Health issues can cause a lot of suffering, both physical and emotional. In some cases, patients move from doctor to doctor, different medicine modalities and other alternative resources, without much improvement in their symptoms. This might end up in a long journey of search, hope and disappointments.
Family Constellations work can help us to start open new perspectives on the roots of the issues. It’s a therapeutic way of looking at the deeper causes of illnesses and possible ways of healing. In order to do this, the symptoms are seen as an ‘entry gate’ for the exploration - a starting place for what is really going on with that person - and not the enemy that we need to get rid of.
The Constellations work can be done in groups or individually with the therapist, and the main objective is to look at the family system and the influences on the client’s health, instead of focusing on the symptoms and on specific illness alone. We look at the whole (the family system), rather than at the limited part of oneself (specific organ or illness).
In a group workshop, the therapist has a brief conversation with the client, asking about the symptoms, when they started, their emotional and living situation and the major events in their lives. According to each individual, the therapist might ask more details about certain family members and events.
From that initial interview, the therapist suggests that the client chooses some members of the group to represent certain members of their family, illness, symptoms, or any other piece of their lives that the therapist sees as significant for that specific work.
Usually, the representatives from the group don’t know anything about the client’s life. And they are invited to describe only how they feel and sense while representing, without any interpretation, judgement or prejudice. They only say what they experience at that specific moment.
We then observe the dynamic between the representatives: how they relate to each other, how they feel about others, where they move to and how they position themselves. The therapist (and the client) start to create a visual, concrete image of the family system. This works as a map, a bigger picture of what might be happening internally for the client.
As we notice and learn more about the system dynamics, the therapist starts to recognise what place the illness has in the client’s life. We might be able to see where it comes from, where it really started and, most importantly, what function the illness has for the client, ‘how it’s serving them’.
But the Family Constellation work isn’t about only becoming aware of the system dynamics and ‘why things are how they are’. The intention is to go one step further. The intention is to start a new movement towards healing: sometimes by unblocking what doesn’t flow, sometimes by taking a step in a different direction in the system, sometimes by creating new movements and adding new resources in our lives.
Stephan Hausner, master in Systemic Health, says that ‘each Constellation work is one step towards healing, it’s not the solution for everything’. And most of his work is about helping the clients to ‘say yes to life’.
The focus of the therapist is constantly on the client - how their emotions, breathing and bodies react during the constellation - and the whole group (representatives and observers) are in service of each client during the process. It’s not about ‘grand finales’ or dramatic endings or spectacles. Even though some constellations are very touching and emotional, the most important result is an internal movement for the client. What is important is that the client has a better view of, more clarity of their family system and how it might be influencing their lives and their health, both physically and emotionally. They start to have more knowledge of where they came from and how they might be carrying in them things that belong to other members of their family or even their ancestors.
Constellations work shouldn’t be seen as a miracle cure or medicine to be taken randomly. And it’s not a replacement for medical help. But it can be a concrete step towards healing.
After the workshop, the internal work continues and the real changes in life might start to happen. And it takes willingness and dedication to create the changes we need, it’s a continuous process of self-awareness, growth and transformation.