ABSTRACT

This essay on family constellation research began as a standard literature review and critique. After 40 years of reading books and articles on the subject, mostly on birth order, and carrying out and publishing some research in the field, I felt fairly confident with this topic. After two months of collecting new material, appraising current literature, and considering the whole issue, I had to throw out the standard format. The term family constellation, as commonly understood, draws many thousands of matches on a Google search and almost 5,000 citations on PsychINFO. Some of these refer to research articles.