The Secret to Who You Are Lies in Your Ancestry: Family Constellation Therapy
Exploring Group and Personal Sessions: What to Expect from Family Constellation Therapy
In a previous blog of our journey into Family Constellation Therapy, we discussed how this powerful method can help uncover and heal ancestral patterns that influence your current life. Now, we’ll dive deeper into what happens during a session and the key differences between group sessions and personal sessions.
Whether you’re seeking insight into family dynamics, working through relationship struggles, or searching for personal growth, Family Constellation Therapy offers a unique and transformative way to heal.
Group Sessions: Healing Together
Group sessions in Family Constellation Therapy are a beautiful example of collective healing. These sessions are usually held with several participants, each representing various members or energies within the seeker’s (client’s) family. The power of group sessions lies in the energy shared among the participants, who may not even know each other yet connect deeply through the work.
What Happens in a Group Session?
- Choosing Representatives: After presenting the issue to the facilitator, participants in the group session are chosen to represent family members or abstract elements like “fear” or “love.” The chosen representatives are guided to stand in relation to one another, forming a “constellation” that mirrors the family’s emotional landscape.
- Uncovering Hidden Dynamics: Once positioned, representatives begin to express feelings or physical sensations that often reflect the emotions of the family member they represent. This often happens unconsciously and can bring surprising insights.
- Revealing the Story: The facilitator guides the group as hidden dynamics—like unresolved trauma, unspoken secrets, or emotional burdens—become clear. The seeker can observe how these dynamics have influenced their life without realizing it.
- Resolution: The facilitator gently works to shift the dynamics, using healing statements or and repositioning representatives (no one is ever in their rightful place). The goal is to restore balance and bring clarity, resolution, and emotional healing.
Personal Sessions: One-on-One Healing
While group sessions can be powerful, some individuals prefer the intimacy and privacy of a personal session. In these one-on-one settings, the seeker works directly with the facilitator, and family members are represented by objects like stones, pillows, or figurines.
What Happens in a Personal Session?
- Setting the Stage: The client presents an issue they want to explore—this could be anything from relationship difficulties to health issues or a feeling of being “stuck.”
- Using Objects as Representatives: You can use objects as representatives (they look like little lego dolls or weebles), I don’t offer this. I don’t know many facilitators that do. If I am facilitating an in-person session I have different size/colored foam feet that are used to represent whatever they are standing in as. If we are on Zoom the client will use paper. I do blind constellations (this differs from group work) so the client doesn’t know who/what they are standing on. I find that it pulls them out of the energy in 1:1’s if they know they’re standing on ‘mom’. Since there is no group in a personal session, the facilitator and client use objects papers or footprints depending on Zoom or in-person to stand in for family members or emotional energies. These objects papers or footprints depending on Zoom or in-person are placed in relation to one another, just like in a group session, to reveal the hidden family dynamics.
- Facilitator Guidance: The facilitator may ask the client to move the objects (papers or footprints depending on Zoom or in-person) around or observe the positions of the representatives. This process helps uncover deep-rooted emotions, unspoken truths, or patterns that have been passed down through generations.
- Finding Resolution: Once the hidden dynamics are clear, the facilitator may guide the client through healing sentences, visualizations, or other techniques to release ancestral burdens and restore balance. I channel their ancestors during this part. I have consistently gotten feedback on how powerful this is as other facilitators don’t use healing statements in that way. Not sure if that matters, but the healing statements that come from their ancestors/soul are very powerful.
What Can a Session Look Like?
Here are two examples of what a Family Constellation session might entail:
- Group Session Example: A woman struggling with relationship issues seeks answers in a group session. Participants are chosen to represent her parents and grandparents. As they stand in the room, the representatives of her parents express a deep sense of guilt and loss. Through the facilitator’s guidance, it becomes clear that an unresolved tragedy in the grandparents’ generation is affecting the client’s relationship patterns. Healing statements are used to release the emotional burden, and the woman feels a profound shift, as though a weight has been lifted.
- Personal Session Example: A man facing chronic health problems works one-on-one with a facilitator. They use stones I use paper or footprints – depending on Zoom or in-person to represent key family members. As the facilitator guides him through the process, the man realizes that he has been carrying unresolved grief for his mother, who passed away when he was a child. By repositioning the stones paper or footprints – depending on Zoom or in-person and using healing affirmations, he feels a deep release and a newfound connection to his past, free from the emotional burden.
Why Group or Personal Sessions?
Choosing between a group session or a personal session depends on your comfort level and the issue you want to address:
- Group sessions are powerful if you feel comfortable working with others and are open to collective energy, benefiting from the support of the group and witnessing healing unfold for multiple people.
- Personal sessions offer privacy and focus on your specific issue, allowing for deeper introspection and a tailored approach to your healing process.
What Are the Benefits?
Family Constellation Therapy offers a wide range of benefits, including:
- Emotional Release: Let go of long-held emotional pain or trauma that may not even belong to you.
- Improved Relationships: Gain clarity around family dynamics, leading to healing and improved family connections.
- Self-Awareness: Discover deep insights into how your family’s past influences your life today.
- Personal Empowerment: Break free from the unconscious patterns that have held you back, allowing you to live a more authentic and fulfilling life.
Your Journey to Healing Through Family Constellation Therapy
The secret to who you are is often hidden in the stories of your ancestors. By exploring those stories, Family Constellation Therapy opens the door to healing not just for yourself, but for the generations before and after you. The foundation of this work is to bring the unconscious into the conscious. I love the quote by C.G. Jung, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
Whether you choose a group session for shared experience or a personal session for focused healing, the path to transformation awaits. Let the power of your family’s past guide you to a brighter, more balanced future.
Are you ready to explore your family’s hidden dynamics?
Reach out to schedule a session and begin your journey into the transformative world of Family Constellation Therapy. You may discover more about yourself than you ever thought possible!
