized by an active constellator modifying therapeutically with the representants in order to make things turn out well. The constellator, usually with some therapeutic background, tried to arrange things in such a way as to put the client at ease. Even though the constellator tried to open himself to the Field he was trying too hard to make things turn out well for the client. Later Bert Hellinger said that this trying hard to be good is disconnecting one from the Field. We really didn’t want to see more of the Field than what the client was ready to allow.
Really following what the Soul shows us. The discovery of the movement of the Soul in family constellations.
THE SECOND PHASE OF HELLINGER AND HIS FAMILY CONSTELLATIONS: ALLOWING THE SOUL.
The second phase consisted of representants that were allowed and capable of following their own movements. This was among other things because Bert was now working with colleague constellators in his own groups. These colleagues had the skill of allowing the Field to work through bodily awareness, so Bert could let them move independently. The birth of the movement of the Soul was a fact. The representatives were allowed to let the Field guide their movements with less interventions taking place. The Soul could show in the constellations because movements were allowed to occur naturally without intervention of the mind.
THE NEW SPIRITUAL WAY OF DOING FAMILY CONSTELLATIONS BY BERT HELLINGER
Here Bert started bringing in more representatives and stopped trying to understand things with his mind. This fundamental step brought him more close to the spiritual. We brought in more representatives and started to let things happen without us knowing whether it would be in an orderly fashion or whether it would be good for the client. One trusts the movements of the field and the force that guides it. This spiritual movement did also contain the loss of distinction between the learning of the constellator and the learning of the client. We came together in the Field and were learning together and travelling together. It was that way for all of us: clients, representatives and constellators.
It became a spiritual experience of the flow of consciousness. Truly beautiful!
HELLINGERS FAMILY CONSTELLATIONS IN OUR SCHOOL
In our school we have stayed close to Berts new way of doing family constellations. He has given us his blessing to carry on in his tradition. Bert and Hylke are moving along the same undercurrent. We are grateful for their courage to follow this undercurrent.
