FAQs - Family Constellations according to Bert Hellinger - quoted from Berthold Ulsamer
What are family constellations?
The German therapist Bert Hellinger developed with the family constellations a new type of short, intensive therapy. Hellinger discovered a host of principles and orders which occur in the network of relationships and bonds through many generations. These orders and principles prove themselves through the practical work.

The practical work:
- The client makes the most effective use of his constellation in a group.
- The client must have a certain clear request to be addressed in the constellation (eg, he wants to know the reasons for his depression or feelings of guilt.)
- First he names the essential facts about his family regarding the past two to three generations.
- Then, with the advice of the facilitator, he chooses group members to be representatives of pertinent members of his family.
- The client spontaneously, but with concentration, situates the representatives on an open floor. After that, the client becomes an observer.
- The therapist asks the representatives about their feelings and perceptions. After that, he often proposes either statements for the representatives to repeat, or new places for them to move to. The representatives have a fine sense of whether or not the statement is accurate, and whether or not their feelings have changed when they take a new place.
- A constellation generally lasts between 15 minutes and one hour.
- The therapist will end the constellation when everyone feels at ease in the arrangement of the family which has developed, or when some family secret has been encountered which the family soul is not yet ready to expose.