From his phenomenological approach, Bert Hellinger gains novel insights into the areas of

• Consciousness within and between individuals, families and other groups
• Relationships within and between families and other groups
• Applied philosophy in the service of life
• The art of helping
• Health and illness; physical, emotional and mental
• Religion
• Life and death
• Reconciliation, war and peace

In one of his books, Hellinger describes his road towards his present work with family constellations and the movements of the soul.

In group dynamics, he experienced how contrasting needs of group members could still result in shared goals and actions once they have been properly recognized.
In psychoanalysis, he discovered how parts of someone’s inner life that had been rejected and repressed before could come to light again and be integrated.
Primal therapy taught him the different types of emotions and how they can either replace or enable action.
Transactional analysis made him understand the hidden meaning of stories, tales and scripts.
Through NLP and hypnotherapy, Hellinger became sensitive to even the smallest of body signals in response to stimuli.
When he began to understand the orders of love, he learned about the place of fate in families.
All this prepared him for family therapy.

By doing constellations, he gained deep insights into the orders of love and the movements of the soul, how conscience works, the origin of psychiatric illnesses, the energies of perpetrator and victim. These insights go far beyond psychotherapy.

He rather calls his work ‘applied philosophy’ in the service of life.