Family Systemic Constellations workshop

Exploring and healing issues using embodied and intuitive knowing. Small group systemic work in Central London.

Systemic constellations are a respectful and experiential method for exploring patterns, restoring balance and opening new perspectives. They can be used to explore and address difficulties in many areas, including family, friendship, romantic and professional relationships, health or creativity.

This practice aims to support balance and belonging within family or organisational systems, with attention to order, inclusion and relationship. It is a phenomenological approach that considers transgenerational influences and explores how they may be shaping the present, allowing for a holistic and in-depth approach.

What sort of issues can Systemic Constellations help me with?

• Difficulty reaching your full potential
• A pervading sense that you do not belong, are left out or are in the wrong place
• Challenges to form healthy and successful relationships
• Breakdown in family connections (e.g. not speaking with parents)
• Financial struggles or concerns
• Health issues
• Addiction or self-sabotage
• Finding the way forward after significant trauma or loss
• Addressing inner turmoil

What is happening during a workshop?

Systemic family constellation workshops rely on a group of participants who come together in a confidential setup. Some of the participants will take turns to bring a personal issue, which will be the subject of a constellation. During each of them, a 'living map’ will be created, using other participants as ‘representatives’ of their family system’s elements. This embodied representation can reveal missing elements, imbalances, and patterns within the system.

We will have the time to do two constellations. All participants, whether issue holders or not, pay the same fee. This reflects the original way of working of Bert Hellinger and supports a focus on which issue carries the most energy on the day, within the group.

How to be a representative?

This may seem a very strange idea to those who have not participated in a systemic constellation before, and people can feel awkward or unsure initially. Representing is not acting, nor analysing and thinking about what is emergent. It simply requires representatives to tune into their bodies and report back sensations, urges to move or speak. The facilitator will guide the representative as to when and how to express what comes up for them. Once experienced it becomes more readily understood, and first-timers are often amazed at how the flow of the constellation brings up these feelings and sensations without the need to think, analyse or even necessarily understand.

Many contemporary approaches suggest that some difficulties may be shaped not only by our own experiences, but also by relational and intergenerational influences. Research in epigenetics suggests that extreme stress and trauma may have biological effects that can influence subsequent generations. Emerging psychological theories recognise that the unresolved traumas of our ancestors can impact us here and now. They often manifest as negative patterns, unhelpful dynamics, limiting behaviours, health problems, or feelings of being stuck. Systemic constellations can help identify the conscious or unconscious patterns inherited from one's ancestors, see their impact and break cycles that repeat themselves from generation to generation.