
What Is Family Constellations
What is Family Constellations
Family Constellations is a psycho-dynamic, somatic, and spiritual approach to resolving current problems by looking into family systems and ancestral lines. It explores hidden trans-generational family dynamics, traumas, secrets, and exclusions that can cause emotional entanglements and disruptive attachment patterns. The approach reveals how we carry our parents’ emotional burdens that often began generations before. Family Constellations takes us on a journey of handing back responsibility for emotional issues that did not begin with us, yet simultaneously honours our parents and ancestors for the life given to us through them. The healing process requires us to drop deeply into our bodies, and to notice what sensations arise, so that the body does the talking and not the rational, discursive mind. Family Constellation work requires us to put aside the conditioned narrative we have about our life and to enter the experience with a sense of openness and curiosity. It takes us to the core of an issue and for some, can rapidly resolve long held difficulties and traumas.
How does Family Constellations work?
Family Constellations are traditionally facilitated within a group workshop. They can also be facilitated in individual one-on-one sessions.
In a workshop, the Family Constellation facilitator creates an open space for whatever needs to come out to come out. If you are having your issue constellated, the facilitator will ask you to briefly describe an issue that is impacting you the most right now. The clearer you are about the issue, the deeper the constellation will go. The facilitator will then ask you to give some information about your current family, family of origin (parents) and both maternal and paternal grandparents. You will be asked about any major traumas in you family line such as death, divorce, migration, war, pregnancy loss and abuse. From the information you have given, the facilitator will decide who will be represented in your constellation.
You will be asked to choose people to represent both your family members and your issue. For example if your current issue is depression, the facilitator will ask you to chose a person to represent yourself, your mother, father, possibly grandparents and depression. You will then be asked to place those people and issue in relationship to yourself. These people are referred to as representatives. The facilitator will then guide the constellation based on feedback given by representatives on what they are feeling in the form of sensations in their body. You will then view your constellation unfold through the representatives. You will be asked to join the constellation when either you feel compelled to or when the facilitator thinks it’s appropriate for you to be included. You can choose to observe the entire constellation, however, it is a more powerful experience when you become part of it.
Individual Sessions
In individual sessions, you will use pieces of felt material to represent your family members and issue. The facilitator will ask you to place these on the floor in relationship to yourself and then you will be asked to step onto the pieces of felt material and nice what sensations arise in your body and how you feel. At times, the facilitator may also act as a representative. The whole constellation then unfolds according to what you are feeling and sensing in your body.
Am I ready for Family Constellation work?
Family Constellations can invoke intense psycho-emotional and somatic experiences, which for some, can be overwhelming. In particular, this can be the case for those people who have never engaged in any psycho-emotional, therapy, and/or somatic or spiritual healing techniques.
The strong sensations that can arise in the body can be triggering and overwhelming, as these are the physiological response to the emotional experience. This can sometimes induce deep sobbing, which can be a scary experience for some.
You may not be ready for Family Constellation work if:
-You have unacknowledged traumas or feelings about your parents, children or other family members
-Have never had your feelings validated
-Have never had the opportunity to express your story in a safe and self-reflective space
-You are easily emotionally overwhelmed and find it difficult to regulate your emotions during moments of intensity
What can it help me with?
Family Constellations works differently for everyone, but there are some common shifts that people can experience such as:
-Gaining insight into unspoken family trauma
-Gaining insight into the emotional impacts of your parents own childhood
-Expressing unspoken emotions
-Feeling your suppressed emotions
-Being released from family ‘dramas’
-Understanding how your unmet emotional needs affect your parenting and impact your children
-Accepting that sometimes, we do treat each of our children differently
-Expressing held back grief and loss as a result of a death
-Revealing how we live out our parents’ unmet desires and dreams and repress our own
-Recognise the cycle of abuse in our ancestral lines
What can it help me with?
Family Constellations works differently for everyone, but there are some common shifts that people can experience such as:
-Gaining insight into unspoken family trauma
-Gaining insight into the emotional impacts of your parents own childhood
-Expressing unspoken emotions
-Feeling your suppressed emotions
-Being released from family ‘dramas’
-Understanding how your unmet emotional needs affect your parenting and impact your children
-Accepting that sometimes, we do treat each of our children differently
-Expressing held back grief and loss as a result of a death
-Revealing how we live out our parents’ unmet desires and dreams and repress our own
-Recognise the cycle of abuse in our ancestral lines
Although Family Constellations is a brief therapeutic intervention, it is by no means a quick and only fix to long held trauma, emotional wounds and unmet needs.
It may take months, a year or many for the full effect of your constellation to unfold. Every person’s experience is different and depends on their own previous engagement in healing, as well as the level of validation received for their emotions. And the hardest and most fundamental one of all, is a person’t readiness to fully accept their parent’s emotions and parenting limitations. Perhaps even, what they so desperately needed but did not receive from their parents- emotional attunement, regulation and care.
Shifts you may notice include:
-Less emotional reactivity when interacting or triggered by family members that the constellation focussed on
-Ability to pause before responding when in the midst of an emotional reaction
-Ability to step back emotionally when feeling responsible for loved ones, including parents, children, partner’s etc.
-A softening towards parents in recognition that they did the best they could with what they had
-Less anger towards parents
-A stronger feeling that “I matter”
-Ability to open to future possibilities, no matter how small they are
-More understanding of your own children
-Accepting responsibility for your own shortcomings