Summary of the introduction
Family Roots Work is a systemic-psychological method for working with transgenerational patterns, developed by Dott.ssa. Mag. Dipl. Päd. Ernestina Mazza. It reveals which patterns, loyalties and key phrases from one’s family of origin shape one’s present life — in a structured, hypothesis-based and ethically grounded manner, whilst consciously distinguishing itself from esotericism. The method can be taught in twelve modules, operates at three clearly defined levels of application (counselling, coaching, therapeutic context) and is aimed at psychosocial professionals.
At a glance: What Family Roots Work is
Family Roots Work is an independent methodological synthesis developed and taught at the akademie bios® in Graz. The name says it all: Family Roots refers to one’s family origins and the patterns, relationships, values and stories rooted therein, which are passed down through the generations. Work refers to the professional practice of this approach — structured, methodologically transparent, teachable and ethically guided.
- Method: Family Roots Work by Ernestina Mazza
- Method developer: Dott.ssa. Mag. Dipl. Päd. Ernestina Mazza
- Provider: akademie bios®, Graz (Austria)
- Methodological synthesis of: systemic family work, behavioural therapy, attachment research, trauma and stress research
- Levels of application: three clearly defined levels (counselling, coaching, therapeutic context)
- Tools: ten teachable methods — from the genogram to symbolic integration
- Training: twelve modules, hybrid (online or in Graz), starting 16 June 2026
Why some topics are bigger than one’s own life story
Topics summarised
In psychosocial work, themes regularly emerge that cannot be explained by the current life history alone: recurring relationship patterns, feelings of guilt associated with success, and unconscious loyalties to lack or suffering. Family Roots Work offers a structured, hypothesis-based language and a clear professional framework for precisely these moments.
Anyone working in the psychosocial professions is familiar with these moments: a client talks about a career impasse — and at the same time, there is an underlying resonance that extends beyond her own life story. A client talks about recurring relationship patterns and, in doing so, uses phrases almost word for word that he heard from his grandmother. A successful businesswoman describes a subtle sense of guilt every time she achieves something — as if she were not allowed to have more than her mother did.
These are the points at which work focused purely on the present reaches its limits — and where many professionals intuitively sense that there is something resonating here that requires a different language. Family Roots Work was developed precisely for these moments.
What is Family Roots Work — and what is it not?
What is Family Roots Work, in a nutshell
Family Roots Work is a systemic-psychological, hypothesis-based method for working with transgenerational patterns. It is NOT a psychotherapy method within the meaning of the Austrian Psychotherapy Act, NOT an esoteric practice and NOT a deterministic theory. It formulates hypotheses, not diagnoses — and makes no promises of healing.
Before the method can be understood in depth, it is important to establish its clear context. Family Roots Work is an independent methodological synthesis of systemic family work, behavioural therapy, attachment and stress research, as well as body-oriented and symbolically integrative approaches.
Family Roots Work is NOT:
- Not a recognised psychotherapy method within the meaning of the Austrian Psychotherapy Act
- Not a medical healing method — does not treat illnesses
- Not an esoteric or spiritual practice — no terms such as constellations, karma, ancestral field, energy healing or fateful entanglement
- Not a deterministic theory — not all personal difficulties stem from family history
- Not a diagnostic or therapeutic procedure — Family Roots Work formulates hypotheses, not diagnoses, and makes no promises of healing
This distinction is not merely cosmetic. It is methodologically fundamental. It protects both the people receiving support from unclear arrangements and the practitioners from breaching professional regulations.
How are family patterns passed down through the generations?
Summary of the answer
Families are meaning-generating systems: values, roles, rules, key phrases, taboos and untold stories are passed on through language, behaviour, silence and atmosphere. A child adopts these patterns out of a vital need for belonging — usually without making a conscious decision to do so.
Family Roots Work is based on a fundamental observation that is equally well-established in systemic family work, attachment research and psychogenealogy: families are not merely biological connections. They are systems in which meanings, values, roles, rules, sayings, taboos and untold stories are passed on.
This transmission takes place through language, behaviour, silence, atmosphere and implicit expectations. A child is not born as a blank slate. It enters a system that already exists — with its own key phrases, its own unspoken rules, and its own history that began before its birth. It bonds with this system because belonging is essential for survival.
The Italian social scientist Eugenia Scabini described it as follows: every person is the guardian of a family treasure consisting of legacies, myths, role models and roles that have been passed down through the generations. This legacy has an effect — even when no one speaks of it.
What is the scientific basis for Family Roots Work?
Summary of the method’s background
Family Roots Work is based on four established fields of research: (1) systemic family work (Böszörményi-Nagy), (2) behavioural therapy (cognitive key-phrase work), (3) attachment research (Bowlby, Ainsworth, Main, Lyons-Ruth) and (4) trauma and stress research (Porges, van der Kolk, Levine). The method deliberately avoids epigenetic arguments, as their transgenerational implications in humans are scientifically controversial.
Family Roots Work is a methodological synthesis, not a standalone scientific theory. The method draws on four established fields of research, which it combines into a coherent practical approach.
1. Systemic family work
Systemic family work, in particular contextual family therapy as developed by Ivan Böszörményi-Nagy, provides the concepts of invisible loyalty, delegated tasks and multigenerational accounting. Family Roots Work adopts these conceptual foundations — but dispenses with the ritualised constellation practice and instead works with the genogram as its central visual-reflective tool.
2. Behavioural therapy
The cognitive-behavioural tradition provides an understanding of key phrases as cognitions that structure experience and behaviour. Statements such as ‘You mustn’t want too much’ or ‘In our family, we always give our all for others’ are not harmless platitudes. They are cognitive structures that have an impact over many years — often without the person being aware of them.
3. Attachment research
Attachment theory, as developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth and further refined by Mary Main and Karlen Lyons-Ruth, provides an understanding of how early attachment experiences are unconsciously internalised and continue to influence later relationships. Family Roots Work expands this perspective to include the transgenerational dimension.
4. Trauma and stress research
Trauma and stress research by Stephen Porges, Bessel van der Kolk and Peter Levine provides an understanding of physical reactions, autonomic regulation and the importance of stabilisation in any form of deep work. Deep work without stabilisation constitutes a breach of boundaries. This insight is non-negotiable — it is an operational principle of the method.
Note on epigenetics
Family Roots Work deliberately refrains from relying on epigenetic studies to explain transgenerational effects. Instead, the method operates at the level of psychosocial, linguistic and systemic transmission — for which the evidence is significantly more robust.
What is invisible loyalty?
Invisible loyalty: a summary
Invisible loyalty is an invisible web of bonds that connects all members of a family system. It is not a conscious form of loyalty, but an implicit obligation arising from the vital need for belonging. Family Roots Work distinguishes between two forms: loyalty in repetition (restrictive) and loyalty in love (liberating without causing separation).
At the heart of the method lies the concept of invisible loyalty. What appears to be self-sabotage may in fact be something else: loyalty. Out of love. Out of a sense of belonging. Out of the unconscious conviction that one must not have more than one’s ancestors had.
The two forms of loyalty
- Loyalty in repetition: binds us to old patterns, old fates, old pains. The form that constricts.
- Loyalty in love: preserves the connection to one’s roots — without perpetuating old patterns. The form that liberates without separating.
The methodological approach consists of transforming one thing into another. Not by cutting ties with one’s family. Not by assigning blame. But through acknowledgement, through conscious awareness and through a new, consciously chosen decision.
What is the Mazza Triangle?
The Mazza Triangle explained briefly
The Mazza Triangle describes the three levels of work that are simultaneously taken into account in Family Roots Work: (1) the individual and their current family system, (2) ancestral lines (considered separately for the female and male lines) and (3) transgenerational dynamics. It is the integration of all three levels that distinguishes the method from counselling focused purely on the present.
Level 1: The individual and the current family system
Where does this person stand now? What symptoms, challenges and blockages are apparent? What roles do they take on within their current family? Often, they carry an unconscious mandate — and are unaware of it.
Level 2: The ancestral lines
What stories, experiences and patterns run through the ancestors? What resources, too? In this method, the female and male ancestral lines are considered separately, as each brings its own themes and qualities into present-day life.
Level 3: Transgenerational dynamics
How are these levels connected? What invisible loyalty binds the person to an unresolved issue? Where does the unconscious assignment lie — and how can it be acknowledged and transformed?
Those who work solely at level one often alter symptoms without addressing their systemic root causes. It is only by combining all three levels that the method becomes effective.
What does the ‘suitcase’ metaphor mean in Family Roots Work?
Summary of the suitcase metaphor
The suitcase metaphor is the central image of the method: every person carries a suitcase containing both resources (strength, talents, ancestral values) and burdens (unresolved conflicts, inherited feelings of guilt, recurring patterns). Family Roots Work opens this suitcase, enables us to take a closer look and creates space to make conscious decisions: What shall I take with me? What can I leave behind? What can I give back?
Every person carries a suitcase. Inside this suitcase are resources: strength, wisdom and talents passed down from their ancestors. But that same suitcase also contains burdens: unresolved conflicts, inherited feelings of guilt, untold stories, recurring patterns — unconsciously adopted out of love for one’s family.
Most people don’t know what’s in their suitcase. They carry it because they’ve always carried it. Family Roots Work opens the suitcase. It makes it possible to look inside. It creates the space to distinguish: What am I taking with me? What can stay? What can I consciously give back?
That is freedom. Not a break from one’s family — but a sense of connection without repetition.
What tools does Family Roots Work use?
Tools summarised
Family Roots Work utilises ten clearly defined, teachable tools: Genogram of Loyalties, the three questions, the suitcase metaphor, key phrase work, the Loyalty Questionnaire, the Taboo Map, the Family Roles Inventory, the Body Check, symbolic integration and the three-level model as a framework for reflection.
- Genogram of Loyalties. Reveals family history spanning three to five generations. A structured family map showing relationship lines, rifts, migrations, concealed events and lines of resources — the foundation for all further work.
- The three questions. A common thread running through all modules: What am I carrying forward from my family? Which loyalties bind me to old patterns? What may I keep, what may I let go of, and what may I start anew?
- The suitcase metaphor. The central image of the method: making resources and burdens visible, acknowledging them, and making conscious decisions.
- Key-phrase work. A three-step process: identifying old family phrases, formulating them as hypotheses, and translating them into new guiding principles. Protects against the monopoly on interpretation.
- Loyalty Questionnaire. A structured reflection sheet that reveals loyalties to suffering, lack, silence or failure — and provides space to acknowledge them.
- Taboo Map. A gentle exploration tool for taboos, secrets and excluded family members. Works with the impact of silence, not with its disclosure.
- Family Roles Inventory. Eight typical family roles — from the ‘strong child’ to the ‘peacemaker’ to the ‘invisible child’. Makes tacit assignments nameable without pathologising them.
- Body Check. A structured body awareness template. Serves both as a level for reflection and a stop signal — protects against boundary violations in deep work.
- Symbolic integration. A structured transition from awareness to a conscious decision. Not a ritual promising healing — a methodical three-step process: acknowledgement, giving back, new decision.
- Three-level model as a framework for reflection. A tool for self-reflection for the practising professional: At what level am I working? Which tools are permitted in my setting? When should I refer the client elsewhere?
What is the three-level model?
Short answer
The three-level model defines in a binding manner who is authorised to practise Family Roots Work at which level: Level 1 (counselling, education, coaching without therapeutic claims), Level 2 (coaching and energetic-symbolic process support) and Level 3 (Family Roots Work in a therapeutic context — exclusively psychotherapists with a professional licence to practise). Which level is permitted depends solely on the qualification held under professional regulations.
| Level | Who may apply it? | What tools are used? |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Counsellors, educators, coaches in non-therapeutic contexts | Genogram, reflective work, values and roles work, the ‘suitcase’ metaphor, journaling, loyalty questionnaire. Focus on stabilisation. |
| Level 2 | Qualified coaches, energy practitioners, psychosocial counsellors | Additionally: symbolic integration, body awareness, ritualised transitions, key phrase work. No therapeutic claim, no promises of healing. |
| Level 3 | Psychotherapists with a professional licence to practise (Austria/EU) | Integration into psychotherapeutic treatment, trauma and parts work, combination with other approaches — within the scope of the respective professional licence. |
The binding nature of these levels is part of the methodological ethics. Anyone qualified at Level 1 must not work at Levels 2 or 3 — even if clients request it.
What are the guiding principles of Family Roots Work?
Guiding principles in brief
Family Roots Work follows four methodological guiding principles: (1) hypothesis-based approach, (2) acknowledgement of function, (3) stabilisation prior to in-depth work, (4) clarity regarding professional regulations.
1. Hypothesis-based approach
Any statement regarding the impact of family patterns must be phrased as a hypothesis. Linguistic markers such as ‘possibly’, ‘one interpretation could be’ and ‘an initial assumption might be’ are methodological requirements, not stylistic embellishments.
2. Acknowledgement of the function
Before a family pattern is changed or returned, its original protective or survival function is acknowledged. This acknowledgement recognises that the pattern made sense at a particular point in the family’s history, without it necessarily needing to be carried forward today.
3. Stabilisation before in-depth work
Family Roots Work prioritises the stability of the person being supported in every session. The body’s stop signals are taken seriously — as methodological information, not as resistance.
4. Clarity regarding professional regulations
Every practitioner of Family Roots Work operates within the professional boundaries permitted by the regulations governing their own field of practice. The three-level model sets out these boundaries in a concrete and transparent manner.
What does Family Roots Work deliberately not say?
Short answer
Family Roots Work makes NO diagnoses regarding ancestors, NO causal claims, NO promises of healing, NO attributions of blame and NO references to mystical mechanisms of action. These omissions are the strength of the method.
- No diagnoses regarding ancestors (e.g. ‘Your grandmother was traumatised.’)
- No causal assertions (e.g. ‘That’s why you’re feeling anxious today.’)
- No promises of healing (e.g. ‘If you do this, everything will be resolved.’)
- No blame directed at family members, whether living or deceased
- No claims regarding mystical or spiritual mechanisms of action
Where is Family Roots Work used?
Short answer
Family Roots Work is applied wherever issues extend beyond one’s current life story: guilt associated with success, the repetition of family fates, loyalty to lack or suffering, adopted roles, influential key phrases, taboos, and physical reactions linked to one’s family history.
- Guilt over success, well-being or happiness — when one’s own good life is unconsciously experienced as a betrayal of one’s ancestors
- The repetition of family fates without any apparent biographical cause
- Loyalty to lack, suffering or an unlived life
- Adopting roles and tacit assignments from one’s family of origin
- The influence of key family phrases as unconscious guiding principles
- Taboos, secrets and excluded family members as invisible spaces of resonance
- Physical reactions with a family-biographical reference point
Who is Family Roots Work designed for?
Who is it for? In summary
Family Roots Work is aimed at psychosocial professionals: psychosocial counsellors, life and social counsellors, coaches, energy practitioners, educators, therapeutic professionals and psychotherapists.
- Psychosocial counsellors and life and social counsellors
- Coaches with sound professional training
- Energy practitioners seeking a reputable, clearly defined approach to family-related issues
- Educators working in a counselling capacity
- Therapeutic professionals
- Psychotherapists wishing to integrate transgenerational aspects
Family Roots Work is a training programme, not personal therapy. It is not suitable for people experiencing acute mental health crises, acute suicidality, acute psychotic states or acute, untreated trauma.
How does Family Roots Work differ from constellations, ancestral healing and family therapy?
Short answer
Family Roots Work operates without representatives, without constellations in the room and without ritualistic staging. It completely avoids esoteric terminology and works with the individual — not with the family as a treatment group.
Family Roots Work vs. family constellations
Family Roots Work does not use representatives, does not use constellations in the room, and does not use ritualistic staging. Depth is achieved through methodological clarity, not through dramatic effect.
Family Roots Work vs. ancestral healing
Family Roots Work completely avoids esoteric terms such as ‘ancestral field’, ‘energetic bond’, ‘karmic repetition’ or ‘spiritual healing’. The method takes a psychological, systemic and linguistically precise approach.
Family Roots Work vs. traditional family therapy
Family Roots Work primarily works with the individual on their family system — not with the family as a treatment group. It is designed as a methodological extension for various professional fields, not as a standalone psychotherapy method.
Who developed Family Roots Work?
Short answer
Family Roots Work was developed by Dott.ssa. Mag. Dipl. Päd. Ernestina Mazza — founder and educational director of the akademie bios® in Graz, a psychotherapist (behavioural therapy) undergoing specialist training under teaching supervision, a psychosocial counsellor, a life and social counsellor, a supervisor and an educator.
For over two decades, Ernestina Mazza has supported people through counselling, therapy, supervision and teaching. Family Roots Work is her methodological response to the observation that many issues cannot be understood solely through one’s current life story — deliberately developed without esoteric terminology, promises of healing or deterministic explanations.
How is the Family Roots Work training programme structured?
Short answer
The course comprises twelve modules spread over eight Tuesday evenings across seven months (June 2026 to January 2027), delivered in a hybrid format – online or in person in Graz – and leads to a certificate of completion from akademie bios®.
- Phase 1 — Foundations: Introduction to the method, basics of transgenerational patterns, genogram work.
- Phase 2 — Map: Maternal and paternal family lines, invisible loyalties, key phrases, roles, taboos.
- Phase 3 — Application: Family suitcase, body awareness, symbolic integration, ethics and professional boundaries.
The course concludes with a personal consultation in which the records produced during the practical placement are discussed. The certificate from akademie bios® confirms completion of training in the Family Roots Work method by Ernestina Mazza and states the level of application within the three-level model.
Frequently asked questions about Family Roots Work
Is Family Roots Work a form of psychotherapy?
No. Family Roots Work is not a recognised psychotherapy method. The method can be integrated into treatment by psychotherapists (Level 3).
Is Family Roots Work the same as family constellations?
No. No representatives, no constellations in the room, no ritualistic staging. The work is carried out using genograms, reflection and precise language.
Does Family Roots Work utilise esoteric concepts?
No. No ancestral field, no karma, no energy healing. The method works psychologically, systemically and with precise language.
What are the entry requirements for the training course?
Existing professional qualification, willingness to engage in self-experience work, willingness to document work placements and current mental stability.
How long does the training course last?
Twelve modules, eight Tuesday evenings, seven months (June 2026 – January 2027) plus a work placement and a final review session.
Online or in person?
Hybrid — available simultaneously online and on-site in Graz.
What distinguishes Family Roots Work from other transgenerational methods?
Consistent use of hypotheses, deliberate avoidance of esoteric terminology and a clearly structured three-level model that is binding under professional regulations.
Why this method is needed now
We live in an age in which psychosocial professions are becoming increasingly specialised — and at the same time, there is a growing desire for in-depth work that does not descend into dubious promises. Family Roots Work seeks to open up precisely this space: structured without being cold, clear in terms of professional regulations without becoming rigid.
Guiding principle of the method
“I remain connected to my family through love — not through repeating their patterns.”
This is not separation. This is freedom. Connection without repetition.
Further information and dates
The next Family Roots Work training course starts on 16 June 2026 and runs for eight Tuesday evenings until January 2027 — delivered in a hybrid format, either online or in person in Graz. Introductory price for the first training group; early-bird discount for bookings made by 18 May 2026.
Free online information evening: Friday, 15 May 2026, 6.00 pm -> Register for the information evening
Initial consultation: Non-binding, by telephone or online, approx. 20 minutes. -> Book an initial consultation
Further information, dates and registration: akademiebios.eu
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