Maternal lineage (matrilineal)

The maternal lineage is the line of transmission that goes from woman to woman: the client, her mother, her maternal grandmother, her maternal great-grandmother, and so on indefinitely backward. In systemic reading, it is one of the flows with the most clinical weight, because it concentrates two types of simultaneous transmission: the psychic (how the women of the lineage loved and suffered) and the biological (mitochondria and the entire intrauterine environment).

The concept of matrilineal memory or of “the three women” —the client, her mother, and her grandmother as a single emotional unit— comes from the clinical work of several Hispanic Constellators. The premise: what the grandmother could not process is carried by the mother; what the mother could not process is carried by the daughter. Three generations carrying the same thing until someone names it.

There is a concrete biological basis: mitochondria —cellular organelles that produce energy— are transmitted exclusively through the maternal line. When a girl is born, she already carries in her body the mitochondria of her mother, her maternal grandmother, and all the women in the line as far as the genealogy reaches. Biology confirms what clinical intuition suggests.

For Constelando, the maternal lineage is a category of intensive work: a good portion of the female audience arrives carrying grief, abandonment, abuse, and unmourned abortions from three generations of women. Working the maternal lineage —naming it, honoring it, returning what has been carried— is the clinical heart of the approach.