The Roles
If you ever find yourself in a family constellation or systemic constellations workshop, there are some common roles you may be asked to take on during the session. Over the years, I’ve attended many workshops run by different facilitators, and I’ve noticed that while some newcomers slip easily into this body of work, others appear confused, or even take on roles beyond what is required.
After my steep learning curve with strategy board games (such as Settlers of Catan and the like), I couldn’t help but think that, just as with games, it helps to outline some fundamentals before stepping in. Things like what to expect, what’s relevant and appropriate, the etiquette involved, and how to stay aligned with the “Orders of Helping.” After all, you don’t know what you don’t know.
So this post is a kind of reference point—the things I wish someone had told me before I started attending constellation workshops. What follows is my current understanding of the roles, based on my ongoing studies and experience with this work.
I hope you find it helpful!

RELATED BLOGS
Family Constellations & Bert Hellinger
What the heck is PHENOMENOLOGY?
The Hidden Wisdom of the Orders of Love
Other Guiding Principles in Constellation Work that are just as important

Beyond the foundational Orders of Love (Belonging, Order, and Balance), constellation work is supported by subtle guiding principles. These describe the inner stance of both facilitators and participants — how we meet the field, each other, and ourselves.
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1. Presence
​As much as the person can be.
Presence is the simple yet powerful act of being here grounded, attentive, and embodied. Each participant brings their presence to the circle in their own capacity. The more present we are, the more clearly the dynamics of the system can reveal themselves.


2. Allowance
Allowing what was and what is, as it is.
Rather than interpreting, fixing, or storytelling, we remain in allowance with what arises. This includes giving space to what has been, no matter how difficult, and letting the present moment speak without rushing to solutions. Allowance opens the way for hidden truths to emerge and be seen.


3. Non-Judgment
Suspending thought and judgment as good/bad, right or wrong.
Constellation work asks us to step beyond everyday moral frameworks. By releasing judgment, we hold all members and events of the system with equal dignity. Nothing is excluded, shamed, or diminished. In this stance, reconciliation and integration become possible.
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4. Respect and Boundaries
​Honouring the capacities of facilitator, client, and participants.
Each person in a constellation has their own limits — of experience, awareness, and readiness. Respecting these boundaries keeps the work safe and effective. For facilitators, this means offering only what is within their competence and allowing the client to take only what they can integrate. Boundaries are not barriers; they are containers that make deep work possible.

​Bert Hellinger (founder of Family Constellations) coined the term "Orders of Love" to describe the unseen laws that govern healthy relationships within familial (and broader systemic) contexts. These principles reveal how love flows—or gets blocked—through generations. From simple family dynamics to corporate structures, they show up wherever relationships play out.

Why These Orders Matter

• What they reveal:
  These are not moral rules but observable patterns - forces that operate whether or not we understand them.
• Where they apply: Beyond families - organizations, communities, even nature - systems abide by these orders.

​Where have you seen these orders appear in your family or life?

Sources

1. Medium – Natalia Blagoeva
   The Profound Wisdom of Bert Hellinger’s Orders of Love
2. Bob & Bart (PDF)
   Orders of Love – Bert Hellinger
3. Get to the Origin
   Guiding Systemic Principles
4. Minnesota Constellations
   The Orders of Love: The Hidden Principles Behind Family Constellations
5. Alissa Fleet – Systemic Principles
   Systemic Principles Behind Family Constellations
6. Inner Peace Healing (South Africa)
   The Orders of Love
7. Hellinger.com – Official Site

• 2nd Basic Order: Hierarchy
• 3rd Basic Order: Balance

1. Family Constellations Ireland
   Orders of Love

PHENOMENOLOGY  is a philosophical approach that focuses on studying human experiences as they are perceived, without preconceived theories or interpretations. It was developed by Edmund Husserl and later expanded by philosophers like Martin Heidegger. Phenomenology emphasizes direct experience, awareness, and the essence of phenomena as they appear in consciousness.
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Family Constellations, developed by Bert Hellinger, is a therapeutic approach that explores hidden family dynamics to bring healing and resolution to individuals. Phenomenology plays a central role in this process in the following ways:

Whilst this approach is taken, the facilitator also takes into consideration the 'Orders of Love' - the guiding principles that shape the work. 

Bert Hellinger—born in 1925 in Germany—was shaped early by the moral integrity of his Catholic family, resisting Nazi indoctrination. After surviving the war, he embarked on Catholic formation with the Mariannhill Missionaries, where contemplative practices and philosophical disciplines imbued him with a phenomenological mindset grounded in “seeing what is.”

His 16 years in South Africa, immersed in Zulu culture and spiritual traditions, deepened his systemic awareness of ancestral influence and communal ritual. Upon returning to Europe, he combined diverse psychotherapeutic trainings with phenomenological orientation. In the 1980s, through careful observation of representatives in group enactments, he recognized hidden systemic dynamics in families, which he articulated as Orders of Love.
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Thus Family Constellations arose—not from theoretical heuristics—but as a phenomenological, ritual-informed methodology that allows systemic entanglements and healing possibilities to emerge organically from structured, present-focused representation.

1. Early Life and Formation

• Born Anton Hellinger in Germany in 1925, raised in a devout Catholic family whose faith helped him resist the ideological grip of Nazism—a formative influence on his later systemic sensitivity 
• He avoided Hitler Youth recruitment and even drew Gestapo attention for attending forbidden Catholic youth meetings 
• At age 17, he was drafted into the German army, experienced the horrors of World War II, and survived imprisonment in a POW camp in Belgium.

2. Catholic Order and Phenomenology

• After the war, Hellinger entered the Mariannhill Missionaries, adopting the religious name “Suitbert” (shortened to “Bert”).
• He studied philosophy and theology at the University of Würzburg, undergoing a rigorous formation in silence, contemplation, and meticulous observation—practices imbued with phenomenological attention to experience rather than interpretation.
• While in South Africa, he participated in interracial and ecumenical group-dynamic trainings (notably with Anglicans), where phenomenology—the practice of witnessing and allowing perception without preconceptions—became central to his method 

3. South Africa and Cultural Influences

• Hellinger spent some 16 years in South Africa as a Catholic priest, educator, and headmaster, deeply immersed in Zulu culture—learning the language, embracing rituals, and observing their ancestor reverence and spiritually grounded communal worldview
• The Zulu sense of living in an ancestral continuum—where the past remains present—engrained in him a systemic, relational perspective foundational to his later work 
• He recognized parallels between Zulu rituals and elements of Catholic liturgy, which influenced his appreciation for ritual as a means of communal and systemic healing 

4. Transition to Therapy and Integration of Phenomenology

• Returning to Germany around 1968–71, Hellinger left the order, married, and embarked on training in diverse therapeutic modalities:
  • Psychoanalysis (training in Vienna)
  • Gestalt therapy
  • Transactional Analysis
  • Primal therapy
  • Hypnotherapy
  • Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
  • Family Therapy, notably influenced by Virginia Satir’s family sculpture work

5. Development of Family Constellations

• Around the early 1980s, inspired by Satir and psychodrama but diverging through his phenomenological orientation, Hellinger began using minimal-information representatives—participants who enacted family roles intuitively, not cognitively 
• He listened for subtle gestures, impulses, and embodied sensations, allowing these to reveal hidden systemic dynamics—this was the essence of his phenomenological approach 
• From these observations emerged his seminal insights, the "Orders of Love"—unwritten, systemic laws governing belonging, hierarchy, and balance of giving and receiving in family systems 

6. Core Tenets of Family Constellations

• The method is built on several pillars:
  • Family Soul: the idea of an invisible emotional field across generations.
  • Orders of Love: natural systemic laws; violations may cause dysfunction.
  • Transgenerational Entanglements: unresolved trauma can transmit across generations.
  • Phenomenological Access: representatives tap into a shared “knowing field” through presence—not analysis 
• These principles explain how constellations uncover hidden relational truths and potential pathways to healing and reconciliation

📚 Sources

1. The CSC – Bert Hellinger, Family Constellations and the Phenomenon of Surrogate Perception
   
2. Healing Family Trauma – Bert Hellinger (PDF)
   
3. Healing Family Trauma – Family Constellation Training Manual (PDF)
   
4. The Inner Process – Bert Hellinger & The History of Family Constellations
   
5. Landsiedel NLP Training – Bert Hellinger
   
6. En.delachieve – Bert Hellinger: The Creator of the Method of System Family Constellations
   
7. Hellinger DC – About Bert Hellinger
   
8. Academia.edu – The Elements of Rituals in Family Constellation Work
   
9. Rubin Museum – Family Constellations
   
10. Constellation Intensive – About & Resources
    
11. Get Therapy Birmingham – Unveiling Systemic Constellations
    
12. Scribd – Bert Hellinger and Family Constellations (Clemens Pilar)
    

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