Bert Hellinger

Bert Hellinger was a German psychotherapist and the founder of what is known as family constellations. His work focused on dynamics within family systems and the idea that unresolved conflicts and bonds can affect generations.

In family constellations, very clear underlying principles became apparent:
It became evident that suffering always arises where the order within a family system is not respected.

Often, children take on the guilt of their parents out of love. All emotional suffering happens out of love. To find the root of suffering, one must always look for the love—there, the solution can also be found.

Fundamental love is the deep bond between children and their parents.

In family constellations, "reality works" when it is brought into the light and truly seen. It is important to respect reality as it is. In this way, disorder is revealed and can be restored into order.

To restore order means:

• to bring the unseen into the light

• to include those who belong

• to honor those who have been or are being rejected

• to let go of those who have lost their place in the system

• not to take on other people’s guilt

• to acknowledge one’s own responsibility in life
  
  

To previous partners and half-siblings:
“I have received life at your expense. I honor that. It should not have been in vain.”

“The humble honoring of one’s parents means saying yes to life and to the fate given to me by them. This includes both the limits and possibilities of my life, as well as the entanglements of the family into which I was born. In doing so, I recognize that life, with its inherent order, is greater than myself.”

“I take my parents exactly as they are. They are exactly the right ones for me.”

Quotes from the book by Thomas Schäfer, Was die Seele krank macht und was sie heilt.

Bert Hellinger is highly controversial because of his statements. He deliberately uses the radical phrasing “to take one’s parents as they are” instead of “to accept them,” as he is pointing to a deeper inner attitude.

The difference in his perspective:

“Accepting” often implies a conscious decision or even an inner evaluation (“I accept you now”). This can still contain a certain distance or sense of superiority.

“Taking them as they are” means something more radical:
→ The parents are not judged, not changed, and not “accepted intellectually,” but are seen as they truly are—the source of one’s own life.

The core of his idea:

• Parents are the source of life

• This life cannot be chosen

• Therefore, it is not about approval or rejection, but about an inner “yes” to reality

“To take them as they are” therefore means:

• no inner debate about right or wrong

• no devaluation of the parents

• but a quiet acknowledgment: they are the right ones, because I exist through them
  

In Hellinger’s view, “taking” is deeper than “accepting”—it is an existential yes to one’s origin, not merely a mental agreement.