Family Secrets. The Practice of Systemic Constellations

Nadezhda Markova is a psychotherapist with extensive experience, author of bestsellers on systemic constellations. In the book, she discusses the consequences for descendants when hiding secrets from relatives that pertain to your family history and, if revealed, can tarnish the family's image. "Shameful" deaths are concealed: murder or suicide, deaths from illegal abortions, alcoholism, drug addiction. Infertility, divorce, bankruptcy, dishonest acts, legal troubles, and bad heredity are not disclosed. Abandoned, aborted, illegitimate, and adopted children, infidelity, betrayal of any kind, and violence from relatives are kept silent.

The purpose of all secrets is to preserve family values, maintain a good name, and sometimes even life, to alleviate an existing situation. However, over time, what was hidden to protect the family may ultimately destroy it. People experience pangs of conscience, suffer, and struggle because there was an episode in their family history for which they cannot forgive themselves. And if those who committed the hidden deeds take the secret to their grave, others pay the price. Their children or grandchildren unconsciously take on the atonement for someone else's guilt. The method of systemic constellations can help heal the family line.

In this book, you will see through the examples of the life stories of the author's clients and the constellation sessions conducted for them how the secrets of living or deceased relatives affect our lives and the fate of our children and grandchildren. You will learn what is safer for you and your lineage - to reveal or hide a secret, how not to become a hostage to a secret conspiracy of silence, how to neutralize the destructive consequences of a secret, and how to cleanse the family from the influence of the distant past. An appendix presents resolving phrases that ease the psycho-emotional state, which can be referenced outside the context of the constellations.