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Genogram

A genogram is a graphical representation of intergenerational familial relationships, primarily biological and legal ones but also those that are fictive kinship in nature. Genograms are similar to family trees, but because they include attention to nonblood relations, and illustrate relationship dynamics, they are more comprehensive “maps” of family histories. Genograms have existed in various forms since the mid-20th century, but it was not until the early 1980s that a generally agreed-upon format for how a genogram should be constructed was established in the human services arena. A working group established by the North American PriMary Care Research Group undertook the task of developing a standardized design and core symbols for genograms so that, once created, they could be understood across an array of human services practioners. Since these criteria were generated, they have been revised and expanded several times, as new perspectives on and insights into family structures and interactions have emerged. Computer technology has further faciliated the construction of genograms, especially in enabling various forms of coding the data they document.

Perhaps not surprisingly, early genograms—even those that used the original format customs—were inclined to view families from traditional or hegemonic points of reference; for example, as a nuclear family. As a result, genograms have been limited as tools for charting and interpreting multicultural families, broadly considered on the basis of, for example, race, ethnicity, language use, genographic origin, immigration status, caste, socioeconomic class, employment standing, sex, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, dis/ability (physical, developmental, and psychological), veteran status, age, generation, religious and secular affiliation, and physical appearance, among other dimensions of identity. Ongoing changes to the layout and icons used in genograms have sought, and continue to seek, greater accuracy in representation as well as in the understanding and analysis of all family configurations.

Use of Genograms Among Human Services Practitioners and Clients

Genograms are generally used in human services work in one of two ways. First, genograms are shared by practioners who work with the same families from different points of entry (e.g., a social worker, counselor, and psychiatrist) and/or with different members of the same family. Second, practioners have clients develop their own genograms to foster (or reveal) awareness of and insight into (or understanding of) genetic and behavioral patterns. Once identified, these patterns can be discussed and corresponding therapeutic service interventions can be recommended. In both ways, genograms generally operate as data-gathering devices and/or assessment tools.

To be used effectively in either way, human service workers and their clients need education and training on how to generate meaningful genograms; for clients, this preparation must also include attention to the range of emotions that may surface for them in the genogram development process as well as strategies for coping with those feelings productively.

Typically, genograms represent, to the extent possible given the clients’ ages and access to various types of kinship information, at least three generations in both directions (backward and forward), in which the clients’ generation is made the central focus. In other words, the vantage point in the genogram extends backward two generations to the clients’ grandparents’ generation (even if these individuals are not known), and forward two generations to the clients’ real or would-be grandchildren's generation. Accordingly, genograms are said to provide a form of historical voice through a visual expression of previously silenced, faint, and/or unacknowledged nexuses in kinship relations across time. Genograms can convey only a limited amount of information; however, they do so in a way that reveals the larger essence of complex patterns embedded in familial systems, thus enabling hypotheses as to how clients’ seemingly immediate life challenges have actually evolved from more distant ancestral origins.

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