From African savannah to post war Germany.

The phenomenon called constellations was introduced to the world by the German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger.

Anton Hellinger was born in wartime Germany. During his youth he resisted the efforts of the local Hitler Youth Movement to recruit him, but he refused, earning him the label "enemy of the people". However, he did not avoid the war and fought on the Western Front as a 17-year-old. He was later captured and spent some time in an allied camp in Belgium. After the end of the Second World War, he began to study theology and philosophy. Later he joined the Catholic order, where he took the name Suitbert (Bert).

Bert Hellinger

By the early 1950s he was ordained as a Catholic priest and was working in South Africa amongst the Zulu people as a missionary. During the 16 years he spent working in South Africa, he held a variety of roles including priest, schoolteacher and headmaster. Alongside his ministering and teaching, two other sources of personal enrichment during this time left a deep imprint on him. The first was his immersion in Zulu culture and its spiritual traditions. He was particularly affected by that culture’s respectful attitude toward ancestors and its angst-free philosophy toward life .

The confrontation of European Christian culture with a strong African tribal background showed many doubts in him.Being a priest was no longer an accurate expression of his ongoing personal growth, and after 25 years he left the Church, returned to Europe and began training in Psychoanalysis.

Although the elements of how constellations work themselves were known long ago, Hellinger transformed them with a new arrangement into one of the most profound, beneficial and at the same time most provocative psychotherapeutic methods of today.

Alexandra Alexander