Having had several people approach me who have explored Family Constellations, believing it to be linked to or in alignment with the Biological Laws of Nature, I have carried out some research, which I share below.
I think the confusion lies in the term ‘constellations’ along with some other aspects that appear slightly similar to GNM, leading many to believe they are linked or aligned. While the Family Constellations may have success and grounding as a therapy, the only correlation to GNM that I can see is that they could basically identify issues from ours and our ancestors’ past and upbringing that could influence the type of conflicts we may experience. Therefore, working with Family Constellations may assist us to change our perception and conditioning which drive our conflict programs and help to bring about positive results.
However, it appears that Family Constellations, devised by Bert Hellinger, was actually ‘barred’ by Dr Hamer in 2006. While Hellinger’s work was promoted by Bjorn Ebyl (created of 5BN – a plagiarism of GNM), he continued to speak positively about it even after Dr Hamer made his announcement.
Evidence
A document headed “Vorläufige Richtlinien der Germanischen Neuen Medizin®” (“Provisional Guidelines of German New Medicine”), dated 21 December 2006, and signed by Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer (which the archives identify as original, Akademie für Germanische Heilkunde), says:
“Familienstriptease (F.-Aufstellungen) finden im Rahmen der Germanischen Neuen Medizin® grundsätzlich nicht statt.”
That means approximately: “Family striptease (family constellations) fundamentally do not take place within German New Medicine.” (Akademie für Germanische Heilkunde)
And it immediately continues by rejecting several other approaches:
- mental training;
- hypnosis;
- psychiatric “shock” techniques.
The document then gives a reason for the general approach: GNM is supposed to be a “medicine of freedom,” particularly of the patient, with the doctor and patient on an equal footing, and the doctor supposedly should not influence, dictate to or control the patient. (Akademie für Germanische Heilkunde)
Why would Dr Hamer have objected to Hellinger?
Here the comparison gets quite interesting.
There are real conceptual incompatibilities between the two systems – it is not a fact that Dr Hamer simply disliked Hellinger.
1. Dr Hamer wanted GNM to be a self-contained explanatory system
He explicitly became angry when Marco Pfister described GNM as a diagnostic system rather than a therapy. In his February 13, 2007 open letter to Pfister, Dr Hamer says that GNM is not merely diagnostic: the biological program itself constitutes the therapy. (Germanische Heilkunde)
For Dr Hamer, adding Hellinger wasn’t simply adding another psychological technique. It potentially undermines the fact that GNM itself explains both the illness AND its healing.
His position was essentially:
GNM identifies the biological conflict → the biological process follows its own laws → resolving/understanding the conflict allows the biological program to complete.
Adding another therapeutic system introduces a competing explanation, confusion and a dilution of the truth.
2. Hellinger’s method looks for family-system dynamics; Dr Hamer looks for a specific biological conflict
This is probably the deepest theoretical difference.
In Hellinger’s approach, the client may select representatives for family members and arrange them spatially. The representatives then report feelings, sensations and impulses associated with their positions. The facilitator works with the configuration to uncover what Hellinger calls hidden family dynamics or “Orders of Love.” (Hellinger) The Hellinger school describes these dynamics as sometimes involving events and relationships extending across generations. Its current description explicitly speaks about “unconscious entanglements” with one’s family of origin and representatives experiencing feelings or sensations associated with the family system. (Hellinger Institute)
GNM’s explanatory structure is quite different. Dr Hamer empirically proved that disease begins with a particular unexpected, highly acute conflict shock (DHS) and then follows a specific brain/organ relationship. The focus is therefore on identifying the individual’s biological conflict and its corresponding biological program.
So imagine someone has cancer and says:
“My father rejected me.”
A Hellinger practitioner might investigate the family-system relationship, perhaps looking for exclusion, loyalty, identification with an ancestor, disrupted family order, etc.
A GNM practitioner is supposed to ask something much more specific:
“What precisely happened at the moment of the conflict shock, and what biological conflict does that correspond to?”
Those are not the same investigative framework.
3. Hellinger gives considerable importance to phenomena that Dr Hamer regarded as foreign or unacceptable
This becomes especially clear in a later interview, when Dr Hamer was asked directly whether “pure GNM” meant no Hellinger, no brief therapy, no psychiatry and no hypnosis.
His answer was “Genau” (“Exactly”). He then specifically discusses Hellinger’s family constellations. (DGM Forum) And his 2006 guidelines are remarkably consistent with this: family constellations, hypnosis and psychiatric interventions are grouped together as things GNM does not use. (Akademie für Germanische Heilkunde)
So this wasn’t an isolated objection to Hellinger personally. Dr Hamer appears to have regarded the whole family-constellation paradigm as one of the therapeutic systems that should not be mixed with GNM.
However, the documents don’t establish that Dr Hamer banned Hellinger because he had identified a scientific contradiction between the two methods.
The 2006 guidelines give a general ethical/philosophical explanation – patient freedom, avoiding manipulation, avoiding techniques where the patient becomes an object. (Akademie für Germanische Heilkunde) And in the 2007 Pfister letter, his immediate concern is even clearer: he doesn’t want GNM’s alleged therapeutic results attributed to Hellinger or other techniques, when the healing is already expalined by the Biological Laws (Germanische Heilkunde)
So let’s distinguish:
| Claim | Evidence |
|---|---|
| Dr Hamer excluded family constellations from GNM | Very strong — his signed 21 Dec 2006 guidelines say so. |
| Dr Hamer regarded Hellinger as incompatible with “pure GNM” | Very strong — his later statements explicitly say this. |
| Dr Hamer had a detailed theoretical/scientific critique of Hellinger’s method | Not established by the documents I’ve found. |
| His principal concern was keeping GNM conceptually/therapeutically self-contained | Strongly suggested by his 2007 letter. |
Family Constellations was being combined with GNM
A practitioner associated with the Hellinger constellation movement, Brigitte Champetier de Ribes, records that she studied Dr Hamer’s New Medicine beginning in 2000–2002 and subsequently trained extensively with Hellinger. More importantly, her own account says:
“Illness: The Fusion of Hellinger and Hamer” — Began in 2006
So there was actually an identifiable attempt to combine the two approaches around the very time Dr Hamer was prohibiting that combination.
Dr Hamer’s own 2007 letter to Marco Pfister makes the conflict much clearer
Dr Hamer wrote to Marco Pfister on 13 February 2007, and explicitly complained that Pfister was presenting GNM as something that needed Hellinger, NLP, Nardone, hypnosis, etc.
He then says that GNM is “causal therapy” and prohibits Pfister from commercially using or disseminating GNM in Dr Hamer’s name.
It shows that Dr Hamer’s objection wasn’t simply:
“I don’t like Hellinger’s technique.”
It was more like:
“If you combine GNM with Hellinger and other methods, you are changing what GNM is and potentially attributing its supposed therapeutic results to something other than GNM.”
There is evidence that the Italian GNM movement was actually doing this
Psiram’s material on ALBA, the Italian organisation associated with Marco Pfister, says that videos of ALBA members attending Hellinger events were among the things that contributed to the breakdown of its relationship with Dr Hamer.
And Dr Hamer himself repeatedly complained in 2007 that opponents were combining GNM with “Hellinger and Holistik” rather than practising what he considered “pure” GNM. For example, in an August 2007 letter to Nicolas René Barro, Dr Hamer says his opponents were advocating conventional medicine together with “Hellinger and Holistik.”
And there’s an especially interesting later development
Dr Hamer’s prohibition clearly did not stop all practitioners influenced by GNM from combining it with Family Constellations.
For example, Daniella Conti is documented as having studied Dr Hamer’s discoveries and also trained in Family Constellations with Bert and Marie-Sophie Hellinger. And contemporary practitioners openly advertise combinations of the two approaches. One GNM-oriented site, for example, describes Hellinger’s Family Constellations as useful for conflict resolution alongside GNM.
So historically we can distinguish:
Dr Hamer’s position: Don’t combine GNM with Hellinger.
What some practitioners subsequently did: Combine GNM and Hellinger anyway.
That distinction is important. Just because others have linked these, it doesn’t mean it is right.
Why did Dr Hamer object?
Looking at the two systems side-by-side, there is a fairly clear conceptual reason why Dr Hamer would have wanted to keep Family Constellations out of GNM. However, the documentary evidence suggests that his reason was primarily about preserving the integrity of GNM and that no other therapy was specifically needed, rather than providing a scientific refutation of family constellations.
My Own Conclusion
Remember one very important fact:
Dr Hamer’s work is based upon unrefuted empirically-discovered science, that of which is evidenced in CT scans and is entirely logical, both on the individual level, the species level and relevant to all of nature. It is observable and tangible. i.e. IT IS THE TRUTH – THE BODY HEALS ITSELF
Dr Hamer was carrying out empirical research into the truth about how biology works – any integration of any other modality would have diluted this research.
He discovered the ‘Causal Therapy’ of GNM – the body responds to a conflict, the body perceives a threat. Remove the threat and the body stops responding. It is simple as that (or should be). This does not need any other therapy per se, however some psychological issues make this difficult, as does our conditioning, beliefs and ‘unbiological’ lives. This is where other tools may be useful, such as Family Constellations and our favourite therapies that support the natural process – providing they support and work in alignment with the Laws.
HOWEVER – combining or integrating something ‘into’ GNM is plagiarism and a dilution of empirical science.
It does not mean that people are forbidden to choose to do something alongside resolving a conflict and allowing the healing to take place.
It means that whatever they choose is separate – the Biological Laws is how our body works, the therapy is what we choose (if we wish) to support our journey.
Both are separate and need to remain so – maintaining the integrity of Dr Hamer’s work.
When Lloyd and I use muscle testing we clarify that it is a separate modality, it is NOT GNM and I always stress this – it is never ‘combined’ or ‘integrated’ with GNM, but used as a tool in a toolbox (along with other things) to help what we are trying to achieve.
In the same way, Hellinger is a therapeutic method that may be useful in a therapeutic tool box, but not integrated or combined with GNM.