Gestalt therapy and family constellations

Family constellations are a form of therapeutic intervention that is framed within Gestalt therapy, in which the images are given fundamental importance. From the images that appear in the constellation, you can understand and try to recompose the family system of the person who consults.

Content

• Differences between Gestalt therapy and traditional therapies
• The importance of family order
• Each member must be in the place that belongs
• What is needed to make a constellation

Differences between Gestalt therapy and traditional therapies

Conventional therapies do not give importance to the facts. They only take into account what has happened in the life of the person who consults and, at most, is intervened in the relationship that the person maintains with his family or with his environment. Bert Hellinger, who is the one who gave body to this new therapeutic intervention approach, gives much importance to the events in the family: the facts related to life (sexuality) and with death. It is important, for example, the death of the parents when the son is still very young, the dead children prematurely, the events of war, the traumatic deaths, the abortions caused .. . The events occurred in reference to sexuality are also important: rapes, old couples ... also family ruins, emigrations ..

In conventional therapies there is no importance to the facts because they are in the past, in a distant past sometimes. But what Hellinger has discovered, since his experience in constellations, is that when any of these facts have not been sufficiently elaborated, that is, it has not been given importance, he tries not to remember ... in a word, he has remained excluded from Family thinking, It is later reflected in some rear member of the family, even if they are very distant, the facts affect the family system, the family soul, what Hellinger calls him. This family soul is like a network, like an consciousness that encompasses the whole family. The members of a family are united by invisible ties and for love ... and when any fact has not been accepted, or someone has been excluded, the family soul does not tolerate it.

The importance of family order

In a constellation we always have to ask ourselves who must be reintegrated in the family and give it a place in our hearts. It can be an aborted child, it can be a dead father prematurely, it can be a relative who is considered the black sheep of the family, it can be a first woman or girlfriend who does not want to remember for some reason: it was hurt, she was belittled .. These excluded are always represented by another posterior member of the family reappear in the family system. It is like a new opportunity that the system is granted to heal.

Family constellations: What are they and how can we help us to give off from painful feelings?

Family members are united deeply for love, always, but for this love to help our growth, it must be ordered. This order entails that The posterior members should not be awarded situations that are from the previous. Sometimes the children are so linked to their parents or their ancestors that were excluded, that they died ... that they want to follow them. Follow them in death, in disease ... or in problems. For example: a mistreating father is expelled from the family. The son feels linked to the mother and cannot love the father. If I wanted to be as a lack of loyalty towards it. The boy says: "I will never be like my father" but, in such a case, many times the boy ends up being a mistreat. Because? Because This would be a way to love his father, to make him present in the family.

How could this situation be avoided? The mother could avoid her by giving permission to the son to love the father. She has to honor the Father in the Son, why if not the son does so he has many possibilities of becoming an abuser. This example would be that of blind love (as Hellinger calls him). Cosses are always made for love. In this case, for love, a posterior (the son) has been awarded something that is from the previous one (the father). It's about love, but messy.

The order is related to welcoming everything that comes from life, of those who gave us life: "good" and "bad". For example: we know that a grandfather was a murderer. It is serious, caused pain. But the grandson, to be free, must be able to respect the grandfather's fate, accept it and leave the fault with him. Otherwise, you will load with this fact of the family system and will not be able to free yourself from your weight. The faults must be left where they occurred.  Everything that happened and give it a place must be respected. Good love works when order is respected and does not work when it is not done.

Each member must be in the place that belongs

Good love entails honoring parents and all the previous ones. All traditions of wisdom, all religions are based on parents. And do not distinguish between good and bad. The children have to interfere in what concerns their parents, their ancestors .. Among the couple, among friends there must be a balance between giving and receiving ... between parents and children will always be unbalanced. Because parents are the great and give us the greatest gift: life) and children are the little ones and receive.

Hellinger talks about family conscience. The son feels that in order to be part of his family and consider himself innocent It can't be richer, happier, wiser than your parents. For example: he can't be happy with his partner, because his mother was not happy with his. If I were happy, it would seem a lack of consideration to the mother, which could not be. It must be able to overcome a certain guilt to be, have, live more than the previous ones.

What is needed to make a constellation

1. That the person who wants to record has a clear and/or connected demand with the pain (For example, you can't constee solely out of curiosity)
2. That can visualize how would your life be There was the problem that has presented
3. To know and can communicate the events that occurred in the family

The constellation therapist Does not drive, accompany. And he does not work only with whom he consists but with his family. The therapist does not perceive the person alone but Your whole family system… And he also works with the group through it. The Ha group to be centered, as present as possible. And that way, many times the constellation does not serve only for those who consist but each one can feel touched by one or another aspect of what Work is being done.

With constellations, reconciliation is worked with oneself and with their family system and the acceptance of reality, as it is, as shown... It is a very rich job and that can bear fruit, perhaps immediately, but that, many times, is like a small seed that will not be shown until later, after months or even years, years.