The family constellation method, founded by psychotherapist Bert Hellinger, is gaining more and more popularity. The history of its creation is very unusual.
Family Constellations is a method created by German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger.
In his practice, he encountered cases of strange symptoms in his patients. They did not want to live, they experienced a strange feeling of guilt and anxiety, the origins of which he could not find in their biography. He later discovered that many of them were descendants of famous and unknown Nazis who committed very cruel acts towards prisoners of war.
Eventually, Bert Hellinger realized that the events in the lives of their ancestors were the cause of their inexplicable suffering. This served as an impetus for the creation of a concept in which a person is part of a kind and all the events that happened in his family, one way or another, affect his present life.
If one member of the genus commits some act, then other members of the genus begin to compensate for it. In other words, if the grandfather was the executioner, then the grandson can play the role of the victim, as if atoning for the guilt of his grandfather. He can be very shy, insecure, constantly feeling guilty, etc. If an ancestor kicked someone out of his house, then it is quite possible that his descendant will also be kicked out of the house.
The method itself lies in the fact that the reasons for the difficulties in the client's life are sought not only in his beliefs, personality and perception, but also in those actions that his ancestors performed. In some cases, it is possible to change maladaptive behavior or solve a problem only by realizing and resolving its origins in the family.
For example, in cases where Hellinger's patients experienced feelings of guilt and anxiety, it was necessary to mentally imagine their ancestors, their victims and ask for forgiveness for their ancestors from all those who suffered at their hands. In many cases, after such a symbolic action, the unpleasant symptoms disappeared.
