Families
Constellations
Applications
Organisations
Helping

Family systems

We all wish for a healthy and happy life with loving relationships

However, often something prevents such a fulfilling life.
This may be a physical, emotional or mental problem and then we try to find an appropriate therapy.

If that does not help then the cause of the problems may lie somewhere else, for example in events that took place in the family, perhaps generations ago.

We are a part of our family

A family is a system of family members. Your two parents, your four grandparents and all your ancestors are part of your family.
Your brothers and sisters also belong to your family as do your partners and children. Previous partners of your parents have their place too. Sometimes people belong who have done something special for the survival of the family, for example if they have saved a family member’s life. Those who have suffered a great loss belong too. For example, if someone’s death was caused by a family member. All those belong and that fact needs to be acknowledged. Leaving anyone out evokes a disruption of the family system.

Bert Hellinger, who created family constellations, realised that love flows freely if the following three conditions are met:

• Everyone who belongs to the family has a right to a place in that system. Those who do not belong to the family do not have that right.

• Relationships within the family must be reliable. Two kinds of relationships exist within a family: between equal partners and between parents and their children.
  
  
  Between partners the relationships grows through giving and taking. If there has been too much giving or taking then a “debt” arises which endangers the relationship. This is the same in a relationship between two families.
  
  
  Between parents and their children energy flows one-way: the parents give life and the children take life. We have often witnessed the consequence if one tries to reverse this flow: this tragedy brings good to no one.

• There is a natural hierarchy in which the earlier or older one has precedence over the younger or later. This applies to successive generations as well as to successive children.

As individuals we are not as free in our choices and actions as we may think. We choose either for ourselves or for the group to which we belong. Even within that we are limited because in order to survive we need our family. During childhood at least, our soul needs (unconsciously) to maintain the system. If a serious event occurs in the family, such as the early death of a (distant) relative who is subsequently “forgotten”, this will influence the family system until the neglected person has regained a place in the heart of the family.

The greatest need of a child is to love and to express this love.

A small child feels everything but understands nothing yet. So a child – unconsciously and out of blind love – will take on an emotion or the fate of an earlier relative, in an ‘attempt to alleviate its suffering’. This unconscious inner motivation is called an entanglement.
Later in life this entanglement may lead to all kinds of ‘unexplained’ complaints. For example: fear, aggression, dysfunctional relationships, repeated failures, psychiatric problems, depression or illness.
Once this entanglement is revealed, blind love can be transformed into mature love.
The heart opens and you can grow towards maturity and independence. What was rejected is restored to its place, what was separate is reconciled. A family constellation may help in the process and work as a “balm to the family soul”.

It is possible that repeated problems at work or in social contexts are similarly based on an entanglement with someone else’s fate.

Family constellations give an amazing insight into the working of love and loyalty.

A constellation reveals the essence of relationships within a family or any other group.

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Constellations

“In essence a family constellation is a simple technique”

(Bert Hellinger in: Die Quelle braucht nicht nach dem Weg zu fragen)

A constellation is facilitated with great care. You are working with information from the soul. It is not so important what you think or feel about your question, because that thinking has not yet brought a solution to your problem.

A “problem” is often a process that has halted and that can no longer continue by itself. What is alive needs to move. A small impulse may often be sufficient to restart the process which then continues its way, much like water always finds its way to a lower point when it is not blocked. A movement in the constellation may give this impulse to your process.

If you are the client, you choose other participants to represent your family members such as your father, mother, brother or sister. You give them a place in the room in relation to each other which reflects your inner image. The representatives automatically begin to experience the essence of who they are embodying. They are like antennae in the field of the family and unconsciously observe its essence. It is immediately visible to everyone.

The entanglement or dynamic is revealed and from there the steps flow that may lead to a solution. These steps enable personal growth. In this way you bring back into the picture those who were not seen, you rejoin what was dismembered, you honour fate and you take life as a gift from your parents and ancestors. The art is in really understanding the image that unveils itself, and to interpret it at the soul’s level. That is why a constellation needs to be facilitated by someone who knows this art.

Facilitating a constellation is to work phenomenologically.
Whatever shows itself in a constellation, at that very moment, and in those conditions, is to be observed, without prejudice or judgement.
This image makes us sometimes hold our breath; it gives access to a new dimension in our consciousness and offers new insights.
Then slowly the rhythm returns in our breathing, feeling and thinking and knowing. You move on, nothing is like before. The direction of your course has changed a little and as time progresses it will become clear where it may lead.

Bert Hellinger quotes Heidegger’s beautiful image in „Die Quelle braucht nicht nach dem Weg zu fragen“

“From the hidden something emerges into the light

and then it sinks back into the hidden”

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Applications

A constellation can contribute to growth and insight in various ways

A family constellation reveals the dynamics that play a role in a family. The constellation shows how the family soul moves towards reconciliation.

An organisational constellation may shed light on what causes problems for someone in an organisation, company, school, network or any other group.
The constellation shows what is needed for everyone to do their work successfully and for the organisation to flourish. Important themes are: leadership, order and the balance between giving and taking. Personal, work-related questions can be examined, for example questions about career, unexplainable failures, mobbing, the decision for a new job.

A consulting constellation allows the consultant or the therapist to see what his client needs. It will clarify how and what he may contribute to the solution, if at all. This format can be applied in workshops for The Art of Helping or Work Issues

The Art of Helping is a workshop that sheds light on the possibilities and limits of helping. The systemic approach is very effective in empowering both client and helper. It is a practical workshop, looking at various aspects of helping and its pitfalls.

Parents often recognise patterns from their own experience in their children. Alternatively they may observe behaviour in their children that they cannot explain from what has happened to them. Children unconsciously respond very strongly to what is happening in the family, even though that might have arisen generations ago. Sometimes by their behaviour they are simply loyal to someone who has been forgotten. A family constellation may put the cause of the behaviour or problem into an entirely different context, revealing what is needed for child and family. It is best if both parents take part in the constellation. However just one parent may also do the constellation. The children do not have to be present.

At the Hahnemann Institute in The Hague I do constellations for homeopaths. We also investigate systemic aspects of homeopathic medicines.

New formats are continually being discovered and developed to apply systemic work and constellations. The field is lively and growing.

I can provide a thematic workshop with constellations or systemic work, tailored to your needs within the context of training or education.

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Organisations

Just as a family consists of a (given) group of family members, an organisation comprises a (changing) group of employees.

To belong to an organisation is a choice that may change over time.

Usually an organisation has an explicit goal that is recognisable to all. For example, a housing society provides housing, and a medical clinic provides health care.

But like every organism an organisation also functions on a deeper level. This level, which is often unconscious, aims to maintain the organization as a whole. The whole works differently than the sum of its parts. This is certainly true if one of those parts is no longer visible.

As in a family, within an organisation there is both a conscious knowing, based on what is communicated, and an unconscious knowing that registers what is going on.

Systemic work in a workshop on work issues invites you to get in touch with the level of both conscious and unconscious knowing. In a systemic perspective one looks at not just the individual employee but also at the context of the organisation and its history.
By looking at the whole system, respectfully and without intention, truths come to light that have so far remained hidden.
These truths originate in essential events in the organisation. For example, its founding; the departure of employees, justified or not; the appointment of new partners; departments that have been closed down, merged or founded; a change in the organisation’s goals.
The circumstances surrounding my predecessor’s departure may even influence how I function in my own position.

When we look systemically at a group or organisation, we discover the aspects that enable its proper functioning

• Everyone who belongs to the system has a place. No one can be excluded or denied his or her place without consequences. Injustice will always be felt.
  
• There is an order which is determined by factors such as leadership, responsibility, skill and seniority. This order cannot be changed arbitrarily.
• The (work-) relationship is determined by an exchange of giving and taking. If this exchange is balanced then there is a stable relationship. If the exchange is unbalanced then the work-relationship is endangered.

If these principles are not adhered to, an imbalance arises in the organisation, which aims to restore balance. This imbalance is called a dynamic, which has to do with the relationship between its parts. Dynamics lead to symptoms which work as a signal.

Examples of symptoms in an organisation are: conflicts, a high turnover of personnel, indecision, deficient leadership or other unexplained failures.

A constellation reveals what is needed to restore the order, the balance and to regain access to its energy.

Systemic work in organisations has various formats such as the systemic interview, coaching sessions and the organisational constellation.

The constellation helps to gain deeper insights into how the organisation works internally and within its historical and social context.

Audience

Questions where systemic work can be helpful are:

• Diagnosis of a problem: what is going on in the background?
• Changes: what is needed to give a team a better support?
• Investigating a hypothesis: What happens if I take this step?
• Supporting a consultant or advisor. Their works does not create change but it brings something to light which may lead to change. This requires the consultant to have a position from which he can avoid entanglement.
• Leadership issues, conflicts, mobbing, lack of purpose.
• How do I find my own place, which factors have played a role in the choice of my profession, why do I always take this position in an organisation?
• Should I stay or go, how can I find support, how do I stay healthy at work?
• Schools, clinics, networks and societies are also organisations.

During the workshop the participants’ privacy is guaranteed. We only look at positions; to name a company or an employee is to be avoided. If needed, a constellation can be done in a covered way so that the representatives do not know who or what they represent.

Books

Bert Hellinger has been the first to apply the insights of family constellations to investigate which dynamics play a role in organisations.
In Germany, many others such as Gunthard Weber have further developed organisational constellations. There are good German and English books about this subject.
In The Netherlands Jan Jacob Stam is the driving force behind the development of systemic work in organisations. He is the co-founder of the Dutch Hellinger Institute, he runs training programs for Systems dynamics in Organisations and has written the book The Connecting Field, organisational constellations in practice (Het Verbindende Veld, organisatie opstellingen in de praktijk, only in Dutch).

More information is available in Links and Publications

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Helping

Helping is a natural thing to do

We know what it is to be helped, for example by our parents, and we enjoy helping others if they are in need.

In our lives we need others to help us so we can develop ourselves.

To help and to be helped is therefore a deeply human need.

For professional helpers this may become a trap. You may find that your helping is no longer doing any good either to you or the other. In due time the helper could suffer burn out. Helping then becomes ineffective.

In the (family) constellation – developed by Bert Hellinger – we can see what is really needed to help someone systemically, at the level of the soul.

In the Art of Helping workshop we are looking for the inner attitude which enables us to really see and to help the other.
Finding back this inner quiet space is a unique experience.

We discover what makes us and others stronger.
We become aware that helping has its limitations. It is the art of helping to observe and respect these limitations.
Your questions on this matter are approached in a systemic perspective.

We work in different ways with the theme of helping

o Using practical exercises, systemic work, visualisations and constellations we can investigate how as helpers we become and stay centered
o We can do a supervision constellation on your client’s issue
o We can do a supervision constellation on your therapeutic relationship with your client

Helping is about observing and systemic observations. This is practised in various ways using participants’ questions as a starting point.

For example:
What is for you the essence of helping?
What is your motivation to help, and where does that come from?
When is helping possible, and when is it not possible?

This workshop inspires professional helpers, such as medical doctors, therapists, social workers, teachers, trainers and advisors.
An interview before the workshop is possible but not necessary.

The workshop The Art of Helping can be applied in many ways. I run workshops for trainings, congresses, study days, thematic days and intervision groups, both nationally and internationally.
In addition to Dutch and English I can facilitate workshops in German.

Bert Hellinger in his many years of experience has gained deep insight into what is needed to help. In 2003 his German book Ordnungen des Helfens (“Orders of Helping”) was published by Carl Auer Verlag.

In Dutch there is De Kunst van het Helpen (“The Art of Helping”), a compilation from various sources in Hellinger’s work on helping, edited and translated by Margreet Mossel, and published by Het Noorderlicht. For more information, see this web site’s sections on Links and Publications.

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