Order work is a philosophical-systemic practice that makes hidden orders in family and relational systems visible. Not in order to repair what is supposedly broken, but to acknowledge what is: who belongs, what place someone holds, and what has been silenced or excluded. The resolution lies not in change, but in acknowledgement.
What Order Work Means
Family and relational systems carry orders of their own that run deeper than personal decisions. These orders follow principles of belonging, precedence, and balance. Everyone belongs; every member deserves acknowledgement; and everyone has a rightful place. When a member is excluded, silenced, or condemned, a disturbance arises that can perpetuate across generations.
In this understanding, the soul is not an inner-psychological possession but a relational and spatial organ: that which connects the individual person with the larger order. Modern psychology narrows this dimension by thinking of psyche as an individual interior space. Order work addresses the soul, not the psyche, and thereby follows an older philosophical tradition that understands the human being as fundamentally relational.
Children, out of love, take on the fate of their parents without being able to resolve it. This assumption of burdens is the most common form of systemic entanglement. An adult repeats relationship patterns they never chose, carries feelings that belong to another life, or fails at the same point where the parents already failed — not because they are ill, but because the system harbours an unresolved truth. The resolution lies in returning the burden: honouring the other’s fate and leaving it with them. Where the guilt is, there also is the strength.
Where the Concept Comes From
The roots of order work lie in systemic family constellation as developed by Bert Hellinger (1925-2019). Hellinger observed that natural orders operate within family systems: a precedence in which the older come before the younger, a balance of giving and receiving between partners, and the fundamental principle that everyone who belongs to the system deserves a place. These orders are not a repressive hierarchy but an expression of a natural respect that forms the foundation of healthy relationships. In his major work Orders of Love, Hellinger formulated the resolution sentences spoken in constellation work as linguistic forms of acknowledgement: “It was me; I did it” in cases of guilt; “I honour your fate” in cases of assumed burdens.
What Hellinger observed empirically touches a philosophical insight that extends far beyond family constellation. The human being is, at the core, a relational being. The entire range of human emotion springs from the I-You relation, not from the I-It. In the family, the most elemental You-relations find expression, and the capacity to connect with one’s loved ones in love is the absolute centre of human existence. Gwendolin Kirchhoff’s philosophical development situates constellation work within this larger context: order work as a practice of acknowledgement that concerns not merely the familial but the human as such.
Order Work in Practice
In the concrete work, the hidden order reveals itself through a form of perception that draws in the room and understands the relationships between people as a living field. Representatives take positions in the room and report what they feel. The actual movement toward resolution happens in space: in every relationship, there is something that wants to happen — a movement that completely eludes the intellect, yet is present, moving, and real.
The dead are equal to the living in their effect. It makes no difference whether someone is alive or dead as far as their emotional and systemic impact is concerned. Unresolved relationships with the deceased work just as powerfully as those with the living. Giving the dead their rightful place is a precondition for the order of the living.
In partnerships, the ordering principle shows itself in the balance of giving and receiving. A thriving relationship lives from mutual generosity — a small surplus: one always gives back a little more than one received. If one partner consistently gives more, they slip into the parental role and destroy the partnership. What therapeutic approaches achieve through disorder concepts and diagnostic categories happens here too, when entanglements are resolved and attachment patterns are examined. The path is different: it is not the diagnosis that guides the process, but the acknowledgement of what reveals itself in the room.
Related Concepts
Order work requires Thinking Empathy — that way of knowing in which thinking and feeling operate as a unity, making it possible to perceive the field of a constellation. In Philosophical Accompaniment, order work represents the systemic pole: where accompaniment begins with conversation, order work works with space. Both share the foundational principle of acknowledgement rather than change.