The 3 orders of love as determined by Bert Hellinger

1. Precedence: All have their place in the system according to their order of arrival in the system. Everyone has their place and in their place; that is the order.

2. belonging: Everyone has a right to belong equally in the family regardless of what their life circumstances. Everyone's fate are to be respected as part of their own life journey.  

3. balance between giving & receiving: First take, then give. If I take, I can give. If I don't take, I'm exhausted.  Parents give, children receive. Between partners a balance between giving and receiving is also crucial. If one is always on the end of receiving the relationship might end. For love to flow freely in relationships this balance is to be maintain.

Each ancestor lives in us, especially if we reject him they end up haunting us and modifying our behavior without our knowledge; that is the entanglement as seen in so many cases during family constellations.

If we ask them for their blessings without judging them, then they accompany us with their tribal strength.

In psychology and in family and systemic constellations, the entangled individual feels possessed by emotions or behaviors that he does not understand, as if it does not belong to him.

 The individual carries the destiny and history of an ancestor who asks to be reintegrated into the field and the family memory.

It is often an excluded or forgotten person:

•  deceased child whose mourning could not be done, 

• mothers who died in childbirth, 

• fathers who died on the battlefields, 

• abortions not assumed, 

• handicapped or abandoned children,

•  or any person who has been excluded from the family memory because of their behavior or their story considered shocking to the morality of the family

  1. secret or illegitimate love, 

  2. shame, 

  3. murder, 

  4. abandonment, 

  5. infanticide…

They may be very distant ancestors or a known relative, all of whom their memory were lost... They re-manifest themselves to the family, this time, to be welcomed with kindness.

 The entangled person in the family is at the service of the excluded.

 “To get out of an entanglement, you need awareness  and smile at everyone with the same enthusiasm, without judgement.".  Sophie Hellinger

Finally, anyone who influences the destiny of our family in a beneficial or harmful way (Inheritance, donation, denunciation, murder, carnage, genocide …) also falls within our family system.

Systemic and family constellations are brief therapies organized in groups (most often) in the form of role plays. The original German term 'Familieaufstellung' means 'placing the family in space'; the idea being is to metaphorically 'place' one's family in space in order to visualize it, and then put it back into its order. During work sessions of one to two hours, the client chooses a member among the participants, the “focus”, to represent him/her and others who will each play the members of the family (living or dead). Then representatives will be placed in the space by "feeling". The client will then have formed a "constellation" which will be represented from the outside as on a cinema screen. The client can also choose to integrate the constellation at some point by playing its own role in order to live it from the inside, identify any dissonance and integrate the resolution.

Quickly, the representatives will feel emotions (pain, oppression, etc.) belonging to the ancestors whose role they have taken on. By gradually restoring order in the family history and helped by the facilitator, the client will then be able to identify the origin of the discomfort, conflicts and allow healing from counter-productive loyalties to be integrated. Most importantly, this process is likely to stop any generational process and save children from being the recipients of any passed on traumas.

No children are autonomous in relation their parents. No human being is autonomous in relation to their ancestors, to life and death. Freedom is conditioned by recognizing that we belong to a larger system. The method of the constellations offers the possibility to become aware of this reality in our lives.

It is a communication from unconscious to unconscious

Following the model of psychogenealogy, family constellations consist of a communication from unconscious to unconscious. The unconscious being played out during the constellation is the family collective unconscious. It is from this transmission that the structural elements of genealogy or possible trauma emerges. Moving the representatives around until they obtain a representation of their family that suits them and in accordance to the systemic laws as defined by Bert Hellinger. The client becomes aware of the family history and this awareness most often brings about healing.

Photos: Carl Gustav Jung 1st Mandala

Systemic constellations, also known as family constellations, is a therapeutic approach that aims to address and resolve issues that stem from family dynamics and relationships. It is based on the idea that unresolved issues and traumas from previous generations can be passed down to future generations, leading to emotional and psychological distress. Systemic constellations can be used to address a wide range of issues, including anxiety, depression, relationship problems, and chronic health conditions.

The origins of systemic constellations can be traced back to the work of Bert Hellinger, a German psychotherapist who developed the approach in the 1990s. Hellinger was influenced by a range of therapeutic approaches, including family therapy, psychoanalysis, and indigenous healing practices. He believed that unresolved issues and traumas from previous generations can create energetic blockages that can be passed down through family systems, leading to emotional and psychological distress.

In systemic constellations, a group of people come together to represent members of the client's family system. The facilitator of the session will ask the client to choose representatives for different family members, including parents, siblings, and grandparents. The representatives are then asked to stand in relation to each other, based on their feelings and perceptions of the family system. The facilitator will then guide the representatives through a process of exploration and resolution, helping them to identify and release energetic blockages that may be causing emotional and psychological distress.

Systemic constellations can be a powerful tool for healing and transformation. By addressing unresolved issues and traumas from previous generations, clients can gain a deeper understanding of their family dynamics and relationships. They can also learn to release negative patterns and behaviors that may be holding them back in their personal and professional lives.

While systemic constellations can be a powerful tool for healing, it is important to work with a trained and experienced facilitator. The process can be intense and emotional, and it is important to have a safe and supportive environment in which to explore and resolve issues. It is also important to approach systemic constellations with an open mind and a willingness to explore and release negative patterns and behaviors.

In conclusion, systemic constellations is a therapeutic approach that can be used to address a wide range of issues related to family dynamics and relationships. By addressing unresolved issues and traumas from previous generations, clients can gain a deeper understanding of their family systems and learn to release negative patterns and behaviors that may be holding them back in their personal and professional lives. While systemic constellations can be a powerful tool for healing, it is important to work with a trained and experienced facilitator and approach the process with an open mind and a willingness to explore and release negative patterns and behaviors. 

Bert Hellinger, the German psychotherapist who developed the Family Constellation method, believed that the bond between victim and perpetrator is one of the strongest bonds in human experience. According to him, resistance to change is a sign of loyalty to the old and hinders growth. Only when something shakes us to the core can we move forward and break free from rigidity. Hellinger's Family Constellation method is a systemic psychotherapeutic modality that explores the psychological theory of the family unconscious. The method is based on the idea that there is a sense of connectedness between members of a group, which is felt telepathically and is called the morphogenic field. Hellinger discovered the basic orders of life, which he called "Orders of Love," and these form the basis of Family Constellation. His work evolved beyond Family Constellations and Systemic Constellations into what he called Movements of the Spirit-Mind. Hellinger's innovative approach has been a leading healing modality in Europe for the past 20 years, and it helps people move from their conscious understanding of problems and events into the unconscious to clarify the true meaning of why things occurred. 

“Everything concerning previous intimate relationships should be kept secret from later partners and shouldn’t be talked about. It’s a form of respect for the partner and for one’s self. For example, it has a very bad effect if a man asks his wife how it was in her earlier relationship, or if a woman asks that of her husband. That can’t be talked about, because it destroys something and is a betrayal of the former partner. It also hinders the new relationship by destroying trust. I believe this is a very important point.

Parents also must never tell their children about any marital problems. Such a thing is terrible for children. When children know intimacies like this, they punish themselves for knowing. When I see such children later on in therapy and they start talking about what their mother or their father said about the other parent, I advise them to forget it. It’s possible to forget something like that in the sense of letting it go out of the soul and putting it in a place where it can remain a secret. Then the soul gets rid of the burden.”

(Exercpt from "Supporting Love by Bert Hellinger)

"My idea of the existence of the mind beyond the physical brain is what I call the extended mind. I would like to suggest that the mind is much more extensive than the brain and stretches out through fields that I call morphic fields. Morphic fields, like the known fields of physics such as gravitational fields, are non-material regions of influence extending in space and continuing in time. They are localized within and around the systems they organize. When any particular organized system ceases to exist, as when an atom splits, a snowflake melts, or an animal dies, its organizing field disappears from that place. But in another sense, morphic fields do not disappear: they are potential organizing patterns of influence, and can appear again physically in other times and places, wherever and whenever the physical conditions are appropriate. When they do so, they contain within themselves a memory of their previous physical existences. "

THE EXTENDED MIND By Rupert Sheldrake

Published in the July-August 2003 issue of The Quest