Family Constellations: Barry Krost Quotes
“The original version of Family Constellations was a live group workshop with clients and participants volunteering as representatives. Over time some facilitators began to do one on one sessions with clients using objects (or floor markers) as representatives or visualizations. Eventually the group workshops and one on one session were done online.
Family Constellations trainings were live opportunities to observe and participate in constellations with a trainer as well as learn about the philosophy and principles of the work, primarily created by Bert Hellinger. In more recent years there are many online Family Constellations trainings and certifications.
From the beginning there have been intensives involving a number of trainers often in a residential or retreat format. Online intensives are also more available in recent years.”
— Barry Krost, Healing Body Therapeutics
“In Family Constellations we see that many clients unconsciously blame themselves for not feeling safe in their family or system. Bert Hellinger refered to this feeling as “guilty.” To feel safe, he observed that children will try to do whatever they perceive as “good” that allows them to feel safe in their family. He called this a need to feel “innocent.”
Guilt and innocence in these terms is only what a child feels and does not necessarily have anything to do with actual behaviors or actions in the family or the real world.
As soon as a child is conceived and/or born the instinct to survive requires them to have a place in the system that they experience as safe. If a child is born into a family where the parents are nurturing and loving but something in the system is out of order, the child may feel something is wrong and try to find a way to do something that will allow them to feel right or innocent. If they cannot, they feel guilty in that family.
In a family where there is psychosis or personality disorders or abuse, the child may constantly feel unsafe, wrong and guilty if they cannot find a solution to finding a safe place in the system. The child always looks to themselves for a solution to feeling guilty even when they have no power, control or responsibility for the family members and their actions, no matter how terrible. They unconsciously feel guilty no matter the reality of the situation.
If a systemic resolution that allows for safety in the family or system can be discovered, the burden and suffering of always feeling guilty or needing to feel innocent can be resolved.”
— Barry Krost, healingbodytherapeutics.com
Perpetration begins with murderous rage and a deep emptiness. It often escalates into violent and terrible acts that are justified by grotesque, distorted projections onto their victims and themselves. When this rage transitions into a cold hatred the perpetrator often hides what they have done and makes it secret. It is common that they use magical thinking about their actions that appears rational, religious (or even justifies continued perpetration). They place themselves in a dark place where they avoid comprehending what they have done and its consequences.
-- Barry Krost, healingbodytherapeutics.com
"Self-sabotage can feel like the only way to manage our deep distress when we come from a broken and fragmented family system. It can be both an unconscious attempt at escaping our reality and a way of being loyal to brokenness."
-- Barry Krost, healingbodytherapeutics.com
