Deciding What You Want to Learn from a Genogram
Determine your reason for creating a genogram. The purpose of your genogram will help you to focus on the type of family information you want to collect. It's also likely to help you decide with whom you will share the completed diagram––sometimes the information might be considered upsetting or too sensitive for some family members, so you'll need to judge that depending on the context. Genograms can focus on a number of hereditary patterns and issues including substance abuse, mental illness, and physical violence, as well as many physical illnesses. Genograms can provide health care workers with a visual document that tracks the history of your current mental or medical proclivities through your family bloodline.
Understand what you are looking for. Once you know why you're making a genogram, whether it’s for a healthcare provider, school project, or just to get to know you and your family more, knowing what it is you want to learn can help you to organize how you go about populating your genogram. Genograms are like family trees. Only in addition to looking at the branches, you also look at the leaves on each branch. You'll not only learn who is in your family, but how everyone is connected through physical and emotional relationships. For example, a genogram can tell you who is married, divorced, widowed, etc. It will also tell you how many kids each union (typically between two individuals) has, what each child is like, and what the individual relationships are between members on more than just a physical level. Think about what kind of information you want to learn from making your genogram. Do you want to know who in your family has depression, addictions, or a history of cancer? Perhaps you want to know more about why your mother and her mother never get along, by looking for the right clues you’ll be able to make a genogram that serves your goals.
Decide how many generations you need to represent in your genogram. This will give you a clear idea of who you will need to approach for information to complete your diagram and whether this will be possible given people's ages and geographical location. Luckily, you can always use email, Skype, and other communication devices to get in touch with family members that you may not be able to meet in person. Knowing how far back you need to go will also make the process easier and quicker. Do you want to start with your grandparents? Maybe you want to go further back to your great grandparents. Deciding how far to go back will give you an idea of who you need to contact.
Develop a set of questions to ask yourself and your relatives. Use what you wish to learn from your genogram to come up with some questions to ask so that you can get the most information as quickly as possible. Here are some examples: ”Beginning with your grandmother, what was her name, who was she married to, and when/how did she pass away? What was her ethnicity?” ”How many children did your mother’s parents have?” ”Did [name of family member] abuse drugs or alcohol?” ”Did [name of family member] have any mental or physical illnesses? What were/are they?”
Researching Family History
Write down what you know already. Chances are, you already know quite a bit about your family history, especially if you’re close with one or more of your family members. Take a look at the questions you’ve formed and see how many you can answer on your own.
Talk to family members. Once you’ve exceeded your own knowledge, it’s time to talk to family members. Ask questions about family relationships and significant events. Take good notes. While the questions you have written down will help you with the outline of what you’re trying to learn, you may also get useful information you didn’t think about when you listen to stories from your family members. Be mindful that these discussions may be difficult for some family members. Be prepared to listen to lots of stories. Stories are some of the best means by which we remember and transfer information––encourage these as they arise by listening attentively and asking open-ended questions that motivate the person to share more information.
Search through family books and documents, and the internet. Sometimes your family won’t be able to remember everything you need to know, or they may not wish to share it with you. Web searches or family books can be used to cross check what you’ve learned from your family or fill in some gaps. However, you should be sure that this information is accurate if you decide to use it.
Look at your own history. You have a wealth of information within your own personal history that can help you with a baseline. Gather information from your own medical records. Take into account what medications you may be using, as you can use this information to find out if any of your family members take the same, or similar medication for a condition.
Learn the familial relationships. When making a genogram you’ll need to know how everyone in your family is connected. Research the unions between family members, gathering information on marriages, divorces, children, etc. Take note of who is married, who is divorced, who may be living together outside of marriage. Is anyone widowed? What about separation, or forced separation? Depending on what you’re trying to learn from making a genogram, you may have to ask some deeper, and sometimes uncomfortable questions to determine relationships. You may have to know if anyone in your family had one-night or very short term relationships and how many. Or, if anyone was ever in a forced relationship. Be mindful of who you are talking to and what kinds of questions you are asking as this could be uncomfortable for some.
Learn the emotional relationships. Now that you know how everyone is connected, it’s time to learn what kind of emotional relationships your family members have/had. Uncovering the answers to the emotional questions will be extremely useful when trying to determine any psychological factors in your family. Are members of a union loving? Do members get along? Maybe some of your family can’t stand each other. As you dig deeper, look for patterns of abuse or neglect. You can go even further and differentiate between physical and emotional components.
Designing Your Genogram
Design your genogram. Genogram templates are available online or you can start from scratch and fill one out by hand. You can also purchase software programs designed specifically for creating genograms.
Use standard genogram symbols to represent family members and relationships, both normal and dysfunctional. The symbols act as a visual indicator of the information you gathered in your interviews. You can draw the standard genogram symbols by hand or by using the "draw" or "shapes" options in a word processing program. Males are indicated by a square. When indicating a marriage, position the male symbol to the left. Women are indicated by a circle. When indicating a marriage, position the female symbol to the right. A single horizontal line indicates marriage and two slanted lines separation. The oldest child is always below and to the left of his family, whereas the youngest should be below and to the right. Other available symbols help you describe family events such as pregnancy or miscarriage, illnesses and deaths. There is even a diamond symbol to represent pets.
Organize the chart based on family interactions beginning with the oldest generation you want to represent at the top. For example, you may decide to start your genogram with your grandparents or even your great grandparents. Genograms can be used to show the diversity in family relationships as well as patterns of illnesses. A genogram includes symbols to indicate family interactions such as conflict, closeness, estrangement, etc. Emotional relationships have specific symbols that help keep the flow of the genogram clear. There are also symbols that denote sexual and physical abuse as well as mental and physical disorders.
Look for patterns. Once you've made the genogram, look carefully to see what patterns can be identified. There may be hereditary patterns or particular psychological tendencies that are very noticeable when grouped together in this way. Be careful about making assumptions. The data is one thing, but avoid using it to confirm that your family has a particular disease, or mental issue. Talk to a medical professional about any potential for hereditary problems of this type. Avoid using the genogram to make assumptions about the motivations of family members as well, or using this to confront them. While you might find your aunt has a tendency to quit every job she has ever had while your cousin has always seemed to steal other people's boyfriends, it's not a good idea to use the genogram to "prove" your point that a family member needs psychoanalysis. Be very careful to avoid approaching your family members in a judgmental way as a result of making a genogram; talk to your family or personal counselor before proceeding to reach conclusions from a self-generated genogram. If you're writing up the family history, patterns established in a genogram can be very helpful as a way of explaining why ancestral family members left one geographical area for another, what sorts of relationship issues members had and may help to unearth other family members who were not officially recognized.
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