Genogram Worth A Thousand Words: A Summary

Making a genogram can enhance one’s training as a helping professional by laying out points in a person’s life and family that have caused distress and could affect practice in the future. By self realizing the crisis points in one’s family it can help to identify triggers that could lead to countertransference as well as resurfacing of old traumas during counseling or leading a group. Plotting out one’s life is a way to organize a family especially if there are multiple marriages of parents and non-traditional family ties within a standard family tree. By knowing where you come from and the experiences that shape your family you can better

The assessment tools that are appropriate for the population of custodial grandparents are a genogram and an ecomap of the family. The genogram is a good tool to use when assessing the grandparent because it provides a map layout to who the situation is affecting in the family. According to Rempel, et. al (2007), the genogram gives the client a chance to narrate the problem through symbols that are specific to his or her situation. The genogram is a simple tool to use for this population to start pin point where there may be relationship strains or triggers within the different family members (Rempel, et. al, 2007).

Initially, I would proceed with the Bowenian family therapy assessment tool, genograms. I anticipate there might be slight hesitation from Ken, the father who was described to initially present to therapy as, “extreme hostility t being forced into therapy.” It might be a useful tactic to remind the family as a whole that, due to them family unit feeling, “out of sorts” to work together in session and create a family genogram, we might be able to detect some generational patterns. It would be my hope, as a therapist, to work collaboratively with the entire family asking for feedback from everyone. Working collaboratively with the entire family, it is my attempt and hope to engage both Anne and Timothy, who were described as being “extremely quiet and not involved in the conversation”.

After assessing my nuclear and extended family using a genogram, it was apparent that a history of mental illness was a pattern within my paternal extended family. My family never went to therapy, but I truly think that it would have been beneficial throughout my childhood and teenage years. Solution-focused therapy, narrative therapy, and intergenerational therapy and three therapies that can aide families in healing processes from lack of unity, communication, and negative patterns.

The family chose is Gil, Karen, and their children Kevin, Taylor, and Justin they are a pretty normal down to earth family, with minor issues. The main issue is Gil and his neuroticism; he seems to have obsessive compulsive disorder, because what is happening is that it is affecting their oldest child Kevin the most, the other two are affected but not to the extent that Kevin is being affected. Karen is the more go with the flow parent; she is more laid back and takes one day at a time with her children. She and Gil see their son Kevin is having issues and want to help him but they do not know how to. Gil tries

Genograms are used to graphically represent a family tree and display detailed data on relationships among the individuals included in the family tree. In essence, families are complex systems that interact with kin groups in specific ways, and a genogram helps to show a diagram of a family tree, but also maps out interactions, relationships, traits, and characteristics that may otherwise not be noticed. The purpose of a genogram is to identify and understand patterns in family history which may influence an individual’s personal behavior and traits. Family Systems Theory, presented by Dr. Murray Bowen, suggests that an individual cannot be understood in isolation from their family members. According to Dr. Bowen, the family is an emotional

Mapping out relationships and interactions between a family system can present a visual aspect to assist with understanding the function as a unit. Creating a genogram gives the clients realizations of why family traditions exist and traits that family members pass from generation to generation.

Catherine and I filled out the Medical Health History of the Family and created a family genogram.

The propensity for specific disease processes are found when analyzing a client’s family tree history. Typically, completing a genogram with at least three generations can show which disease processes show a pattern in a specific family tree. As figure 1 shows, the current generation has a predisposition for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. The history complied spans four generations, with three generations on the paternal side, father, grandfather, grandmother, and great-grandfather, contracting heart disease, either suffering from a heart attack, having high blood pressure, or high cholesterol. On the maternal side, there is little information past the second generation. However,

Many of the concepts and or methods of this theory serve and techniques. The techniques used in the Bowen Theory are detriangulation which may be the most significant technique in the Bowen therapy (Kerr, & Bowen, p. 150). A counselor will determine how they will detriangulate based on the emotional process within the family. The Nonanxious Presence, is directly correlated to the self-awareness of the counselors own family-of-origin. It is important for the counselor to have acknowledged and worked through their own family issues before delving into the Nonanxious Presence technique (cite). Genograms serve as an assessment tool provide a lens into the family tree and is beneficial for the client as well as the

On this genogram assignment my partner was Elizabeth Enoksen. My partner was able to identify a trend that I didn’t pick up on when I was completing my genogram. As I discussed with her about my family I shared with her about me and my kid’s relationship with their dad. Unfortunately, our relationship was not good and I became a single mother of two little boys. Elizabeth made the connection that my mom became a single parent with me and I took her strength and persevered as single mom with my children. She also noticed the trend of divorces on my father’s side of the family. Elizabeth did see the trend of me and my cousins having children before marriage.

The objective of doing the genogram is to get to know the patient by gaining understanding of his/her family background. Assessing the family using systemic approach enables health care providers to learn about the ways in which family members interact, what are the family expectations and norms, how effective is the members communication, who makes decisions and how the family deals with life time stressors (Hockenberry & Wilson, 2007). This paper outlines the assessment and analysis of the three generation of Wits’ and Smiths’ families, its relationship, health pattern, habits, tradition and structure. It also provides a nursing teaching plan. The interview was conduced with Alina Wit, a second generation mother of three.

We need both the geogram and the ecomap so that it can help a counselor with certain context, prospective, and references into an individual history. The genogram is a tool that could help coolect information about a particular families structure and patterns within the family over a course of time. Developing a genogram with any family members could identify other family members in the individuals life style. For example, those who actually cared for the individual, those he/she ran into in the past, and those the individual will run into later on in the future. The ecomap helpls counselors assess certain resources and other systems as far as the individual’s mother, caregiver, brother, sister, etc… Both the genogram and the ecomap could work so well together that both could provide and engagement to someone within the two. Also, both the genogram and the ecomap could bring closer to one that could experience a possible reunion of someone in the family. By seeing who is all in the family and where they started and ended at, that individual could go to that particular brother, sister, or even cousin to ask particular

Because Bowen believed in the relevance of multigenerational healing, he created the Genogram (p. 225). A Genogram is a therapeutic tool that can be used to graphically identify the family system of an individual and the various generational influences that the individual has.

The client had reported these patterns to be considered to be “generational curses”, which implies that the family does not want to continue in these patterns. These instances can be viewed as traumatic events and negatively impacted the emotional well-being of the members’ in the family. For this approach, the genogram is viewed as an essential intervention for allowing family to recognize intergenerational patterns (Hook, 2015). During session with the family, the genogram could help the family to open up about their sexual abuse and how it was dealt with the past. They can also process their feelings of having to raise children on their own. By identifying these patterns, that family could look for potential solutions or options for breaking or avoiding this risk factor. Since the client reported that sexual abuse is not really expressed in her family, it is assumed that the family members affected by this experience have unresolved issues and unhealthy emotional connections. The family session could be used for the family members to process those emotions and develop new positive