Systemic Constellations – Background

Many people have contributed to the development of Systemic Constellations; however, Bert Hellinger who is a German therapist is considered the founder of the method.  Hellinger’s first book, Love’s Hidden Symmetry published at the end of the 1990’s, was a best seller and brought the Constellation Approach to the public.

 

Systemic Constellations is a phenomenological, systemic and inter-systemic process originating in family systems therapy – Jacob Moreno’s psychodrama,  Virginia Satir’s family Therapy, Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagi’s contextual therapy.  In addition, it is also grounded in the Existential Phenomenology of Kierkegaard, Husserl and Heidegger.   One can also note the reference to the Zulu tribe ancestors and other ancient cultures.

 

 

On Bert Hellinger:

Following WWII, where he fought on the Russian front, Bert Hellinger served as a missionary in South Africa for 15 years, working with the Zulu.  There, he began to acquire part of his understanding on the nature of human systems.  Later on, he left the priesthood for studies in psychotherapy.  He studied psychoanalysis and worked in the field for a period.  Later he studied other methods – those of Arthur Janov, Milton Erickson, Gestalt, etc.  He developed the Constellation Approach during the 1980’s, but its breakthrough into psychotherapeutic and treatment consciousness occurred in the 1990’s.  One of his students, a German psychiatrist, Gunthardt Weber, began to develop the organizational implementation of the method.  In 1999, Prof. Matthias Varga von Kibed, who came from the realm of philosophy and logic, became interested in Systemic Constellations and introduced the concept of structures and prototypes to the Constellation Approach.

 

Bert Hellinger placed the phenomenological approach above all others in seeking solutions and deep understanding of complex situations. from that developed ‘representation phenomena’ which is unique to this method  and three basic principles, or orders, as he termed them, that affect the functioning of a system – belonging, order of priority and the balance between giving and taking.

 

Yishai Gaster