Discovering Hidden Dynamics: Applying Systemic

Constellation Work to Ethnopolitical Conflict

Dirk Splinter and Ljubjana Wüstehube

Introduction: Why Constellation Work?

Attempts to apply systemic approaches to ethnopolitical conflicts are motivated to a

large extent by the success story of systemic approaches in managing organizational
problems and conflicts (see, for example, Wils et al. 2007). If we look at disciplines
such as organizational consulting and conflict management within organizations, it is
striking that in the German-speaking countries the systemic approach and its applica-
tion are closely bound up with one specific counselling/consulting method, namely
systemic constellation work. Originating in family therapy, over the last five to ten
years this has increasingly been applied by companies and organizations in order to as-
sist managers or individuals involved in disputes to resolve conflicts.
As mediators and consultants with one foot in each of the working fields – organ-
izational and ethnopolitical conflicts – we practise constellation work in organizations
and we are most interested in utilizing the potential of this method for the field of con-
flict transformation. This article therefore aims to explore the potential to apply con-
stellation work in relation to ethnopolitical conflicts. The specific added value offered
by systemic constellation work in organizations is that it is a fast and effective method
of:
▪ revealing hidden conflict dynamics, i.e. those which have so far gone unnoticed or
have not been considered to an adequate extent; thereby,
▪ facilitating a better understanding of the conflict parties’ emotional experience,
hence,
▪ identifying new options and strategies for action.
We argue that this added value is also available when applying constellation work to
the field of ethnopolitical conflicts.
After a brief description of the origins, bases and trends within constellation work
and a discussion of how it works, we turn our attention to the underlying understanding
of what constitutes a ‘systemic’ approach. In essence, it is a constructivist approach
whose main characteristic is that it focuses on context factors and relationship dynam-
ics rather than on the qualities of system actors. By applying this approach, conflict
dynamics, which are often hidden at first, can be identified more easily. It is possible to
distinguish three potential areas in which constellation work can be applied within the
framework of systemic conflict transformation: first, counselling/consulting with third
112 Dirk Splinter and Ljubjana Wüstehube

parties; second, counselling/consulting with one conflict party; and third, the use of this
approach within dialogue processes between two or more parties. Lastly, we draw at-
tention to unanswered questions and the need for further research.

1. Concept, Origins and Usage

Constellations can be understood as a metaphorical form of conflict analysis and coun-

selling/consulting which depicts the relevant factors and actors within the conflict sys-
tem and their interrelationships. Unlike more familiar visualization forms (conflict
mapping; feedback loop diagrams, Conflict Tree and so on), in constellations, persons
– known as representatives – are used to depict actors and factors. For the duration of
the constellation, these representatives depict persons, groups or institutions or even
factors influencing the conflict such as ‘the past’, ‘event xy’ or ‘the goal’. For the pur-
pose of the constellation, there needs to be one person with a knowledge and interest,
known as the case-provider,1 who has a specific issue or question relating to a certain
conflict. This person is requested to position the representatives spontaneously and in-
tuitively in such a way that they are situated at a subjectively appropriate distance from
each other. The aim is not to produce a kind of organizational chart or a hierarchical
structure but to show relationships between individual groups/persons and conflict
factors, both with regard to the conflict itself and the specific issue to be addressed.
The representatives are then interviewed about their body sensations, their perceptions
and how they feel about being situated the way they are. The more this focuses on
physical perceptions rather than on individual thoughts of the representatives, the more
it turns out that people situated in a certain constellation sense more or less the same.
This phenomenon is called representative perception in constellation terminology (see
Section 2). It is not surprising given the fact that in everyday communication relation-
ship qualities are quite often described by spatial metaphors combined with body sen-
sations, e.g. somebody turns away from me/stands by me; to give someone the cold
shoulder; to turn one’s back on somebody; to rub shoulders with somebody; to remain
cold and distant; to be hot on someone’s heels. Case-providers very frequently confirm
that the representatives’ statements are relevant to the conflict system depicted, even
when the representatives themselves have no information about the depicted system.
The representative’s perceptions are the basis for rearrangements in the constella-
tion, which means carefully changing the positions of the representatives. The aim of
these interventions is to create a situation where all members of the system feel better –
or at least to make those who felt bad at the beginning feel more comfortable without
any worsening for others. Hence, multi-partiality and inclusiveness are integral to con-
stellation work, which makes it so valuable for conflict transformation. The represen-
tatives’ statements and the rearrangements usually generate a number of new ideas and
options in the case-provider’s mind because they are like hypotheses about meaningful
interventions encoded in the metaphor. The rearrangements, which can also include

1 We prefer the term ‘case-provider’ instead of client because the latter can easily be misconstrued as con-
structing a relationship where the client ‘does not know’ while the consultant ‘already knows’, which is not
the case.
Applying Systemic Constellation Work to Ethnopolitical Conflict 113

adding a new element or suggesting that the representatives make specific statements
(e.g. apologies, requests) to each other are usually suggested by the facilitator. They
have an experimental character, based on the facilitator’s experience.
Constellations should not be confused with role plays. In the latter, the players
work with their own interpretations and associations regarding certain scenarios based
on previous personal experience and prior knowledge, whereas constellations are based
on representative perception and are generally not personalized. Of course, this can be
counteracted by individuals’ own conscious interpretations and agendas. For that rea-
son, it is actually beneficial if the representatives are not experts on the topic or if they
trust in the counselling/consulting process and are willing to set their own expert opin-
ion aside for the time being.
Constellation work originates in the ‘family sculpture’ work pioneered by the
American family therapist Virginia Satir, who would ask her clients to create a ‘sculp-
ture’ of their family as a form of spatial metaphor representing family relationships
(Nerin/Satir 1986). The method was developed further by her students Thea Schön-
felder, Les Kadis, Ruth McClandon, Bert Hellinger and others. Largely as a result of
Hellinger’s work, the method became well-known in the German-speaking countries,
with Hellinger’s numerous major events and publications achieving a high level of
awareness of the method in the field of family therapy. But although Bert Hellinger’s
pioneering achievements are undisputed, his highly controversial, often disrespectful
and ethically dubious treatment of clients brought constellation work into widespread
disrepute (Haas 2004). The profession has now clearly distanced itself from his prac-
tices and made it clear that those practices certainly are not part of the method itself
(Systemische Gesellschaft 2004).
Gunthard Weber, Hellinger’s best-known student, and others after him have ap-
plied constellation work to conflicts within organizations. Matthias Varga and Insa
Sparrer, with their concept of Systemic Structural Constellations, have developed and
trialled numerous other forms of application as well. Whereas Hellinger’s approach
was largely based on normative premises of how to resolve conflicts (‘the orders of
love’; cf. Hellinger et al. 1998), Varga von Kibed/Sparrer (2000) and Sparrer (2007)
consistently rely on constructivist-systemic thinking and dispense with normative com-
ponents.
Systemic constellation work is widely used as a tool in organizational consulting
and conflict management in companies and non-profit organizations (NPOs) in the
German-speaking countries. Its specific benefits are that:
▪ it quickly opens up unusual perspectives, generates new hypotheses and thus
broadens the scope for action,
▪ it offers the opportunity to trial and evaluate options for action and their effects
within the constellation,
▪ it generates sensory responses and insights into the situation and the perspective of
‘difficult’ conflict parties, more than almost any other method,
▪ it allows a shift of perspective,
▪ it makes visible the influence of the broader context on the conflict process, and
thus
▪ it allows a high level of complexity without becoming overly concerned with detail.
114 Dirk Splinter and Ljubjana Wüstehube

In the English-speaking countries, constellation work has attracted less attention. There
are only a few English-language websites focusing on this topic, and many of those
that exist are run by German, Austrian or Swiss consultancies. Some of Hellinger’s
publications have been translated into English, and there is one specialist constellations
journal published in English (‘The Knowing Field’), but it does not cover the full
spectrum of the German-language professional debate. The journal focuses almost ex-
clusively on concepts that are based on Hellinger’s own constellation work or derive
their inspiration from shamanism.

2. How Come it Works?

There is still no comprehensive, broadly approved scientific explanation of how con-

stellations work. Practitioners refer to different concepts. Some refer to shamanic con-
cepts and see constellations as a kind of ritual which has an inherent healing power
(Kampenhout 2008). Other authors refer to Rupert Sheldrake’s ‘morphogenetic fields’
hypothesis (1995), which is not generally accepted by the scientific community (Weber
et al. 2005; Mayr 2008, Mahr 2007). Sheldrake draws attention to various natural phe-
nomena in which information apparently flows without any discernable medium of
communication. For example, certain species of plant do not flower every year, and yet
plants within the same population always flower at the same time. Sheldrake postulates
the existence of what he terms ‘morphogenetic fields’ in which information is ‘stored’
independently of time and space. Numerous constellation practitioners assume that
constellations create access to such fields; this is reflected in publication titles such as
‘The Knowing Field’.
Strikingly, it is often reported that in constellations, symptoms occur which match
exactly with aspects of the real system, like a particular disease. For example, while
s/he is positioned in a constellation, a person displays a certain kind of behaviour (e.g.
mental confusion, or pain in a specific part of the body) which is typical of the person
being represented. This happens even when no relevant information has been provided.
This could suggest a kind of metaphysical transfer of information. Some practitioners
even state that this information transfer works the other way around, arguing that a
constellation is likely to have an impact on the resembled system itself beyond the peo-
ple who actually witnessed it.
In our view, this kind of argument and the above mentioned conceptual back-
ground reinforces perceptions of constellation work as esoteric. We prefer the con-
structivist approach which doubts that constellations resemble the ‘real’ system. In-
stead, we see them as a complex metaphor for the ‘inner picture’ of the case-provider
(see, for example, Weber et al. 2005). This inner picture is composed of conscious
analytical cognitive knowledge and unconscious elements from the field of subcon-
scious perception, experienced-based knowledge and intuition. However, it is empiri-
cally corroborated that constellations are not pure chance because, as a rule, even
highly sceptical case-providers find the initial statements of representatives, once posi-
tioned, to be extremely relevant to the real situation (Mayr 2008; Kohlhäuser/Assländer
2005; Schlötter 2005). This applies even in a blind constellation in which the repre-
Applying Systemic Constellation Work to Ethnopolitical Conflict 115

sentatives do not know who or what they are representing or which conflict is being
addressed.
The ‘representative perception’ premise, namely that people who are situated in
constellations feel and verbalize similar body sensations that are dependent on the spa-
tial constellation (angle and distance to others) and are thus largely independent of the
person, has been demonstrated by Peter Schlötter (2005) in an experimental study with
a high degree of significance. Using life-size dolls, he re-created a picture from a real-
life constellation. He then switched the dolls with real people (subjects) in various po-
sitions. In a test, he then asked the subjects to verbalize their perceptions. A qualitative
analyses of the statements showed that they were significantly similar to each other. In
a second, quantitative test, subjects were asked to assign prepared sentences to the
various positions. They did so non-randomly, with an extremely high level of signifi-
cance (probability of error < 0.1%) and without any significant correlation with gender,
age, opinion or knowledge of constellation work.2
Futhermore, we have experimented with performing constellations in separate
rooms, involving two case-providers working together on a single issue. We found that
until the representatives began to make their statements, the participants created almost
identical starting pictures.3
Various studies have investigated the question of constellations’ effectiveness
(Kohlhäuser/Assländer 2005; Mayr 2008; Schlötter 2005; Roevens/van den Berg
2007), mainly by conducting follow-up studies to determine the changes that have
arisen for the case-provider as a result of a constellation. Here, high values are regu-
larly achieved for a better understanding of the individual’s own conflict and changes
in their method of dealing with it. In some cases, however, these changes are vague and
cannot be described in terms of concrete action (cf. Mahr 2007). This latter factor has
convinced us that it is useful, at least in the ethnopolitical field, to undertake explicit
evaluations of the constellation by observing what has occurred in the constellation
process and then analysing and ‘translating’ it together with all participants. This gen-
erates hypotheses about options for action (see case study). Various constellation prac-
titioners working in the field of family constellations, but also in organizational con-
stellations, regard this translation approach as harmful (cf. Weber et al. 2005). They
argue that the side that is present (the case-provider) could already improve the situa-
tion by means of unilateral intuitive changes in behaviour, and fear that this could be
impeded by the process of ‘talking about it’. No comparative studies are available at
present. On strategic issues in particular, we believe that the constellation process must
be opened up to discussion as this is the only way to operationalize the various per-
spectives of the individual representatives and observers as important feedback. It is
also the only way to incorporate results swiftly and directly into written concepts, in-
terventions, etc. At the same time, discussion and evaluation of the constellation proc-
ess offer a good opportunity to remove constellation work from the realms of ‘en-
chantment’ and embed it in hard realities, thus counteracting accusations that
constellations are arbitrary and esoteric.

2 As a rule, in quantitative social research, probabilities of error between 1% and 5% are considered permissi-
ble.
3 These experiments are not sufficiently quantifiable at present. Out of seven double constellations carried out,
six were virtually identical and one was significantly different.
116 Dirk Splinter and Ljubjana Wüstehube

Although the precise reasons why constellations work have yet to be clarified, the
empirical studies described above attest to their high level of effectiveness with respect
to the three criteria mentioned in the introduction. It would make sense to compare this
with data about the effectiveness of other consulting/counselling/reflection/analytical
instruments. To our knowledge, however, corresponding data about other methods are
not available.
When considering the question of how systemic constellations work, it is also help-
ful to consider the following: precisely because we work on the assumption that, as de-
scribed above, constellations represent the case-providers’ inner picture and are not an
objective depiction of the system, it only makes sense to make a constellation if the
case-provider has a connection with the case, i.e. if s/he has an issue which is relevant
to him/herself or his/her organization in terms of action in relation to the conflict. Per-
forming constellation work merely as a general conflict analysis exercise without any
relevance to specific decision-making and action would be an abuse of the method. A
constellation always centres on the relationship between the case-provider (= observer)
and the system, and that is its strength. The method thus reflects the fundamental sys-
temic/constructivist recognition that there can be no observation without observers, and
that the observer is always involved in constructing the system and/or interacts with it.

3. The Underlying Understanding of ‘Systemic’

3.1 A Comparative Definition

Constellation work, as we understand it, is a highly systemic method because hypotheses

are generated entirely from the relationship dynamics and the interaction between context
factors, not from the qualities of the actors themselves. This is the core of our under-
standing of the term systemic, which is defined by Matthias Varga von Kibéd as follows:
“An explanation (theory, methodology, approach, definition of terms, thinking, idea, form of
therapy, intervention) A is more systemic than explanation (theory...) B, by definition, when A
allows a shift away from the attribution of qualities to system elements (and towards the obser-
vation of relationships, structures, contexts, dynamics and choreographies) to a greater extent
than B” (Varga von Kibéd 2005).
This definition describes systemic in a comparative way. That is, it does not determine
‘systemic’ in terms of ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ but ‘more’ or ‘less’. Why does this make sense? A
binary definition of ‘systemic’ would not be very systemic in fact – at least not in a
constructivist way because ‘systemic’ would then be seen as a quality that something
possesses regardless of its relationship to the context. This is not compatible with the
given definition in itself because it relies on the assumption of qualities rather than re-
lations. By contrast, the comparative definition mentioned above captures the basic in-
sight of systems theory in that it indicates that differences are much more meaningful
than the entities between which they exist.4

4 “We can know what is better without knowing what is good” (de Shazer 1996, pers. comm., quoted in: Varga
von Kibed/Sparrer 2000, 60). “Information is a difference that makes a difference” (Bateson 1972, 459).
Applying Systemic Constellation Work to Ethnopolitical Conflict 117

The comparative definition also gives an answer to the much-debated question

about whether or not conflict transformation has been systemic all along, implying that
the systemic approach is nothing new. Based on the comparative framework we are
able to recognize that something is systemic to a certain extent but could be even ‘more
systemic’.

3.2 Contexts Rather Than Qualities: A Constructivist Approach

The key criterion of ‘more systemic’ is the shift away from the attribution of qualities
in favour of a consideration of relationship structures. In this understanding of ‘sys-
temic’, systems theory and constructivist epistemology meet. Both question whether
qualities – in terms of ontological realities – exist at all. From a constructivist perspec-
tive attitudes and behaviours which appear to be the qualities of an actor are perceived
as ‘qualities of the overall system’, existing only in relationship to others, i.e. they are
localized in the context rather than in the actors themselves. Hence, it is essential to
capture attitudes such as dominance, aggression, etc. as constructs which only come
into being in a certain relational context and do not exist as qualities of a person or
group, i.e. actor.
With regard to ethnopolitical conflict, we are not only dealing with individuals but
actors such as political parties, governments and armed groups. The behaviour of these
actors, their opinions on the disputed issues, political positions and programmes and
their stances towards peace processes – when thinking systemically – should be seen as
emerging from the context rather than from their inner attitudes. This makes a huge dif-
ference because a great many conflict transformation programmes focus on changing
inner attitudes and/or qualities of stakeholder groups or institutions, which is not gen-
erally in line with a systemic approach.
A typical pattern, for example, is the following dynamic between like-minded (i.e.
pro-peace forces within a society) and hardliners who are strongly opposed to negoti-
ating peace and a political solution. Numerous conflict transformation programmes aim
to strengthen the like-minded through capacity building, training, technical support
etc.; in other words, they aim to change the qualities of the actors in the above sense.
Such interventions, according to the above definition, cannot be described as highly
systemic. In practice, a reciprocal increase in activities and social support for the hard-
liners can often be observed – in effect restoring a balance in accordance with the fol-
lowing pattern: the stronger the like-minded, the stronger the hardliners. Taking it to
extremes, it could even be argued that the same result could have been achieved
through targeted strengthening of the hardliners (Ropers 2008, 15). For our purposes,
this description and analysis of the pattern are highly systemic, precisely because they
focus not on the qualities and attitudes of the actors but on the dynamics between them.
This raises the question of which factors are able to stabilize the balance dynamics de-
scribed, what this means for the system as a whole, and to what extent, for whom and
under which conditions it is functional. Answering these questions is likely to lead to
very different interventions from the ones described above.
A similar pattern is based on the mechanism of ‘ethnic outbidding’ (cf. Ropers
2008): in a country in which there are violent conflicts with ethnic minority C, two
118 Dirk Splinter and Ljubjana Wüstehube

major parties (A and B) are rivals for power. The more efforts A makes towards peace
with C, the more vigorously this is undermined by B in the power struggle. However, if
B makes similar overtures towards C, A becomes the opponent of the peace efforts. In
this pattern, interventions which aim to change the qualities of actors (e.g. by generat-
ing a more constructive, peace-promoting attitude) are not appropriate to achieving the
desired effect. In a constellation, this dynamic is likely to be revealed. Furthermore,
options for changing it might appear, e.g. issues that have to be tackled in order to in-
crease cooperation between A and B.
Another example: persons whose attitudes (qualities) have already been ‘success-
fully’ changed, e.g. in conflict resolution training or dialogue processes, and who also
verbalize this fact, often revert to the ‘old’ destructive patterns of behaviour as soon as
they become political office-holders. This reveals the limits of non-systemic explana-
tory models and interventions. System dynamics and context appear to be more signifi-
cant than the actors’ qualities.
Principled negotiation and human needs theory generally also focus on the level of
the system actors’ qualities, as they are based on the interests/needs of the conflict par-
ties. In terms of the argument set out above, this can be described as an attribution of
qualities. Hence, it is not very systemic. It is beyond question that the search for op-
tions to reconcile needs and interests which seem to be incompatible (win-win) gener-
ally forms the basis for viable solutions. However, where this does not work, a more
systemic approach, which looks beyond qualities and focuses on dynamics instead, may
generate added value because the functionality of the conflict for the system as a whole
becomes the focus of interest. Donella Meadows (2008) refers in this context to Sys-
tems Goals: in other words, what are the benefits when the system works as it does? In
her ranking of different change options for systems, she includes interventions based
on this approach as being among the most effective. We refer to functionality rather
than goals in order to make clear that this benefit is not necessarily intended.

4. Possibilities of Application

In the field of conflict transformation, systemic constellation work has received very
little attention to date. There are various possible reasons for this: First, very little Eng-
lish-language material is available on constellation work. Second, the method is still
unjustly associated primarily with the field of psychotherapy, even though organiza-
tional constellations have long since led to the emergence of a new branch, which is
being applied in strategic consulting on intervention designs in complex situations.
Third, the method has shown itself to be difficult for the academic debate to access.
Admittedly, its effectiveness can be regarded as empirically proven (see Section 2), but
a broadly approved scientific explanation of why it works is missing. Finally, the way
in which many practitioners present and offer constellation work also has an effect: the
impression is sometimes created that this is an esoteric exercise.
Recently, a number of constellations have been documented which deal with eth-
nopolitical issues, and various conceptual studies have been published. For example,
Mayr (2008) compares the basic ideas of constellation work with Lederach’s conflict
Applying Systemic Constellation Work to Ethnopolitical Conflict 119

transformation concept and Galtung’s “Transcend Method” and concludes that there is
a good fit. However, the only case studies available are those where the case-provider
is affected by the conflict as an individual, not as a political actor or representative of a
third party (Mahr 2002, Kampenhout 2008, Atkins 2007, Megighian-Zenati 2008). Ex-
ceptions are the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which used constellation work
with various stakeholder groups in Nepal (Godavari 2006) and Afghanistan (Carvalho
et al 2010) , and Mahr (2007), who reports a constellation where a capacity building
project for the Commission of the African Union was examined. Cohen (2008) docu-
mented a constellation for a peace NGO on the grassroots level in Haifa, Israel, as well.
Furthermore, there is the International Forum for Political Constellations (IFPC),
established in 2002, which investigates and explores the applicability of the constella-
tion method to political and strategic issues.
We see three fields of possible application of constellation work with respect to
conflict transformation:
▪ counselling with third parties involved in dialogue or mediation in order to im-
prove planning, strategizing and reflecting on one’s work,
▪ consulting with representatives of conflict parties or stakeholders aiming at
empowerment, ‘preparing them for the table’ and developing shared conflict analy-
ses,
▪ dialogue processes with two or more conflicting parties in cases where a certain
level of trust can be established between the people who are present.

4.1 Counselling/Consulting with Third Parties

Most experience with constellations relates to the first field, i.e. counselling with third
parties. Here, constellations have proved to be a valuable complement to other tools,
i.e. other formats of conflict analysis or organizational development tools. The main
focus is on the context of relationships instead of referring to opinions and attitudes of
the actors. It provokes a shift of perspectives and helps a third party to put him/herself
into other actors’ shoes. It also helps to reveal overlooked context factors, particularly
relationships within the parties and the factors related to the mandate of the third party.
There is a broad spectrum of questions that can be tackled through constellations. The
following examples illustrate the variety:
A typical pattern occurring in constellations is that one or more representatives
look in a certain direction and say their look is very fixed. This happened in a constel-
lation of a reconciliation project in a war-torn country. The project-officer, who
worked with an INGO which conceptualised and financed the project, requested a
counselling session with external consultants because he found it difficult to collabo-
rate with his counterpart from the local implementing NGO. In the constellation, both
representatives – the case-provider’s and the counterpart’s – stared at the same point
and were unwilling to look at each other. The facilitator suggested adding a represen-
tative at the place they were looking at. This representative was then interviewed and
felt very ashamed. It occurred to the case-provider that this might be a metaphor for the
‘backstory/history’ of the project when the case-provider’s predecessor halted the proj-
120 Dirk Splinter and Ljubjana Wüstehube

ect in its planning phase without explanation to the counterpart. This had been treated
as a taboo issue so far and the case-provider now realized that it might make a differ-
ence to talk about this openly to his counterpart.
In another case, the case-provider completely changed her mind about which issue
to address. The constellation was about an incident between the Peuhl and the Tuareg,
two pastoralist African tribes. The case-provider situated the representative of one Tu-
areg group looking away from all the others, which suggested that this group might
have felt marginalized. In the constellation, it proved possible to integrate this group by
addressing the intra-Tuareg tensions, which had not been possible before because the
case-provider (and her INGO) was too focused on the Tuareg-Peuhl tensions. The con-
stellation helped her become aware of this. This pattern – shifting the focus from inter-
party to intra-party conflict – frequently appears in constellations.
Insights about how to be accepted as a neutral broker by the conflict parties were at
the heart of a third example. A local NGO was eager to mediate between two pastoral-
ist tribes (A-tribe and B-tribe) who were engaged in a fierce cross-border conflict about
access to a certain piece of land. A-tribe increasingly encroached this area (which be-
longed to country A) although it was traditionally used by B-tribe which regularly
moved in from country B. The governments of government A actively backed the po-
sition of the one tribe with military intervention, while the government of B remained
disinterested. Due to the fact that the conflict was well-known and highly sensitive to
the group, we suggested a blind constellation, which means that the people who are put
into the constellation do not know whom or what they represent. This is a common
way to ensure that personal information about the conflict does not influence the repre-
sentative perception. The case-provider situated his own NGO, which belonged to B,
behind and across from the B-government, which made the latter feel very uncomfort-
able. This could be eased by shifting the NGO’s position, which could be interpreted
as: ‘Be more transparent towards your government’. The second insight for the case-
provider was that an NGO from country B was needed because only then did both
tribes feel that they would be willing to commit to negotiations.

4.2 Counselling/Consulting with One Conflict Party

The second of the above-mentioned fields of application – consulting with one of the
conflicting parties – is virtually untested in relation to inter-ethnic conflict. However,
in organizational consulting it is very common to use constellations – if they are used
at all – for counselling with one conflict party. Hence, we believe there is great poten-
tial for consulting with single parties engaged in ethnopolitical conflict as well. We had
the opportunity, on one occasion, to utilize constellation methods combined with
sculpture work in workshops with Track-II actors in a civil war and found the results
promising (see Splinter/Wüstehube 2005).
Of course, the prerequisites are more stringent than when working with third par-
ties because the more involved a case-provider is in the conflict, the more likely s/he is
to be traumatized and victimized by having been exposed to violent contexts for a long
time. This also makes it more painful and challenging to take account of other perspec-
tives. Strikingly, our frequent experience in constellations is that this seems to work
Applying Systemic Constellation Work to Ethnopolitical Conflict 121

more intensively and quickly and can even be more face-saving compared to other
methods. This may be because constellations refrain from pointing a moralizing finger.
When applying constellations in this way, it is not always necessary for a group of
people to be present. For example, if only one person is present in the room, namely
the case-provider, it is not uncommon for him/her to position chairs or other symbols,
rather than people, around the room. In order to be able to interview the various actors,
the case-provider then situates him- or herself in the various positions in sequence.
This yields similar results to the method described above.

4.3 Dialogue Between Conflict Parties

Regarding dialogue between two or more parties, the question of whether it is possible
and appropriate to apply constellations depends on the type and phase of the dialogue
process. If there is too much mistrust in the room, constellations would only lead to
further escalation because parties would assume that the others are misusing the con-
stellation deliberately. It is hard to imagine that the people involved in a constellation
would be open to representative perception under those circumstances. They would
rather rely on their personal information and thoughts, which would make the constel-
lation malfunction. Hence, in organizational mediation, we use constellations as a
means of working with both parties simultaneously but only up to a certain level of es-
calation. Nonetheless, it is very powerful. Similarly, there are dialogues – even in
highly escalated violent conflicts – in which a sufficient level of trust can be estab-
lished and the participants are more open to learning about the other one’s perspective.5
Here, constellations can be an extremely effective instrument for dialogue because they
help the parties to put themselves into the other one’s shoes, thus increasing trust and
providing insights for joint conflict analyses. It might be assumed that constellations
are too ‘weird’ and hence unlikely to be accepted. However, since there are already
methods in use, even in political dialogue, which are very different from everyday
forms of communication (such as role plays or storytelling), it is not too much of a
change. It is more a question of how the facilitator handles it.

4.4 Is it Culturally Appropriate?

One possible concern is whether constellation work is culturally appropriate in all set-
tings. To our knowledge, no specific research has been done so far with regard to this
question. However, it is obvious that the systemic approach to constellations has a lot
in common with certain pre-modern world views about how individuals and their envi-
ronment (including ancestors and history) are interlinked, e.g. the African ‘Ubuntu’.
This suggests that constellations can be applied more easily in contexts where those
ideas are more alive than in ‘Western’ societies. Some constellation facilitators even
explicitly refer to these traditional concepts. The blind constellation mentioned above

5 In terms of Glasl’s nine steps of escalation: the escalation between the people present at the moment needs to
be below three while the overall conflict can even be as high as eight (Glasl 1999).
122 Dirk Splinter and Ljubjana Wüstehube

(see Section 4.2.) was done with a group of people from various African countries who
were not familiar with Western training or consulting methods. However, there was no
significant difference in the way it worked. Accordingly, in the journal ‘The Knowing
Field’, constellation workshops in China6, Hong Kong (Ulsamer 2007) and Rwanda
(Mahr 2004) are reported. They focused mainly on the field of family therapy, but the
constellation approach itself worked well7. Joseph Roevens (2009) interviewed facili-
tators who are experienced with constellations. Only two out of seventeen disagreed
with the statement “Cultural background or age has little or no influence on whether
one finds constellation work effective or not”. Nevertheless, this experience is rather
anecdotal and has to be corroborated through systematic research.

Conclusion and Further Research

The systemic approach presented in this article is based on a constructivist under-

standing, defining systemic in a comparative way as the extent to which something (a
theory, an explanation or an intervention) relates to the context and relationships of the
actors in a system instead of to the qualities of the actors themselves.
Constellation work is based on this concept. It is widely used in the field of organ-
izational counselling in German-speaking countries. In this article, we described how
this method can be transferred and applied to the field of ethnopolitical or macro-social
intra-state conflicts. Of course, the systems in this field are much larger. The actors are
usually not individuals but groups or organizations/institutions (e.g. governments, po-
litical parties, civil society organizations, non-state armed groups, ethnic or religious
groups). They take certain political agendas and positions which allow them to be de-
fined, for example as peace constituencies, like-minded, moderate or hawks. In terms
of this understanding of the term systemic, political agendas and attitudes (e.g. towards
peace, violence or democracy) should not be seen as qualities of the actors but as
emerging through context. However, a lot of peace work focuses on influencing these
qualities: there are training and dialogue programmes seeking to change attitudes of
actors, or programmes which aim to improve the qualities of institutions.
A more systemic approach additionally looks for neglected context factors, e.g.
relationships to foreign powers or collective traumata, as seen in the case studies pre-
sented. Integrating such factors into conflict transformation programmes – according to
the basic hypothesis – is likely to provide points of leverage in order to shift the dy-
namics of the conflict system.
Constellation work implements this approach in a very consistent way because it
completely focuses on context factors. It uses a metaphorical spatial language: human
beings who represent the system’s elements are arranged in a room to spatially resem-
ble their relationships. The ensuing interviews and rearrangements lead to insights such
as:

6 For more details please check: The Knowing Field, issue 13, 2009.
7 As mentioned before, we are critical about some of the authors’ underlying concepts of why constellations
work. Nevertheless, their experience confirms that it works.
Applying Systemic Constellation Work to Ethnopolitical Conflict 123

▪ discovering hidden dynamics of the conflict

▪ integrating new perspectives into conflict analyses
▪ reflecting on and further developing one’s own strategy
▪ reflecting on relationships between third parties and conflicting parties
▪ understanding other perspectives in a deep emotional way
In different examples it was shown how this works in terms of counselling with third
parties/NGOs/INGOs. We pointed out that further fields of application of constellation
work are counselling/consulting with single conflict parties and dialogue between two
or more parties. The described systemic approach and, of course, constellation work it-
self might look unfamiliar at first. Nevertheless, we think that not utilizing its potential
for transforming intractable ethnopolitical conflicts would be a regrettable waste.
But how do constellations actually work? That is an area where further research is
required. It can be regarded as proven that the body sensations of the representatives in
a constellation, known as the representative perception, correlate with the spatial con-
stellation to a highly significant degree (see Section 2). However, no systematic inves-
tigation has yet been undertaken into the informative value of the starting picture set up
by the case-providers. For example, is the way in which a case-provider positions the
participants entirely random? There are various indications that this is not the case –
case-providers are very often surprised by just how well the statements of the repre-
sentatives in the starting picture match their (the case-provider’s) understanding of the
actual situation. This is reported without exception by many different practitioners but
needs to be backed by systematic and quantifiable research.
The same applies to the journey from the starting picture to the end picture: in
other words, the rearrangements within the constellation. Would different constella-
tions that begin with the same starting picture yield the same or at least complementary
results? The challenge here is to verify whether theoretical reproducibility exists, al-
though in reality, the starting picture can never be reproduced exactly – if two con-
secutive constellations were made with the same case-provider, the starting situation
after the first constellation would already be different. This means that in order to com-
pare the process and results, separate constellations would need to be made with sev-
eral persons who have approximately the same knowledge of, and attitudes towards,
the case. However, it is unrealistic to assume that two persons could have an identical
starting view of a conflict. Fine distinctions could lead to completely divergent results:
a fact which itself confirms basic systemic assumptions. To date, however, it has not
been possible to resolve this dilemma through research.
For the time being, then, we must decide whether to use constellation work as a
method even though the precise way in which it works is still not scientifically proven.
However, as systemic constellation work has shown itself to be extremely useful, both
in terms of counselling/consulting with third parties and in work with conflict parties
themselves, we are strongly in favour of its continued application in practice.
124 Dirk Splinter and Ljubjana Wüstehube

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