Resonance in Constellation Work: A Multi-Layered Pathway to Healing
In my work as IoPT trauma therapist, and through my own healing journey, I am repeatedly amazed by the profound depth and transformative power of constellation work. Within the framework of Identity-oriented Psychotrauma Therapy (IoPT), this approach makes unconscious psychological structures visible through resonance with the help of the intention method. By setting a personal intention, aspects of the client’s inner world - that is trauma parts, survival parts, and the healthy self - can be mirrored by others in a group or in an individual setting. These representations do not emerge through imagination or role-playing, but through a spontaneous and intuitive phenomenon of resonance. Unlike projection, where a person attributes their own internal state to another, or empathy, which involves understanding another’s feelings from a cognitive or emotional standpoint, resonance in IoPT involves a direct somatic and emotional attunement to aspects of another person’s unconscious psyche. It is an embodied process that goes beyond our personal narrative or rational explanation. Resonators often report sensations such as tension, heat or cold, numbness, or trembling; sudden waves of emotion like grief, fear, sadness or anger; and shifts in posture, perception or energy. These experiences often seem to come from 'nowhere' yet reveal deep, previously unconscious aspects of the client's psyche. This intuitive process creates a bridge between the client’s unconscious and conscious awareness, allowing inner realities to be experienced directly and embodied within the safety of the therapeutic container.
Unlike traditional psychotherapeutic approaches, such as talk therapy that focus primarily on cognitive insight and verbal processing, IoPT offers a deeply embodied and non-verbal experience. This allows hidden trauma parts to surface safely and be gently integrated. Over time, I have come to understand resonance not only as a technique, but as the very essence of therapeutic transformation. There is often a remarkable clarity that arises when parts of our psyche are resonated, opening a doorway to the truth of our inner experience.
In this article, I explore the concept of resonance through a multi-disciplinary lens, and connect it to emerging research on Family Constellation Therapy (FCT) - the foundation from which IoPT has evolved. I would like to offer a grounded, trustworthy, and inspiring resource for those wanting to understand the deeper mechanisms of IoPT, constellation work, and inner healing. A central intention of this work is also to enhance the scientific and public credibility of IoPT by connecting it to established research on Family Constellation Therapy (FCT) and highlighting resonance as a central mechanism of this therapeutic modality.
What is Resonance?
Resonance is the phenomenon by which one system is affected by the vibrations or frequencies of another. In physics, it is the reason why a tuning fork begins to vibrate when another of the same frequency is struck. In therapeutic settings - and specifically in constellation work - resonance explains how one person can attune to the inner reality of another, often without words or prior knowledge.
In IoPT, resonance enables unconscious trauma parts to surface in precise and often remarkably accurate ways. Resonators report emotions, body sensations, and impulses that reflect the client’s internal psychological states. This creates an externalized, embodied representation of the client’s psyche, making it accessible for witnessing, feeling, and integration.
From Family Constellation to Identity-oriented Psychotrauma Therapy (IoPT)
While Family Constellation Therapy (FCT) focuses on intergenerational trauma and systemic family dynamics, IoPT - developed by Prof. Dr. Franz Ruppert - shifts the attention from family members to inner parts of the client’s self. It focuses on the fragmentation of our personal identity due to trauma, and how different trauma parts (the healthy self, survival parts, and trauma parts) interact within our psyche.
Through the client’s chosen intention sentence - for example: “I want to love and accept myself” - resonators mirror specific words or elements from the intention that reflect inner aspects of the client's internal world in real-time. This process highlights internal conflicts, survival strategies, and the underlying trauma parts (emotional wounds) that seek integration.
What the Research Says: Linking FCT Research to IoPT
While empirical studies on IoPT are still emerging, research on Family Constellation Therapy (FCT) offers valuable insights into the effectiveness of constellation work and the mechanism of resonance:
Konkolÿ Thege et al. (2021) conducted a systematic review examining the effectiveness of Family Constellation Therapy (FCT) in improving mental health outcomes. Findings show reductions in psychological distress, anxiety, and improved self-image and relational satisfaction. Participants who acted as representatives in a constellation process often reported spontaneous physical sensations, emotional responses, or shifts in perception that mirror the emotional and psychological states of the individuals they represent. The process enables clients to externalize internal psychological dynamics allowing for new insights and emotional resolution.
Another study by Konkolÿ Thege et al. (2022) offers valuable insights into the underlying mechanisms of constellation work, particularly in its naturalistic, non-clinical format. Representatives from the constellation process reported experiencing sensations, emotions, or shifts in perception that appear to reflect the client's unconscious inner landscape. These embodied responses often lead to new awareness and transformation, not just for the client but for the representatives and observers as well. The study showed that the strongest effects were found in reductions in psychological distress and anxiety, along with enhanced interpersonal connection and life satisfaction.
Cohen (2024) explores Family Constellation Therapy (FCT) through the lens of non-local consciousness, proposing a theoretical framework that blends phenomenological therapeutic experience with concepts from quantum physics and evolutionary biology. The article draws a parallel between the resonant field in therapy and phenomena from quantum physics, proposing that just as particles in an entangled system can influence each other across distances, so too can emotional and energetic patterns resonate across generations. The observer effect is invoked to explain how the act of witnessing, in a compassionate and attuned way, can collapse traumatic potential into resolution - allowing energy to reorganize from chaos into coherence.
These findings from FCT provide a robust foundation for understanding how resonance works in constellation-based therapies. Since IoPT also utilizes resonance as its core mechanism - however in a more trauma-focused and internally directed way - the empirical evidence from FCT is directly relevant and supports the theoretical underpinnings of IoPT. The below presented research study dedicated to IoPT offers valuable validation of its effectiveness and resonance-based methodology:
Building on the foundational insights provided by the FCT studies, the study by Stjernswärd (2021) highlights IoPT as a potent therapeutic modality that uses the phenomenon of resonance to facilitate deep psychological healing and self-discovery. Participants reported profound personal changes, including increased self-awareness, emotional clarity, and a stronger sense of identity. Resonance allowed participants to physically and emotionally experience aspects of another's psyche, fostering deep empathy and insight. More specifically, through resonance, clients could access and process unconscious trauma parts, making resonance a crucial component in the therapeutic effectiveness of IoPT.
Although Identity-oriented Psychotrauma Therapy (IoPT) uses a distinct structure from Family Constellation Therapy (FCT), it activates and uses the same field and mechanisms of resonance, embodied witnessing, and relational co-regulation as FCT. A key difference of IoPT lies in the use of the 'intention sentence' - a short, client-formulated statement that sets the focus for the constellation process and from which specific words are resonated which have a neural connection to the client’s psyche. This makes the client’s inner psychological parts visible in a precise and personalized way, providing deep insight into internal dynamics shaped by trauma in relation to the chosen intention sentence. Compared to Family Constellation Therapy (FCT), IoPT has the advantage to explore unresolved trauma on multiple levels - personal, generational and collective. Moreover, IoPT is a trauma-focused therapeutic approach that places the client’s internal reality - rather than their external family structure - at the center of the therapeutic process. It directly addresses how trauma fragments our identity and shapes behavior, emotion, and self-perception. Both methods involve somatic elements, but IoPT focuses more heavily on the felt sense, emotional resonance, and body awareness tied specifically to personal trauma, not systemic dynamics. Additionally, the client is the central authority in IoPT - the process starts and ends with their intention, encouraging self-agency and autonomy in their healing process.
Why This Matters
We live in a world that still focuses on cognitive approaches to therapy, despite growing scientific evidence that trauma is stored in the body, in implicit memory, and often below the level of language (van der Kolk, 2014). Many clients who engage in IoPT therapy have no explicit memory of their early or developmental trauma. This is especially true for preverbal or even prenatal trauma, where there are no words to describe the experience - only symptoms, body sensations, emotional patterns, and deeply imprinted survival strategies that have become our normal way of living.
In my experience, IoPT is an incredibly advanced and profound method that helps us to reliably accesses this layer of unconscious material. By tuning into elements of the client’s intention sentence, resonators begin to sense and express these deep, preverbal layers. The process unfolds not through storytelling, but through somatic responses, emotional presence, and intuitive knowing.
From a somatic psychology perspective, trauma imprints itself on the nervous system and body. It leads to chronic dysregulation - freeze, fight, flight, fawn patterns - and distorts our self-perception and relational capacity. IoPT offers a pathway to unwind these imprints through embodied awareness, relational presence, and integration of fragmented identity parts. Healing does not come from fixing or explaining but from feeling and integrating and being in contact with our inner parts.
IoPT and constellation work offer a profound re-orientation of traditional psychological models and therapy:
From fixing to witnessing: we do not attempt to change or correct the parts, but allow them to emerge to be seen and felt.
From insight to integration: we move from solely understanding the impact of our traumatic experiences to embodying and feeling our truth.
From cognition to felt resonance: we invite healing through inner resonance, presence, and somatic releases using the self-regulative capacities of our body and psyche and the client’s ability to co-regulate with a grounded and attuned IoPT facilitator.
Resonance Beyond Therapy
As we continue to explore these fields, I believe we need a multi-disciplinary research agenda that includes neurobiology, quantum physics, biochemistry, trauma science, somatic psychology, and consciousness studies. Resonance is not merely a therapeutic technique - it may be the unifying principle that links matter, energy, and relational healing. Just as sound waves can shape physical matter or create harmony between distant objects, resonance in the therapeutic field creates invisible bridges between unconscious parts and conscious awareness. Everything in the universe is energy, frequency, and vibration - resonance is the channel through which these forces interact, communicate, and transform. In the therapeutic context, it allows us to touch what has never been named, what is unconscious to become conscious and to heal what has long been hidden. By studying resonance across disciplines, we open the door to a richer understanding of healing as both a biological, neurological and energetic process.
💬 Share your Thoughts
Have you experienced the power of resonance in your own healing journey? Or are you curious to explore how constellation work might help you access deeper parts of your psyche?
Leave a comment below to share your thoughts, reflections, or questions. I would love to hear your experiences with constellation work or IoPT Trauma Therapy. If this post resonated with you, feel free to reach out or connect for further conversation, collaboration, or support on your healing journey.
If you’re interested in exploring IoPT therapy in a 1:1 or group setting, I offer both in-person sessions in Oslo and online sessions for clients across the globe. You can learn more about my work here.
Thank you for being here.
Julia
Questions for Personal Reflection
What inner parts of yourself feel hidden or unheard?
How do you relate to the idea that healing happens beyond words?
Are there moments in your life where your body seemed to know something before your mind did?
References
Cohen, D. (2024). Family constellation therapy: A nascent approach for working with non-local consciousness in a therapeutic container. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 186, 33–38.
Konkolÿ Thege, B., Fodor, D., Földvári, M., & Kiss, I. (2021). Systemic Family Constellation: A Systematic Review of the Empirical Evidence. Journal of Family Psychotherapy, 32(4), 321–341.
Konkolÿ Thege, B., Petroll, C., Rivas, C., & Scholtens, S. (in press, 2022). The effectiveness of family constellation therapy in improving mental health: A systematic review. Family Process, 60:409-23.
Stjernswärd, S. (2021). Getting to know the inner self: Exploratory study of identity-oriented psychotrauma therapy—Experiences and value from multiple perspectives. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12, 526399.
van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Pinguin Books.