When illness enters a person’s life, it often feels like a solitary battle, a confrontation between body and disease, self and fate. Yet, what if the roots of illness extended beyond the individual? What if our suffering also carried the echoes of those who came before us, our ancestors? Family Constellation work, developed by Bert Hellinger, offers a lens through which illness can be seen not only as a personal struggle, but as a message from the larger family system seeking harmony and resolution.
A Client’s Encounter with Illness
A client’s story: “When I first became ill with a persistent autoimmune condition that seemed to come out of nowhere and doctors struggled to change anything. I was consumed by questions of “Why me?”, “What did I do wrong?” and a constant deep sadness that I could not connect to anything that had happened in my life. Conventional medicine provided partial relief, but the emotional weight of chronic pain and fatigue remained. It was during this time that I encountered Family Constellation therapy, a method that explores hidden family dynamics and loyalties that unconsciously shape our lives.
In my first constellation session, I set up a representation of myself, my illness, and my family members using people in the group as stand-ins. What emerged was startling: the representative of my illness seemed deeply connected to my grandmother, a woman I had never met but whose life was marked by loss of a child early, abuse and silence. Through the unfolding of the constellation, I realized that my body was carrying something unspoken an inherited grief that had never found acknowledgment.”
Understanding Family Constellations and Illness
Family Constellation work views the family as an interconnected system governed by hidden orders of love. When these orders of belonging, social order, and equilibrium, are disturbed, for example, when a member is excluded, forgotten, or burdened with guilt, later generations may unconsciously carry the emotional weight of that imbalance. Illness can sometimes manifest as a symbolic expression of this systemic entanglement as it points to ancestors story. In other words we become symptom bearers of our ancestors.
Stefan Hausner, one of the foremost practitioners who applied Family Constellation work specifically to physical illness, offers a profound understanding of this connection. In his book Even If It Costs Me My Life (2011), Hausner suggests that illness can be viewed as an expression of love, a way for an individual to remain loyal to a family member or to carry unresolved pain within the family system. He writes that symptoms often appear when something or someone in the system has been excluded or forgotten, and the illness serves to bring attention back to what has been denied.
In the constellation process, a facilitator helps the client map out the family system. Representatives stand in for family members or abstract elements such as “illness,” “depression,” or “anxiety.” Through their movements and sensations, hidden dynamics become visible. The facilitator guides the process until a new picture is created for the family system, one based on truth, inclusion, and love ensuring the flow of love and support is restored.
This systemic view does not deny biological or medical causes. Rather, it complements them by acknowledging the emotional and ancestral dimensions of health. Illness becomes a message, not punishment, but an invitation to restore belonging and balance in the family field.
Transformation Through Seeing and Belonging
The client went on to say ”In later constellations, I was able to face my grandmother’s pain with compassion and recognition. As I stood before her representative, I spoke the words that had long been missing: “I see your suffering, and I honour your fate. Out of my love for you I have carried your sadness, as I would have done anything for you. With deep respect I leave it with you as I am only the granddaughter here and this is too big for me. Please look friendly upon me as I do it differently.”
In the weeks that followed, my physical symptoms softened. More profoundly, I felt lighter, as if the illness had shifted from being an enemy to being a messenger that had finally delivered its message. Family Constellation work did not “cure” my condition in the medical sense, but it transformed my relationship with it. The illness became part of a larger story, one that included love, loss, and ultimately, healing”.
Family Constellation therapy offers a transformative approach to understanding illness — one that bridges the emotional, spiritual, and physical dimensions of health. Through the use of phenomenology we gain access to information not normally seen, to transform hidden dynamics being voiced in client’s symptoms. By revealing hidden family loyalties and unresolved grief, it helps individuals reclaim their rightful place in the family system and free themselves from burdens that are not truly theirs to bear. Healing, in this sense, is not just the absence of symptoms but the restoration of love and connection across generations.
Bibliography
- Hellinger, Bert. Acknowledging What Is: Conversations with Bert Hellinger. Zeig, Tucker & Theisen, 1999.
- Hellinger, Bert, Gunthard Weber, and Hunter Beaumont. Love’s Hidden Symmetry: What Makes Love Work in Relationships. Zeig, Tucker & Theisen, 1998.
- Hausner, Stefan. Even if it costs me my life. Gestalt Press 2011
- Ulsamer, Bertold. The Healing Power of the Past: The Systemic Therapy of Bert Hellinger. Carl-Auer-Systeme Verlag, 2005.
- Cohen, Dan. “Family Constellations and Illness: A Systemic Approach to Healing.” The Knowing Field: International Constellations Journal, Issue 22, 2013.
- Schützenberger, Anne Ancelin. The Ancestor Syndrome: Transgenerational Psychotherapy and the Hidden Links in the Family Tree. Routledge, 1998.
