Dip.Soz.BRD. MNZAC MDAPAANZ/accredited clinical supervisor
Facilitator of Family Systems Constellations
Angelika Chisholm has a unique private practice in the Waitakeres (West Auckland), where she offers one-to-one counselling for individuals and supervision for counsellors. She also provides a wide variety of work for a number of social agencies, including team building, facilitation of therapeutic groups, supervision and group work training.
Angelika’s experience spans more than 40 years in Germany and New Zealand, beginning in the mental health field where she first worked with families within a systemic therapy framework, and culminating now in Family Constellation work.
A group therapy specialist, Angelika has developed skills in a wide range of specialist counselling areas including alcohol and substance abuse, trauma recovery and mental health. More recently she has been assisting families in distress. She was among the first to bring Family Constellation work to New Zealand, and the first Auckland-based practitioner.
Angelika has attended Systemic Family Constellations workshops and training with originator Bert Hellinger, and with leading exponents Bertold Ulsamer, Hunter Beaumont, Gunthard Weber, Albrecht Mahr and Ursula Franke. She has also trained with outstanding practitioners in Australia.
She regularly offers Family Constellation work in workshops and on a one-to-one basis, principally in Auckland, but also elsewhere on request. The workshops are known to be welcoming and potent. They are always inclusive and respectful of all who are present.
Angelika is warm and embracing, and readily creates a safe environment, appropriate for individuals to explore their issues. She brings to her work empathy and compassion, openness and insight; and she has the ability to deal effectively with the challenging situations and issues that an individual and a group can face.
“I was born in Germany, in a generation which was strongly educated in critical thinking.We were encouraged to think for ourselves and stand up for what we thought was right, rather than blindly following destructive ideology. This was a direct response to recent German history.
I was also very much influenced by my amazing grandmother, Auguste Johanna Fehr – the girl standing beside her mother, second from the left, in the family photograph. Auguste was a woman of great dignity, who taught me the value of respect. She encouraged me to speak out about matters of importance, but always in line with my inner truth. She believed that women had something to say, and was one of the earlier suffragettes in Germany. At the same time, she respected and valued the role of men in society, and had a deep love for her father, brothers, husband and son.
When I came to New Zealand in my late 20s, I built on what I had started to experience and learn in Germany, in terms of the degree to which culture and history affect the way people operate as individuals and communities. When my daughter Hannah was born, I became particularly interested in generational issues and the need to take responsibility for not passing on the traumas of one generation to those who follow.
Family Constellation work integrates all my interests and wide-ranging professional experience. In the workshops I am supported in many ways by my husband Robert. Robert also has a great interest in history, genealogy and DNA research, which can often be helpful adjuncts in this work.
In New Zealand there is a strong movement for women’s and men’s groups. Family Constellation work synthesises these and brings them together. It provides a way for women and men to experience healing together in a deeply compassionate environment and without judgment.”
Angelika Chisholm has developed skills in a wide range of specialist areas, including:
Angelika Chisholm
“My own spiritual journey and ongoing spiritual practice are fundamental to my assisting individuals and facilitating Family Constellation work. Central to my work is the belief that peacefulness and happiness spring forth from a sense of significance and social connectedness. In a family system, every individual has his or her rightful place, and a right to belong.”
