The below is an extract from: Unraveling Family Secrets. Bert Hellinger interviewed on Family Constellations, By Humberto del Pozo in Santiago de Chile, September 1999.
Who are those included in the family consciousness?
A circumscribed number of persons belong to the family consciousness:
1. the children, including stillborn children and those who have died early, 2. the parents and their siblings,
3. the grandparents,
4. sometimes one of the great-grandparents and, at times, ancestors even further back, and, very strangely, people who are not relatives belong to the family consciousness too:
5. everybody – and this is most important – who made room to the advantage of the above members, belongs to the family consciousness. This includes, in particular, former partners of parents or grandparents, as well as all those whose misfortune or death brought the family an advantage or gain.
6. victims of violence and murder by any members of the family.