Emily, Story of the Month

A Classic Situation Played Out By a
One-and-a-Half-Year-Old Girl

A young couple in their early twenties come to our constellation group, bringing their one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Emily, with them. After a break, we gathered in the circle again. Emily slipped down from her mother’s lap, and walked around the circle, pointing with her finger again and again to different participants, every time saying the word, “Angel.” We were really surprised by what she did and that she could already say that word. It was as if she was really seeing angels.

She returned to her mother’s lap, and the constellation for Emily’s father began. His mother had died recently, and we were led to the situation of having her representative on the floor and the client (the father of Emily) sitting on the floor next to his dead mother. We were in the process of creating a farewell ritual between them.

At the very moment when sadness welled up in the young man, his little girl walked into the constellation and positioned herself right in front of her father’s face so he could not see his Mother any longer. I, as the facilitator, tried to continue with the constellation by motioning to the father to move over a little bit so he could see his mother again. Immediately Emily moved to block her father’s view once more.

Isn’t she showing us how she, out of love, is willing to take on a role to ease her father’s pain about the early loss of his mother, and to represent his mother for him? This is a classic situation that we meet often in constellation work, and has rather serious consequences for such a little girl and a father which will ask for later healing.

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