Family Constellations

 

Bert Hellinger — his life and the development of Family Constellations

Bert Hellinger (1925–2019) was a German psychotherapist, philosopher, theologian and former Catholic priest who became the principal developer of what is now known as Family Constellation work. 

He was born in Germany in 1925 and grew up during the Nazi period. At about 17 he was conscripted into the German army, experienced combat and became a prisoner of war. After the war, he entered a Catholic religious order and eventually became a priest. 

One of the most formative periods of his life was the 16 years he spent as a Catholic missionary among the Zulu people in South Africa. During this time he became deeply interested in group dynamics, community, ritual, belonging and the ways in which an individual is embedded within a larger social and family system. His later work was also influenced by his experience of dialogue and phenomenological observation in South Africa. 

After leaving the priesthood, Hellinger trained extensively in psychotherapy and psychology. His influences included psychoanalysis, Gestalt therapy, transactional analysis, primal therapy, hypnotherapy, psychodrama and NLP, among others. He gradually brought these different strands together with his observations about family relationships and group processes. 

The emergence of Family Constellations

During the late 1970s and 1980s, Hellinger began experimenting with what became known as Familienaufstellung, or Family Constellation. He developed the method considerably during the late 1980s and 1990s. 

The basic insight was relatively simple:

We are not isolated individuals; we belong to family systems, and what happens within those systems can influence the lives of subsequent generations.

In a constellation, members of a group may represent important people or elements of someone’s family system. The representatives are positioned in relation to one another, creating a kind of living map of the family system. The facilitator observes what emerges and may alter the configuration to explore possible resolutions. 

Hellinger believed that certain family events—such as early deaths, war, suicide, abuse, exclusion, adoption, loss or people being forgotten—could leave unresolved patterns within a family system. Later members of the family might unconsciously become “entangled” with these earlier events.

His work therefore focused strongly on belonging, inclusion, hierarchy and the restoration of appropriate relationships.

The “Orders of Love”

One of Hellinger’s best-known concepts was the “Orders of Love.”

He proposed that healthy family systems have certain fundamental principles, particularly:

• Everyone who belongs to the family has a right to belong.
• There is an appropriate order between generations.
• There needs to be a balance between giving and receiving in relationships.

When somebody has been excluded, forgotten or denied their place, Hellinger proposed that another family member may unconsciously become identified with them or carry aspects of their unfinished story. The constellation seeks to make this hidden dynamic visible and restore a sense of order and belonging. 

This is the philosophical basis for the beautiful phrase you have already used in your poster:

“The work is to bring back together that which has been separated.”

His later development

Hellinger’s work continued to evolve throughout his life. His early Classical Family Constellations involved representatives being positioned by the client and then explored through their reported experiences and movements.

From around 2002, he increasingly moved away from questioning representatives about their feelings and towards what he called the “Movements of the Soul.” Later he developed what became known as “Spiritual Family Constellation” or Geistiges Familienstellen, placing greater emphasis on allowing the constellation to unfold without imposing a predetermined solution. 

He subsequently developed increasingly philosophical and spiritual ideas around what he called the “Spirit-Mind”, or Geist, and the movement of life towards wholeness.

Hellinger was extraordinarily prolific, writing more than 100 books, which have been translated into dozens of languages, and his approach spread internationally. 

Hellinger and illness

An important part of the later Family Constellation tradition is the exploration of illness and symptoms within the wider family system. Hellinger’s followers describe symptoms as sometimes having a systemic or relational dimension—for example, an unconscious identification with someone who died young or with a family member whose fate has been excluded from the family narrative. 

Family Constellation can be useful as a way of exploring the emotional, relational and symbolic meaning that a person may attach to illness; it is not scientifically established that ancestral trauma causes physical disease or that a constellation can treat or cure chronic illness but rather is an adjunctive exploratory practice alongside appropriate medical care.

How does a Family Constellation work?

A Family Constellation is a way of exploring patterns and traumas within a family that may have remained hidden or unresolved and that are affecting a family system member in the current generation.

A person brings an issue they would like to explore. With the help of the facilitator and members of the group, significant people or events from the person’s family system may be represented in the room.

As the constellation unfolds, relationships, emotions and patterns can become visible in a way that is often difficult to see simply by talking about them.

The process can help a person recognise where they may be carrying something that belongs to an earlier generation, or where someone or something has been left out or forgotten.

By acknowledging what has happened, honouring those who came before, and allowing each person to find their appropriate place within the family system, there can be a sense of relief, belonging and release from entanglement.

The intention is not to blame or change the past, but to bring together what has been separated and allow a different relationship with it in the present.