International Association of Exorcists warns Catholics against family constellations therapy

The International Association of Exorcists (AIE) has raised concerns about the technique known as "family constellations," created by the German Bert Hellinger (1925-2019), saying it lacks scientific support and contains material that raises serious reservations in both clinical and pastoral settings.

Family constellations holds that a person's problems and illnesses are linked to the experiences and fates of their ancestors or of the ethnic group to which they belong. The AIE says the technique carries elements of the magical and spiritist world, shaped by Hellinger's contact with Zulu tribes in South Africa, where he observed their customs and beliefs, particularly the cult of ancestors.

Origin of the technique and Hellinger's shift

Hellinger was a Catholic priest and a missionary in Africa before he left the Christian faith and turned to the study of psychoanalysis. He adopted the approach of the American Virginia Satir and her "family sculptures," a technique in which participants in group therapy visually represent their family relationships, creating a "sculpture" used to assess and develop the therapy.

In these sessions, people from the group are chosen to represent members of the patient's family, even if they have never met them. The association questions the ethical and scientific validity of such interventions. The AIE criticizes the dramatization involved, which it says recalls spiritist practices and shamanic rituals.

Esoteric concepts without a scientific basis

Family constellations rests on the idea that family problems can be resolved by "realigning" energies, a concept the AIE links directly to the New Age movement and its esoteric implications. Supporters of the method say individuals carry information and conditioning inherited from past lives, a claim the AIE calls "absurd from a scientific point of view and morally questionable."

In practice, the therapist asks the patient to share significant events from the family history, which can include deaths, suicides and illnesses. The representation of the family relationships is then arranged, with the "actors" claiming to be connected to the soul or energy of those they represent.

A mix of psychotherapy and animist doctrines

According to the AIE, the technique is in fact a mix of alternative psychotherapy and animist doctrines that introduces "a New Age vision of life that can lead to situations of great moral and spiritual danger." The association says the method is presented as a form of therapy when its foundations lack rigorous scientific support.

The AIE's criticism is not limited to the clinical side. It says the method tries to "regulate what it considers out of place," suggesting hereditary conditioning that goes beyond what science can demonstrate.

A pastoral warning for Catholics

The AIE cites Monsignor Rubens Miraglia Zani, who says Christians should not accept practices of this kind. In his view, "there are numerous ways of addressing problems within the Catholic Church that are appropriate and balanced, both spiritually and medically, and that avoid the risk of falling into spiritist practices that could open the door to the action of evil."