Family Constellations

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Family Constellations session

Family Constellations, also known as Systemic Constellations and Systemic Family Constellations, is a pseudoscientific [1] therapeutic method which draws on elements of family systems therapy, existential phenomenology and Zulu beliefs and attitudes to family. [2]

Contents

Family Constellations diverges significantly from conventional forms of cognitive, behaviour and psychodynamic psychotherapy. The method has been described by physicists as an example of quantum mysticism, and its founder Bert Hellinger incorporated the speculative idea of morphic resonance into his explanation of it. Positive outcomes from the therapy have been attributed to conventional explanations such as suggestion, empathy, and the placebo effect. [3] [4] [1]

Practitioners claim that present-day problems and difficulties may be influenced by traumas suffered in previous generations of the family, even if those affected are unaware of the original event. Hellinger referred to the relation between present and past problems that are not caused by direct personal experience as systemic entanglements, said to occur when unresolved trauma has afflicted a family through an event such as murder, suicide, death of a mother in childbirth, early death of a parent or sibling, war, natural disaster, emigration, or abuse. [5] [6]

A constellation session is a one time event with no follow up. It may take place in front of a large audience. [7]

History

The term "Family Constellations" was first used by Alfred Adler in a somewhat different context to refer to the phenomenon that each individual belongs to and is bonded in relationship to other members of his or her family system. One premise of his work is that one can inherit trauma.

The philosophical orientation of Family Constellations were derived through an integration of existential phenomenology, family systems therapy, and elements of indigenous mysticism.

Criticism

Małgorzata Talarczyk of The Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Clinic, Poznań University of Medical Sciences in Poland has criticized the family constellation method as not meeting many of aspects of the Polish Code of Ethics for Psychiatrists. In particular, she found that it was inadequate in the areas of "the process, contract, diagnosis, supervision, confidentiality, alternativeness." Thus it is difficult to consider it as "psychotherapy". [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

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The Internal Family Systems Model (IFS) is an integrative approach to individual psychotherapy developed by Richard C. Schwartz in the 1980s. It combines systems thinking with the view that the mind is made up of relatively discrete subpersonalities, each with its own unique viewpoint and qualities. IFS uses systems psychology, particularly as developed for family therapy, to understand how these collections of subpersonalities are organized.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of psychotherapy</span>

Although modern, scientific psychology is often dated from the 1879 opening of the first psychological clinic by Wilhelm Wundt, attempts to create methods for assessing and treating mental distress existed long before. The earliest recorded approaches were a combination of religious, magical and/or medical perspectives. Early examples of such psychological thinkers included Patañjali, Padmasambhava, Rhazes, Avicenna and Rumi.

Martti Olavi Siirala was a Finnish psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and philosopher. He was inspired by psychoanalysis, the anthropological medicine of Viktor von Weizsäcker and the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger. The outcome was a unique synthesis theory that Siirala called social pathology.

Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy was a Hungarian-American psychiatrist and one of the founders of the field of family therapy. Born Iván Nagy, his family name was changed to Böszörményi-Nagy during his childhood. He emigrated from Hungary to the United States in 1950, and he simplified his name to Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy at the time of his naturalization as a US citizen.

Supportive psychotherapy is a psychotherapeutic approach that integrates various therapeutic schools such as psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral, as well as interpersonal conceptual models and techniques.

Family therapy is a branch of psychotherapy focused on families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of interaction between family members.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transgenerational trauma</span> Psychological trauma

Transgenerational trauma is the psychological and physiological effects that the trauma experienced by people has on subsequent generations in that group. The primary mode of transmission is the shared family environment of the infant causing psychological, behavioral and social changes in the individual.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wolfgang Tschacher</span> Swiss psychology researcher

Wolfgang Tschacher is a Swiss psychologist and university lecturer. He is professor at the University of Bern.., Switzerland. He has conducted theoretical and empirical research in the fields of psychotherapy and psychopathology, especially from a systems-theoretical perspective that includes self-organization and complexity theory. He is active in the development of time series methods for the modeling of psychotherapeutic processes and generally social systems.

References

  1. 1 2 Witkowski, Tomasz (2015). Psychology Gone Wrong: The Dark Sides of Science and Therapy (illustrated ed.). Universal-Publishers. p. 261. ISBN   978-1-62734-528-6.
  2. Cohen, D. B. (2006). ""Family Constellations": An Innovative Systemic Phenomenological Group Process from Germany". The Family Journal. 14 (3): 226–233. doi: 10.1177/1066480706287279 . S2CID   145474250.
  3. Carroll, Robert T. "Bert Hellinger and family constellations". skepdic.com.
  4. Lebow, Alisa (2008). First Person Jewish. U of Minnesota Press. p. 81. ISBN   978-0-8166-4354-7.
  5. Hellinger, B., Weber, G., & Beaumont, H. (1998). Love's hidden symmetry: What makes love work in relationships. Phoenix, AZ: Zeig, Tucker and Theisen.
  6. Boszormenyi-Nagy, I., & Spark, G. M. (1973). Invisible loyalties: Reciprocity in intergenerational family therapy. Hagerstown, MD: Harper & Row.
  7. 1 2 Małgorzata Talarczyk (2011). "Family Constellation Method of Bert Hellinger in the context of the Code of Ethics for Psychotherapists". Archives of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy. 13 (3): 65–74.

Further reading