CONSTELLATION CANADA WHITE PAPER:

Family & Human Systems Constellation: Breaking the Trans Generational Impact of Native American Boarding School and Canadian Residential Schools

On rare occasion something new, which seems to have immediate and far-reaching impact comes on the scene. Bert Hellinger’s Family & Human Systems, also called Family Constellation (FC) Work, is such a method.

In recent years many fields have began to view social problems through the lense of trans-generational stress. The theory is that what has happened in previous generations may actually impact current generations. In fact, part may be learned, we still like the flavor of great-grandma’s spice cake, and if time and circumstances allow, our great-grandchildren will enjoy that flavor as well. However, there is a more direct and unavoidable family legacy, which seems to be contained within our family “field”. Rupert Sheldrake, an English Biologist, author, speaks of “morphogenetic fields”. Bert Hellinger, the developer of Family Constellation, speaks of a “knowing field”. Other inquiries look at the possibility of “genetic memory”. These discussions are motivated by sound observation.

Many now agree that what has happened in our ancestry can have an impact on our lives in a powerful way. (See: The Ancestor Syndrome, Transgenerational Psychotherapy and the Hidden Links in the Family Tree, Anne Ancelin Schutzenberger)

Constellation work has brought to my constellation circles many cases of institutionalization of children and it is of course part of my own family field history as a Western Shoshone. Mass institutionalization of children is historically unique to certain locations and communities so would not occur in every family field in the same way. In Canada and the United States it is commonly present in the family field of aboriginal people. In the U.S . mass institutionalization of children was conducted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which was under the U.S. Department of War.

Systems Constellation is a method, developed by Bert Hellinger of Germany, which seems to break the bonds of trans-generational stress.

Individuals who carry the trauma of previous generations are able to clearly see the connection, conceptualize that it is not their personal trauma and begin to move forward in life, honoring their families historical wounds, without being limited by them.

Institutions, in constellation, often do not have feelings. This can be true of a prison, hospital, or mental institution as well. Representatives of individuals in the institutions may demonstrate emotion, but usually a building shows up just as a building. If the group conscience of the institution felt justified in what happened there, then that is the resonance in the field.

In a constellation the representative of an institution may present a variety of affects. Some of the dynamics that are not uncommon in constellation involving institutionalized children include:

*Identification of descendents with the victims (the institutionalized children)

*The loss of parental rights (to have the institution return the children to the parents and honor that they are the rightful parents can be helpful generationally)

*The loss of language comes up in aboriginal constellations, as that was one of the systemic abuses in the Indian Boarding Schools, in Canada called the Residential Schools (it can show up as an internal choking sensation with one of the representatives)

*Deaths of children during institutionalization who were "lost" to the family, or who are "wandering" because they were young…sometimes the little soul was (is) confused about what happened.

*Heavy multi-generational presence of "institution" in the family field, particularly prison

*Systemic contempt for the "institution of education" (the primary vehicle of cultural genocide)

*Physical pain or poor physical health patterns associated with some individual in the family system who was institutionalized. (T.B. was sometimes contracted during institutionalization; children could be transferred from a Bureau of Indian Affairs School to a T.B. sanitarium)

The impact in constellation is as individual as the person and the historical and community context in which the institutionalization occurred.

The issue of childhood institutionalization would not be present in every Constellation Circle. Even when there has been mass, multi-generational institutionalization of children in a community it does not mean that one can assume that it will show up in each individual's constellation.

The traumas of immigration, war, abuse, murders, and other kinds of isolation or institutionalization are also resonating in the lives of many. Constellation work is a method, which appears to quiet those trans-generational influences to allow full acceptance of life, prosperity and health.

For more information on this work in Canada, contact info@constellationcurrents.ca