What do you know about ‘Family Constellations’ by Bert Hellinger? From the Bible or Christian point of view is it right?  I ask because some members of my church are attending this kind of sessions. I went to a session & some topics are interesting but on some points I think they are wrong particularly, when they talk about ‘energy’ or ‘soul’. Thank you so much.

Anwer:

I have done a fair amount of research into this group. Their reliance on things like “morphic resonance” tells me that this is psedoscience. There is no such thing as a morphic resonance field. The idea of tapping into unknown pasts and supposed “energies” which do not exist to heal present issues is probably nonsense. It is possible that this kind of therapy may, nevertheless be able to help some people. It sounds as though some of the therapeutic methods may provide some sense of release for the person involved. I would not completely disregard all that Bert Hellinger is doing here. I am sure that some people have legitimately been helped through this therapeutic method. Their access to “energy” or “soul” probably could be described as non-Christian or even heretical. However, I feel it is possible to overreact to the content of this therapy. If you are asking my advice, I advise that a Christian not get involved with this form of therapy. It uses pseudoscientific methodologies and is based on assumptions that almost certainly are not true. One can argue that it even pushes a Christian in the direction of false teaching or false theology. Again, I do not want to overreact. I do not think you should make a major issue of this, but you might want to gently advise people to look for a more “Christian” approach to dealing with their emotional issues.

John Oakes