Family System Constellations is a therapeutic method that acknowledges how a family’s history can influence individual members, often unconsciously shaping their experience of life. It expands the focus beyond individual healing to include the entire family system, recognizing the interconnectedness of family members. The Family System Constellation method reveals the hidden dynamics within families and ancestral lineages – the unconscious loyalties, generational trauma, and relational entanglements that can shape our lives. In a constellation, with compassion and respect for you and your family system, we untangle what doesn’t belong to you so you can reconnect with your authentic self and move forward with greater freedom.
People choose constellation in order to:
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Break free from inherited patterns and entanglements, accessing greater personal freedom and love.
- Inquire about possible systemic causes of physical, psycho-emotional, and relational issues.
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Restore balance in their relationships—with parents, children, partners – as our close relationships can be influenced by unresolved systemic dynamics.
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Gain insight into the factors causing certain conditions within their family system and witness the wisdom of the family soul in the restoration of balance and the flow of love within the system.
The Core Principles: Belonging, Right Order, Balance
At the heart of this work is the understanding that every member of a family—living or deceased—has a place in the system. When someone is forgotten, excluded, or burdened with the pain of others, it can create systemic pressures that echo through generations. These imbalances may manifest in your life as emotional struggles, physical symptoms, relationship issues, or a feeling of being stuck. Constellations help restore order, belonging, and balance to the system.
What Happens in a Constellation?
Whether in a group setting or private session, the process begins with a question or issue you would like to explore. In a group workshop, with the facilitator’s guidance, you choose people from the group to represent key family members or concepts relevant to your inquiry like “depression” or “freedom”. These representatives are placed in a physical space to form a living map of your family system. What unfolds is often surprising. As representatives tune into the field unconscious dynamics emerge—loyalties, entanglements, hidden emotions. The facilitator gently guides the process, bringing movement and insight that allow shifts to occur.
In a one-on-one session the same dynamics are explored using figurines, floor markers, or guided visualizations.
How it Works
Family Constellations tap into what’s often called the “knowing field” — the intelligence and memory of the family system as a whole present as a “field” that can be accessed, expressed, and interacted with through physical representation. This field allows us to access information beyond ordinary awareness. By working on this level, rather than engaging the mind or the personality, constellation work creates space for profound and fundamental shifts to occur within the family system.
Schedule a Constellation: These sessions are online via Zoom unless otherwise requested for people in the Southern Oregon area.
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Group-Supported Constellations
If you would like for your constellation to be supported by community, where aspects of your family system will be represented by members of the group, submit the Constellation Questionnaire and then email Maris for scheduling. The rate for these is for the client slot and not a particular time frame. -
Private 1:1 Sessions
In these sessions objects will serve as representatives for your family system, or alternatively we do a “mind’s eye” constellation using internal imagery. 90 minutes is set aside for these sessions but many constellations will come to a natural close in less time, at which point the session will be over. The rate is for the constellation and not the time frame. To schedule a constellation, fill out the Constellation Questionnaire and then schedule an appointment using the link below.