Set up a situation that is on your mind. Free, no account.
Put your situation on the table. See it clearly.
A constellation board lets you put the people and pressures of a situation on a table and look at it from above. One figure per person, placed by feel. Distance, direction and position carry the meaning. Move one figure and you can see what that would change for everyone else.
- Free
- No account
- Nothing to install
- English and German
The constellation board on video
A team constellation from a coaching session, from the first figure to the solution picture. Recorded in metaFox.online.
Five minutes
Your first constellation, in six moves
Say the situation in one sentence
Pick one thing that is on your mind. A decision, a conflict, a team, a family. Say it out loud in a single sentence.
Put yourself on the board
Choose a figure for yourself and place it. Most people forget this one, and it is usually the most interesting figure on the board.
Add the others
One figure for each person or force involved: boss, team, deadline, fear, goal. Set distance and facing direction by feel, not by logic.
Look from above
Who stands where? Who is looking at whom? Who is turned away? Say what surprises you before you explain any of it.
Move one figure
Change a single position and notice what it does to the rest. Try a few variations. This is the step where the board earns its keep.
Keep the better picture
Compare the first arrangement to the last. Keep the one that feels better and take one small next step from it.
Why it works
What a board does that talking does not
Language is linear. Situations are networks. Figures on a table let you see the network at once, and change it with your hands.
Build it together
Share a link and your client works on the board with you. You both move figures at the same time, even when you are not in the same room.
You see it from above
Inside a situation you see one angle. From above you see all of them, including the ones that were never yours. Step into any figure and look out from there.
Patterns show up
Two figures back to back. One far outside the group. Everyone looking at the same person. The arrangement says things the story left out.
You can try a move for free
Put the boss further away. Turn yourself toward the team. Nothing happens in real life, but you find out what it would feel like.
It reaches past words
Hands place figures faster than sentences form. People who cannot describe a situation can usually build it.
The picture stays with you
A sentence fades. An image of where everyone stood, and where you moved, is easy to carry into the next week.
Where it comes from
Fifty years of practice, not a trend
The board grew out of family therapy in the late 1970s, where Kurt Ludewig and Ulrich Wilken used a family board to make family structures visible without asking anyone to act them out. In 2006 Wolfgang Polt and Markus Rimser published the name Systembrett and widened the method to any system: teams, organizations, decisions, inner conflicts. Today it is standard equipment in systemic coaching, counseling, supervision and mediation.
It is not a family constellation in the Hellinger sense. Nobody stands in for anyone. It shows one person's picture of a situation and lets them move it.
What people put on the board
Any situation with more than one person in it
A decision
One figure per option, and one for each pull on you. See which way you are already facing.
A team conflict
Where the work really flows, who is watching whom, and which role nobody is standing in.
Your inner team
Your caution and your ambition as two figures. Where do they stand, and who is looking at the goal?
A career move
The current job, the new one, the people who have an opinion. Move yourself and feel the difference.
Family and couple
Who stands close to whom, and who has moved out of view. The use the board was built for.
A stakeholder map
Everyone with a stake in a project, turned to show where their attention actually goes.
Where it is used
Coaching, counseling, supervision
The board does not care whether the system is a family, a team or a decision. Distance, direction and relationship mean the same thing everywhere.
How to use it well
The method behind the board
What a constellation board is, where it came from, and how to run one without leading your client to your own answer.
What is a constellation board?
The definition, the history from Ludewig and Wilken's family board to today, and what the method actually claims to do.
Read moreHow to run a constellation
The six steps in order, what to say at each one, and the mistakes that turn a constellation into a lecture.
Read moreQuestions to ask
A bank of questions for each step, including the circular ones that make the board talk back.
Read moreFamily systems
Working with families, couples and origin systems on a board, and where the line to therapy sits.
Read moreTeams and organizations
Roles, reporting lines, silos and stakeholders. What changes when the system is a company.
Read moreOnline board or wooden board
An honest comparison. What the wooden board still does better, and the three things only a digital one can do.
Read moreFor coaches
Running the board in an online session, what to tell a client about their data, and how to keep a record when you need one.
Read moreFAQ
Constellation boards, answered
- What is a constellation board?
- A constellation board is a flat surface on which small figures stand for the people and forces in a situation. Where each figure stands, how far it is from the others and which way it faces carry the meaning. Moving one figure shows what that change would do to the rest.
- Can I use a constellation board on my own?
- Yes. Self-coaching on a board works well for decisions and inner conflicts: place the figures, look from above, move one, and write down what changed. A coach adds the questions you would not ask yourself, so for a family or a team it helps to have one.
- Is a digital board as good as a wooden one?
- For weight, texture and the feel of placing a figure by hand, no. For working with someone who is not in the room, for showing what a figure can see, and for reading exact distances, the digital board does things wood cannot.
- Is this therapy?
- No. It is a coaching and counseling method that also has a home in therapy. A board can surface material that belongs in therapy, and a good coach names that line when it appears.
- Is this the same as a family constellation?
- Not quite. A family constellation traditionally uses people standing in a room as representatives. A board does the same work with figures on a surface, which makes it usable one to one, online, and without asking anyone to represent a stranger's mother.
- What do I need to start?
- A browser and a situation. Nothing to install, no account. On a tablet, figures can be placed by touch; a larger screen makes distances easier to read.
- What is the field of view for?
- It draws what a figure can actually see from where it stands. Two figures can be close and still not see each other. The cone makes that visible instead of leaving it to interpretation.
- Is this really free?
- Yes. There is no trial period, no hourly rate and no card. Other online constellation boards charge from about 8 euros an hour to 48 euros a month. This one is free because it is made by metaFox.online, a coaching platform, and it is how coaches find us.
For coaches: keep your sessions and clients in one place
The board here is free and stays free. metaFox.online adds what a practice needs around it: a video call right beside the board, clients who join by link without an account, picture cards, the Wheel of Life and more coaching tools, boards saved with each session, PDF follow-ups and client records.
All tools for 14 days. No card required.
