By Illi Adato
Founder & Head of London School of Systemic & Family Constellations.
For several decades, clinical hypnosis has offered practitioners, therapists and coaches a powerful way to access subconscious processes, reframe beliefs and cultivate inner resources. In parallel, Systemic and Family Constellations has been developing as a profound phenomenological method for revealing hidden dynamics in human systems—families, organisations, and communities—and restoring a sense of order, belonging and flow.
HypnoConstellations™? is a therapeutic method I developed to consciously bridge these two modalities. It offers hypnotherapists, coaches and counsellors a structured way to integrate systemic perspectives and constellation-based interventions directly into hypnotic work—whether in one-to-one sessions or in group work. The method also provides profound insights and tangible results when used in online sessions.
This article outlines the background of Systemic and Family Constellations, the core principles of the HypnoConstellations™? approach, and details of the Certified Practitioners Training currently offered online by me at the London School of Systemic & Family Constellations.
Systemic and Family Constellations: A Brief Background
Systemic and Family Constellations emerged from the work of Bert Hellinger and others who drew on family therapy, psychodynamics, phenomenology, and indigenous wisdom traditions. At its heart lies a simple yet far-reaching observation: an individual’s symptoms—emotional, relational, psychosomatic—are often entangled with the fate, trauma or exclusion of others in their family or larger system e.g. community, nationality or culture.
Rather than focusing solely on the individual psyche, Constellations look at how people unconsciously “carry” the unresolved experiences of previous generations: losses, secrets, injustices, loyalties and broken bonds that remain unacknowledged. These entanglements can show up as depression, anxiety, relationship difficulties, self-sabotage, physical / medical symptoms and more.
In a traditional Family Constellation, the client’s inner image of their system (family of origin, current family, or organisational system) is externalised into a spatial representation: through representatives in a group setting or with objects, figures or floor markers in individual work. As the representatives tune into the “knowing field”, subtle yet reliable information about the system’s dynamics emerges—alliances, exclusions, hidden pain, inverted hierarchies and transgenerational burdens.
Carefully guided, the constellation unfolds through observation, movements and healing sentences which are used to name systemic entanglements, and so, provide an opening towards deep and meaningful therapeutic shifts and reconciliation.
The process offers a new way of seeing and relating to one’s past, one’s inner parts and one’s belonging. These insights facilitates symbolic acts or rituals that are often used in the work to restore Systemic Order and a healthy sense of belonging.
Clients often report a deeply felt movement —a loosening of long-standing inner knots, greater compassion, and a new internal image that can profoundly influence their behaviour, choices and relationships.
Key Systemic Principles Relevant to Hypnotic Work
Although methodologies differ, certain systemic principles consistently underpin Constellations work. These principles translate well—and, I would argue, naturally—into a hypnotic, subconscious ‘realm’context:
1. Belonging
Every member of a system has an equal right to belong. When individuals are excluded, forgotten, shamed, or their experiences are denied, others in the system (often in later generations) may unconsciously identify with them or attempt to compensate, taking on their feelings, behaviours, emotional wounds or even health symptoms.
2. Order (Hierarchy of Time and Role)
Systems function best when there is a natural order: those who came earlier (parents, grandparents) precede those who came later (children, grandchildren). When this order is inverted—for example, a child “parenting” a parent or taking responsibility for their emotional wellbeing—symptoms often arise.
3. Balance of Giving and Receiving
In adult relationships especially, a healthy balance between giving and receiving supports connection, trust and stability. Excessive giving or taking by one side can create hidden resentment, guilt or dependency.
4. Identification and Entanglement
Individuals may unconsciously “stand in” for others: following them in illness, failure, loneliness, or self-destructive behaviour. Recognising these entanglements and differentiating the client’s fate from that of others opens the possibility of a different path.
These principles allow us to consider symptoms not merely as intrapsychic phenomena, but as expressions of systemic dynamics. For practitioners of hypnosis, this offers a crucial expansion: trance can become a space not only for individual suggestion or regression, but also for systemic exploration, witnessing and reorganisation.
Why Build a Bridge Between Hypnosis and Constellations?
My own background as an international facilitator and trainer in Systemic and Family Constellations—and my long-standing engagement with therapeutic hypnosis—naturally led me to ask:
• How can we harness the depth, safety and focus of trance to support systemic work?
• How can we bring the powerful systemic lens of Constellations into the one-to-one hypno-therapeutic setting, for clients seeking help with a whole range of issues ?
• How can we adapt the insightful Constellation processes to coaching and counselling contexts where time, setting and client needs/ expectations evolve as fast as life is evolving ?
The sum total of this exploration process brought about HypnoConstellations: an integrative method that brings together the strengths of both disciplines in a coherent, teachable framework.
What Are HypnoConstellations™? ?
HypnoConstellations is a method of conducting Systemic Constellations within a hypnotic or light to medium trance state, using the client’s inner imagery, somatic awareness and subconscious responsiveness to explore systems and resolve entanglements and trans-generational trauma.
Rather than relying solely on external representatives, HypnoConstellations guides the client to:
• Access a resourceful yet receptive state through hypnosis or focused attention in trance.
• Invite inner representations of key system members or elements (family members, symptoms, beliefs, organisations, goals and more) to emerge in their internal landscape.
• Allow “movement” and interaction between these inner figures in a way analogous to spatial constellations.
• Receive and express sentences of acknowledgement, responsibility and reconciliation at a deep, embodied level.
• Integrate the new systemic image and felt sense into their ongoing life/work, through a new type of hypnotic suggestions, a renewed approach to resourcing, and future-pacing that offers clients (and facilitators) the super-power capability of a therapeutic ‘time-travelling’.
The method rests on the understanding that the same “knowing field” accessed via embodied representatives in a shared-space Constellations workshop can also become available through an individual client’s subconscious processes—when approached with systemic intent, clear structure and ethical, trauma-informed sensitivity.
Core Principles of the HypnoConstellations Method
For professional readers from the hypnosis field, the following principles may serve as an overview of how HypnoConstellations operates in practice:
1. Trance as an inner Systemic Work-Space
In HypnoConstellations, trance is more than a vehicle for suggestion or regression, it operates as a multidimensional space in which systemic dynamics can be safely revisited and reconfigured. The client’s inner imagery, sensations and emerging intuitions are treated as valid carriers of vital, therapeutic, systemic information.
2. From “Problem Within” to “Pattern in the System”
The presenting issue—a symptom, recurring pattern, stuck decision, relational difficulty, depression or addiction—is framed as a possible expression of a wider systemic pattern. The work then moves fluidly between intrapsychic and systemic dimensions, without pathologising the client.
3. Inner Representatives and Spatial Orientation
Instead of physical representatives, we work with inner-parts, figures from the client’s system(s), spatial positions and resources.
- “Where in relation to you is your mother now?”
- “Where does your fear stand?”
- “If your symptom were a person, where would it be?”
Changes in these inner positions often mirror the movements we see in group constellations.
4. Phenomenological Attitude within Hypnosis
While many hypnotherapeutic methods are directive, HypnoConstellations foregrounds a phenomenological stance: we bracket preconceived interpretations and invite what wants to emerge from the client’s own system. The therapist guides, but remains deeply respectful of what arises.
5. Constellative Healing Sentences in Trance State
The brief yet potent healing sentences used in Family Constellations—acknowledging fate, naming and returning burdens, affirming belonging, restoring order—take on additional depth when spoken or imagined in a trance state. The subconscious integration of these sentences can be particularly powerful even in a single session.
6. Ethical Containment and Resourcing
Because systemic work may touch on deep trauma, loss and multi-generational unprocessed pain, HypnoConstellations places strong emphasis on safety:
- Building adequate resources before entering systemic exploration.
- Pacing the work and respecting the client’s readiness.
- Ensuring closure, grounding and integration at the end of every session.
7. Adaptability to a Wide Spectrum of Coaching and Counselling Methods
For coaches and counsellors using hypnosis/guided visualisation, the method can be adapted to focus on generative and/or therapeutic aspects. Alternatively, the method can be applied to performance, leadership, relational patterns, strategy and decision making.
To join my new round of HypnoConstellations™? Certified Practitioner training starting on 26-28 October 2026, please contact Liina our school’s Training Coordinator:
office@londonconstellations.uk
Certified Practitioner Training Details: https://londonconstellations.co.uk/hypnoconstellations/
You can visit our website: www.londonconstellations.co.uk
Illi Adato on LinkedIn:
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/illi-adato-gqhp-5a04951
Illi Adato - Short Bio:
Illi is an innovator in the Constellations field, having researched and developed several new techniques for applying Systemic Constellations, including HypnoConstellations™, Distant-Healing Constellations™ and Consciousness-Centred Therapy™. These methods offer simple ways to harness resources which are often unseen to support organisations and individuals in looking through the ‘systemic lens’ for personal, systemic and collective trauma healing. Illi is a CI registered Master Constellator, offering personal and group facilitation. He leads unique transformational retreats worldwide and is the Founder and Head of the London School of Systemic & Family Constellations and a regular keynote speaker on the subject.
For more information visit: LondonConstellations.co.uk
email: illi@LondonConstellations.uk
WhatsApp: +447799181615