When I look at the developments of family constellations, my own development, and the new insights that some of you report, then it is clear that family constellations are a movement. This means that in family constellations something is in motion and remains in motion. Family constellations remain in motion because we do not tie ourselves down to certain concepts and to what has been achieved up to this point, as if we had found the philosopher’s stone that must be held on to. Therefore the development of theories is always in motion, always new. For it shows that much of what seemed important some years ago is already outdated and replaced. 

How is this possible? It becomes possible through the openness towards what shows itself, and how it shows itself. Recent controversies have perhaps intimidated some of us, so that they no longer trust what shows up in constellations. For instance, when suddenly there are attempts to impose external criteria on us that have nothing to do with family constellations. Then the pressure to conform is felt, which – that is my fear – could slow down family constellations in their forward movement. So I want to come back once more to what is essential in family constellations.

Reality has real effects

The foundation of family constellations is that the family constellators know they are in the service of a reality that breaks through to the light. So they are not doers who initiate something on their own accord and they do not want to achieve a particular outcome. They know, only in respectful and alert restraint can they facilitate the coming to light of something hidden. What comes to light is what has the effect. When the therapist or the constellator, – therapist  is no longer a suitable term, because family constellations are a general human movement, a philosophical movement that has moved far beyond psychotherapy – So, nothing bad will happen where the constellator has the courage, firstly to expose him/herself to what shows itself, and secondly to say it, and thirdly, to expect the client to have the strength to look at it, for reality cannot do harm. The fear of facing reality can do harm, for at that moment something is suppressed into the subconscious. It is there where it has harmful effects. Therefore constellators cannot really harm anyone, provided they stick to the protocol. This means calmly waiting in restraint until something comes to light. As something comes to light, it can also remain, exactly as it is, without being diminished, without restrictions, in its full impact. In this moment a constellator behaves as someone who is in the service of a greater matter. And s/he expects of the participant that s/he is an adult, this means looking one’s own reality in the eye.

Expectations/ Impositions

Much of the criticism of constellations comes from an idea in psychotherapy, in which psychotherapists behave as if they were better, as if they were stronger, as if they had greater ability, more life experience, a better fate, that those who come to them. In this moment they make others small.

From this attitude, the ideas and expectations derive: One has to look after them, one has to take responsibility. And suddenly constellators find themselves in a situation where they have to present themselves as parents, and where the participants are treated like children and people in need. A large part of psychotherapy is based on this divide.

Then there is also the idea that the therapist is the better father or mother. Then the therapist replaces the parents, and the client becomes dependent on him or her. Then, when the therapist does something that the client is not happy with, the client relates towards the therapist like a child that makes demands on its parents.

No harm

I have the radical view that nobody can harm a client, as long as they remain in the attitude and in the position: I help to bring something to light that the client set up herself, and I let it have its effect on the client. In that moment the client faces her reality. The therapist or the constellator does not need to face it as if it was something of their own, it has been handed to the client. This forces the client to behave like an adult. So all these ideas of working through something and follow-up have nothing to do with family constellations. These are foreign elements from other therapies that are brought into family constellations. To resist this demands great courage, great restraint, and utmost humility.  

Restraint

In this sense the whole therapeutic scene is turned upside down. A fundamental model is overturned here, a model that makes out the therapist is superior, or s/he is there as a doctor and the other as a patient in need of help. That this causes fear in the therapeutic scene is understandable. But it is not clearly expressed. We do not attack others. We only show something. What is threatening is not something constellators are doing, but rather what they bring to light as reality is the threat.

In constellations work, in my constellations work, I approach the client’s issue in this attitude of exposing myself without intentions, without ideas, without fear, without love in the sense of  “Oh I must do something for you”. This has had the result that I have to do less and less, in order to reach the result the client needs.

This begins with asking the client very little. Radically, my approach is that I say: “ You have three sentences.” And I don’t start immediately. As soon as clients come, they want to rattle off the same old story they have already told many times to other people. I say: “Wait” Suddenly the inner dialogue stops, because they get nowhere with it.

Then I say: “Put it in three sentences, only say what happened, only the events in the family, nothing else.” Then a client might say: “I would like to develop further.” Then I say: “This was the first sentence. You have two left.” Then perhaps in the third sentence something important is mentioned. And that’s enough.

Ongoing development 

How does the constellator distinguish what is important? How do I do that? I take note of the energy that is attached to a word or to a person. The client says three or four things, and I sense: The grandfather, that’s it, there was energy all of a sudden. Then I also know how I begin. I begin with the grandfather, with nothing else. 

So I don’t need to know the whole family history. I begin with the grandfather and place him by himself. In earlier days we often had the idea that the effects of family constellations are the result of setting up a structure, and this structure attracts an energy field that wants to express itself. But what if there is only one person standing there? The result is no longer dependent on the way a constellation is set up. What works is something different. Something works in the person. The placed person is in contact with something, with something bigger, that suddenly works through him or her - provided recollection is maintained. 

Can the person remain collected? If they are not asked questions, if they are not interrupted, if the constellator remains collected and carries the space around the grandfather, to remain in this example. In this the constellator’s attention is not focused but rather wide and vague.

Then suddenly something happens to the grandfather’s representative. He might look to the ground, for instance, just to the ground. Now one knows from experience: He is looking at a dead person. All right, then I get someone to lie there, exactly where he is looking. Suddenly there is movement in the whole situation, and from beginning the constellation with only one  person, step by step a family picture emerges, an important one that one could not have gained from an anamnesis. For the client had no awareness of it.

Through the constellation the hidden suddenly comes to light, and that is powerful. It is an example of how one achieves a lot more through restraint than through the kind of family constellations that I and many others used to practice in the beginning. So this would be a development. 

Reconciliation

This development is opposed by something. The fundamental insights that became possible through family constellations were that we are controlled by a conscience that has us in its grip. That we are controlled by a conscience that denies or forbids us certain perceptions. If we allowed them we would run the risk of losing our belonging to our family.

Much of the criticism of family constellations demands of us that we fall back into the fetters of our conscience. It is directed against a movement that allows us to go beyond the boundaries of conscience, to look at a greater whole. Our conscience wants to prevent us from acknowledging the contradictions, or what opposes each other, as equals on a higher level, such as perpetrators and victims, or this group and that group, or this religion and that religion. This can only be done by those who have grown beyond the boundaries of their own conscience. This is a special personal achievement. Only those who have achieved it, can really bring about reconciliation.

It becomes more and more clear in family constellations, that what opposes each other must be acknowledged as of equal standing on a higher level. The knowledge about the need to reconcile what opposes each other begins with Freud. He realized that what is suppressed must be accepted as equally important. This also means that in doing so we are taking a step beyond our conscience. When we succeed in doing so, when we acknowledge our shadow as of the same importance as our light, so that light and shadow are acknowledged equally, we have grown. We have another strength.

We see the same in the family. The family has some members about whom it says they are good, and some about whom it says they are bad. Some are called successful, others are called failures, some are called virtuous and others criminals. The so-called bad ones or failures or criminals are excluded. As soon as they are excluded, the person or the group who excluded them has lost something important. Now they become narrow. In family constellations we see that the excluded must be taken back into the family. As soon as they are included again, every individual in the family feels complete. They are wider, have greater strength, they are milder, more capable of reconciliation. 

Sameness

Now I will apply this to the discussion about quality control. Applying sameness here, too, I say that all who offer family constellations, the “good” and the “bad” are the same as me before something greater. We only need to sense in our soul what effect this has on our strength. How much strength do we have then, to guide it well in a certain humble way, and how much strength do we have when we deviate from this and say: Yes, some are better, others are worse. The most radical consequence that derives naturally out of family constellations would also apply here: I acknowledge that all others are my peers before something greater.

Applying this directly in our work, this means for instance: When someone comes to me and talks about the parents and perhaps says how terrible they were, then internally I bow to them and say: I acknowledge that you also are the same as me before something greater. In this moment the client cannot recruit me for something against his parents. Everything that traditional psychotherapy builds on, that there is a parent-child transference, or a child-parent transference, and that one works with this transference, that’s all gone in a flash. The moment I have a deep and loving connection to the clients’ parents, the clients can no longer transfer their feelings for their parents to me. This of course presupposes that I am lovingly connected to my own parents as well. That I acknowledge, they are the same as all other parents.