The constellations framework and method stems from 1978 and the incredibly brave and insightful work of Bert Hellinger and his colleagues. Constellations is a systemic way of working, involving not only the client in isolation, but their whole system. It started with family constellations, looking at the client in the wider context of the lineage and its dark secrets, the skeletons in the cupboard which cannot be discussed, the family members who have been ostracised and excluded. In a family constellation, representatives for the client and for all necessary members of the lineage, or perhaps people they have wronged, or qualities, or institutions, are asked to step into what Hellinger labelled the ‘Knowing Field’.

In the last 30 years the constellations approach has been growing exponentially in scope and now includes trauma constellations, health constellations, intention constellations, organisational constellations and so on.

I was blessed to train in Constellations with Dr Albrecht Mahr, a colleague of Hellinger (amongst others). Mahr often tells students the most important intervention of the facilitator is to acknowledge ‘I don’t know’. This allows the implicit knowledge and wisdom of the system to come through and express itself. The constellation is like the quantum field – it contains all potentiality – only as information collects does the potentiality collapse to one outcome. The sovereignty of the constellation needs to stay with the system, not the facilitator. All interventions impact the system and there is a real potential for danger if we as facilitators try to impose what we might like to see.

Right from the moment I came across it, what Hellinger termed the Knowing Field seemed to me to be exactly the place that the shamans have always accessed. A number of other therapists have recognised and started to write about the similarities in the approach.

For instance Jakob Schneider writes, When there are deceased family members who are not yet at peace in the family soul, and therefore continue to affect the living as if they were still alive, the constellation work often resembles a shamanic ritual.

He adds, There may be a powerful impact in a constellation when we become aware that some of the pain we are suffering actually belongs to someone else in the past, but has not yet been laid to rest. We are not responding to actual experiences in our own lives: we seem to be trying to be of service to those in the past, attempting to bring peace to their souls.

Dan Booth Cohen writes, 'The ancestors that come through the Field are actively engaged in the healing process. They literally arrive when called in by the client’s issue, substantiate the root of trauma and make embodied contact with their living children. When the root is identified and the healing has occurred, they retreat into the Greater Whole, taking the burden, block or restraint with them.'

The scope of this work is enormous and when done with sensitivity and care, the acknowledgement and healing of the lineage and their entanglements can also pave the way for future generations to be free of ancient karma and curses. Exactly how it works is unclear, but the experimental and experiential database collected over the last forty years is now huge. But don’t underestimate the scale of the work. I believe you can do harm. It is easy to allow your ego to get in the way, to try to do big picture dramatic things when you are working with huge issues spanning many generations or tribes. So, if you choose to engage in this work as a client, with me or any other facilitator, please do your homework and use your discretion.