What Are Family Constellations?
Family Constellations is a therapeutic approach designed to uncover and resolve hidden patterns and emotional entanglements passed down through generations. These unconscious dynamics—often rooted in unresolved trauma, loss, or broken family bonds—can deeply affect your relationships, health, career, and sense of self.
This method helps you understand how inherited family issues may be shaping your life. By bringing these hidden influences to light, you can begin to heal longstanding wounds and restore balance to your family system.
This method helps you understand how inherited family issues may be shaping your life. By bringing these hidden influences to light, you can begin to heal longstanding wounds and restore balance to your family system.
How It Works
In Family Constellations, we explore how unresolved events—such as grief, abandonment, abuse, or shame—may have created disruptions in your family’s natural order. When these events are ignored or forgotten, children and descendants can become unconsciously "entangled," taking on burdens that don’t belong to them. This can lead to feelings, behaviors, or struggles that seem unexplainable or out of place.
Family Constellation sessions reveal these hidden dynamics and offer a path toward resolution. Through this process, we may also discover inner strengths and ancestral resources that support your healing and personal growth.
Family Constellation sessions reveal these hidden dynamics and offer a path toward resolution. Through this process, we may also discover inner strengths and ancestral resources that support your healing and personal growth.
The Role of the “Knowing Field”
One of the most unique aspects of Family Constellations is its connection to the “knowing field”—a powerful, intuitive energy field that holds memories, emotions, and unresolved pain within a family lineage. This field helps participants gain insight into experiences they may know little or nothing about, often providing a deeper truth than what family stories alone can offer.
Representing in a Constellation
In group workshops or online sessions, participants may stand in as representatives for members of someone’s family. Without prior knowledge, these representatives often experience thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, or insights that reflect the real experiences of the person they are representing. It’s a profound and often healing process—not just for the person receiving the constellation, but for everyone involved.
Being a representative is a meaningful act of service and a powerful way to explore your own hidden dynamics through someone else’s family system.
Being a representative is a meaningful act of service and a powerful way to explore your own hidden dynamics through someone else’s family system.
A Community Healing Experience
Family Constellations create a space for deep connection and mutual support. Whether you are working on your own family system or participating as a representative, each session offers an opportunity for shared healing. There’s no judgment or pity—only presence, acceptance, and compassion for the human experience.
Many participants describe a sense of belonging, relief, and transformation—often from witnessing someone else’s constellation as much as their own.
Many participants describe a sense of belonging, relief, and transformation—often from witnessing someone else’s constellation as much as their own.
Constellations Beyond the Group
While group workshops often involve representatives, constellations can also be done individually using visualization, objects, floor markers, or guided imagery. These innovations make online Family Constellations just as effective and accessible as in-person sessions.
Common Issues Addressed
Family Constellations can support healing in a wide range of personal challenges, including:
- Generational trauma
- Addiction, anxiety, and depression
- Family conflict and sibling issues
- Adoption, abandonment, and estrangement
- Money, career, and success blocks
- Chronic illness and autoimmune disorders
- Unresolved grief and trauma
- Difficulties in romantic or parental relationships
- Narcissistic or emotionally unavailable family members
Schedule a Free Consultation
Want to know if Family Constellations are right for you?
Book a Consultation to learn more.
Book a Consultation to learn more.
FAQs About Family Constellations
1. What is Family Constellation?
Family Constellation is a therapeutic approach designed to reveal and heal hidden dynamics within a family system that may be affecting an individual’s life, health, or relationships.
At its core, Family Constellation Therapy is based on the idea that unresolved trauma, entanglements, or imbalances in a family—sometimes going back generations—can unconsciously influence present-day emotions, behaviors, and experiences. These influences can manifest as:
Chronic emotional or physical issues
Repeating life patterns
Relationship struggles
A sense of being stuck or disconnected
At its core, Family Constellation Therapy is based on the idea that unresolved trauma, entanglements, or imbalances in a family—sometimes going back generations—can unconsciously influence present-day emotions, behaviors, and experiences. These influences can manifest as:
Chronic emotional or physical issues
Repeating life patterns
Relationship struggles
A sense of being stuck or disconnected
2. Who should consider Family Constellation Therapy?
Anyone feeling stuck, burdened by emotional patterns, or struggling with relationships, illness, or life direction may benefit. It’s especially helpful for those who suspect their challenges are connected to family history, trauma, or inherited dynamics.
3. Do I need to bring my family to participate in a session?
No. Family Constellation Therapy works with your internal image of your family. In both group and individual settings, representatives (or objects in virtual sessions) are used to access the family system and reveal hidden patterns.
4. How does a Family Constellation session work?
In a session, the facilitator helps you define an issue and choose people (or objects) to represent members of your family. As the constellation unfolds, patterns, loyalties, and unresolved conflicts become visible. Interventions are made to restore balance and connection in the system.
5. Can Family Constellations be done online?
Yes. Online sessions use symbolic tools or guided visualizations to represent family members and dynamics. Barry Krost offers online private and group sessions that are just as powerful and transformative as in-person constellations.
6. What kind of issues can Family Constellations address?
Common issues include:
- Relationship struggles
- Anxiety or depression
- Physical symptoms without a clear cause
- Feeling disconnected or unfulfilled
- Repeating patterns (e.g., failed relationships, financial problems)
- Family trauma or estrangement
7. How many sessions will I need?
Some clients experience significant shifts after just one session. Others may benefit from multiple sessions over time. The number of sessions depends on your goals and the complexity of the issue. Healing is a process that unfolds uniquely for each person.
8. Is Family Constellation Therapy safe?
Yes, when guided by a trained facilitator. At Healing Body Therapeutics, safety and consent are prioritized. While deep emotions may surface, the process is held gently with the intention of integration and healing—not re-traumatization.