Family constellations

[zikezi]

I will appreciate any idea, article or critical review about "family constellations". ( "constelaciones familiares" in spanish)

It is a form of performance or theatrical representation used in mistic groups or "advanced psycological grownth". In theory it supposes to show the "hiddens keys" of all of our family relationships.

In Spain is become more and more popular and I have played it myself. I am very skeptical about all this new age stuff and I would like to improve my critical vision in that matter. Thanks a lot in advance.

Zikezi
Skeptikal

[sophia8]

I think you're talking about psychodrama. It's a form of group therapy where a member acts out their problems and relationships, with other members taking on various 'roles' in the 'drama'.
Try this website: www.psychodrama.org.uk (http://www.psychodrama.org.uk) for more information. Psychotherapy isn't really a subject discussed on here, unless it involves some sort of fraud or 'New Age' quackery.

[zikezi]

I am looking for any scientific o skeptikal investigation about the possible psycological quakery in the psycodrama.

I am sorry if I am posting in an innadequate topic or forum but as far as I know although there is no clear toxic results in playing psycodrama, I wonder about the misleading of psycodrama as a form of obtain money through not proved techniques, or even fantasy ...

Thank you

[rppa]

I don't know if this is helpful, but it may give you more specific information to research. The term "constelaciones familiares" or "family constellations" seems to be specific to a German named Bert Hellinger, http://www.hellinger.com/

[automatthias]

My mother used to go to family constellations in Poland. They don't explicitly mention anything paranormal, but they have a theory that some terrible event in the family in the distant (and therefore unverifiable) past is the root cause of the problems of today.

I have a very rough idea of what it looks like. Session begins with a person bringing to mind some problem in the family. I'm not sure about information propagation here, but I think that there is some form of an interview where the subject of “therapy” provides information about who the members of the family are and perhaps what they are like.

The subject then sits on a chair and other participants of the session take roles of family members and are free to do what they want; there is no script. The subject sits there and watches them walk around and do stuff, and tries to interpret their performance as a solution to their problem.

After the performance ends, all participants pay homage to their ancestors. (By some sort of bowing or prayer, I guess)

My description might be inaccurate and/or incomplete, but at least gives you and idea what it is about.

IMO, people who go to those sessions, waste time watching other people do random stuff, it's much like reading coffee grounds to me. What's worrying here is that by doing so, they get the feeling that they “did something about the problem”, while in fact they did not. I don't know if that qualifies as quackery, I think it might, as I'm aware of this method being advertised as being good not only for family problems, but also health problems.

I would be very interested to see any critical articles about Bert Hellinger's method. I think I've found a few articles, but they all were in German. Does anyone know any critical article in English?