A genogram (also known as a McGoldrick–Gerson study,
a Lapidus schematic
or a family diagram) is a pictorial display of a person's
family relationships
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Ideall ...
and
medical history
The medical history, case history, or anamnesis (from Greek: ἀνά, ''aná'', "open", and μνήσις, ''mnesis'', "memory") of a patient is information gained by a physician by asking specific questions, either to the patient or to other peo ...
. It goes beyond a traditional
family tree
A family tree, also called a genealogy or a pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. More detailed family trees, used in medicine and social work, are known as genograms.
Representations of ...
by allowing the user to visualize hereditary patterns and psychological factors that punctuate relationships.
It can be used to identify repetitive patterns of behavior and to recognize hereditary tendencies.
Murray Bowen
Murray Bowen (; January 31, 1913, in Waverly, Tennessee – October 9, 1990) was an American psychiatrist and a professor in psychiatry at Georgetown University. Bowen was among the pioneers of family therapy and a noted founder of systemic the ...
invented the concept of the genogram as part of his family systems model in the 1970s. Genograms were later developed and popularized in clinical settings by Monica McGoldrick and Randy Gerson through the publication of a book titled ''Genograms: Assessment and Intervention'' in 1985. Genograms are now used by various groups of people in a variety of fields such as
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
,
psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry.
Initial psych ...
,
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
,
social work
Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...
,
genetic research,
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
, and many more. Some practitioners in personal and
family therapy
Family therapy (also referred to as family counseling, family systems therapy, marriage and family therapy, couple and family therapy) is a branch of psychology and clinical social work that works with families and couples in intimate relationsh ...
use genograms for personal records and/or to explain family dynamics to the client. Few if any genealogists use them. More recently there has been an increase in the recognition and use of systemic therapies and methods to augment more traditional behaviour assessment, clinical formulation and case consultation.
Symbols
A genogram is created with simple symbols representing the gender, with various lines to illustrate family relationships. Some genogram users also put circles around members who live in the same living spaces. Genograms can be prepared by using a complex word processor, or a computer drawing program. There are also computer programs that are custom designed for genograms.
![Genogram symbols](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Genogram_symbols.svg)
Genogram symbols will usually have the date of birth (and date of death if applicable) above, and the name of the individual underneath. The inside of the symbol will hold the person's current age or various codes for
genetic diseases
A genetic disorder is a health problem caused by one or more abnormalities in the genome. It can be caused by a mutation in a single gene (monogenic) or multiple genes (polygenic) or by a chromosomal abnormality. Although polygenic disorders ...
or user-defined properties: abortions, still-births,
SIDS
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden unexplained death of a child of less than one year of age. Diagnosis requires that the death remain unexplained even after a thorough autopsy and detailed death scene investigation. SIDS usual ...
, cohabitations, etc.
Content
A genogram can contain a wealth of information on the families represented. It will not only show the names of people who belong to a family lineage, but how these relatives relate to each other. For example, a genogram will not only show that a person called Paul and his wife Lily have three children, but that their eldest child was sent to boarding school; that their middle child is always in conflict with her mother; that their youngest has juvenile diabetes; that Paul suffered from
depression, was an
alcoholic
Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol that results in significant mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognized diagnostic entity. Predomin ...
, and a philosopher; and that Lily has not spoken to her brother for years, has breast cancer, and has a history of quitting her jobs.
Family relationships
One of the advantages of a genogram is the ability to use colour-coded lines to define different types of relationships such as
family relationships
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Ideall ...
, emotional relationships and
social relation
A social relation or also described as a social interaction or social experience is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more individuals ...
ships. Within family relationships, you can illustrate if a couple is married, divorced, common-law, engaged, etc.
Emotional relationships
Genograms may also include emotional relationships. These provide an in-depth analysis of how individuals relate to one another. Colour-coded lines represent various emotional relationships that bond individuals together.
Social relationships
Another component of genograms is social relationships. These allow users to link individuals who are not related to one another, but who have a connection in society-at-large, such as neighbor, co-worker, boss-employee, pastor-church member, teacher-student, etc. Social relationships can also illustrate an individual's relation to a social entity. The use of social relationships links allows the genogram to be used in a business environment to create
organizational chart
An organizational chart, also called organigram, organogram, or organizational breakdown structure (OBS) is a diagram that shows the structure of an organization and the relationships and relative ranks of its parts and positions/jobs. The term ...
s or
floor plan
In architecture and building engineering, a floor plan is a technical drawing to scale, showing a view from above, of the relationships between rooms, spaces, traffic patterns, and other physical features at one level of a structure.
Dimensio ...
layouts of the employees.
A genogram looks like a
family tree
A family tree, also called a genealogy or a pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. More detailed family trees, used in medicine and social work, are known as genograms.
Representations of ...
, but with all the different types of relationships, it contains a significantly more detailed and complete picture of the family or group it illustrates.
Purpose
Genealogy
In
genealogy
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kins ...
, genograms are used to record
family history
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their Lineage (anthropology), lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family a ...
through the lives of each of its members. Genograms allow the genealogist to graphically portray complex family trees that show marriages and divorces,
reconstituted families, adoptions, strained relationships, family cohesion, etc. Genealogists can use genograms to discover and analyze interesting facts about their family history, such as a naming pattern, sibling rivalry, or significant events like immigration.
Medicine
In
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
, medical genograms provide a quick and useful context in which to
evaluate an individual's health risks. Knowledge of diseases and conditions that occur within a family can give a health care team invaluable information that may aid in a swift, accurate diagnosis and treatment of health problems. And, a knowledge of diseases and illnesses that "run" in families can give individuals an important head start in pursuing effective preventive measures. A medical genogram is helpful in determining patterns of disease or illness within a family. Medical genograms can include many generations, however four generations may prove to be enough detail.
Sociology
Genograms are used by
sociologists
This is a list of sociologists. It is intended to cover those who have made substantive contributions to social theory and research, including any sociological subfield. Scientists in other fields and philosophers are not included, unless at least ...
to gather objective and consistent information from the clients and their family, helping them to view the client's issues in the larger context of their marital relationship, family relationships and culture of origin and underlining key issues to discuss in client
counseling
Counseling is the professional guidance of the individual by utilizing psychological methods especially in collecting case history data, using various techniques of the personal interview, and testing interests and aptitudes.
This is a list of co ...
. Genograms portray emotional relationships, which allow Sociologists to see and evaluate possible conflicts within the family. Psychological patterns may be detected in the genogram which provide the basis for precautionary and preventive measures that otherwise might not be warranted.
Social work
In
social work
Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...
, genograms are used to display emotional bonds between individuals composing a family or
social unit
The term "level of analysis" is used in the social sciences to point to the location, size, or scale of a research target.
"Level of analysis" is distinct from the term "unit of observation" in that the former refers to a more or less integrated s ...
. A genogram will help social workers to make an assessment of the level of cohesiveness within a family or a group and to evaluate if proper care is available within that unit. Genograms also allow displaying social relationships that illustrate the places people attend such as schools, churches, youth facilities, associations or
retirement home
A retirement home – sometimes called an old people's home or old age home, although ''old people's home'' can also refer to a nursing home – is a multi-residence housing facility intended for the elderly. Typically, each person or couple i ...
s.
Family therapy
In
family therapy
Family therapy (also referred to as family counseling, family systems therapy, marriage and family therapy, couple and family therapy) is a branch of psychology and clinical social work that works with families and couples in intimate relationsh ...
, genograms are used to study and record relationship patterns between family members and the individual characteristics that make up these patterns that occur. A genogram will help family therapists to make an appropriate assessment of the relationship patterns and where intervention may be needed to help the family reduce the dysfunction and/or problematic situation that brought them into therapy.
Research
In research, genograms allow researchers to understand multi generational processes within various plant and animal species, such as the development of mutations. Genograms can also illustrate rates of renewal, mechanisms of survival, or processes involved in the regulation of tolerance, among other things.
Education
In education, genograms can be used by teachers and students for illustrating book reviews, or family trees of a famous politician, philosopher, scientist, musician, etc. They allow them to focus their attention on specific details and also see the big picture of the books and individuals they are studying.
Creating genograms
Genograms can be useful in almost any profession that deals with
social interaction
A social relation or also described as a social interaction or social experience is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more individuals ...
. Genograms can help to visualize complex interactions between individuals and to study patterns of behaviors or diseases. Genograms are easily created with
genealogy software
Genealogy software is computer software used to record, organize, and publish genealogical data.
Features
At a minimum, genealogy software collects the date and place of an individual's birth, marriage, and death, and stores the relationships o ...
, as advanced software allows the user to include tremendous amounts of data. Genealogy software also allows the user to create detailed reports containing analysis of the information stored in each person's individual properties. Commercial software, such as
Genopro
GenoPro is a software application for drawing family trees and genograms. GenoPro can store additional information such as pictures, contacts, places, sources, occupation and education history for each individual, as well as document the relations ...
, Genome Analytics and iGenogram for iPad is available to produce genograms, as well as hundreds of different academic and scientific programs for specialized uses.
Genograms are often drawn by hand, sketched working right with the client. It is also possible to create a Genogram in any graphics or
word processing
A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...
program.
See also
*
Ahnentafel
An ''ahnentafel'' (German for "ancestor table"; ) or ''ahnenreihe'' ("ancestor series"; ) is a genealogical numbering system for listing a person's direct ancestors in a fixed sequence of ascent. The subject (or proband) of the ahnentafel is l ...
*
Cousin chart
Consanguinity ("blood relation", from Latin '' consanguinitas'') is the characteristic of having a kinship with another person (being descended from a common ancestor).
Many jurisdictions have laws prohibiting people who are related by blood fro ...
(Table of consanguinity)
*
Eco-map An eco-map (or ecomap) is a graphical representation that shows all of the systems at play in an individual's life. Eco-maps are used in individual and family counseling within the social work and nursing profession. They are often a way of portrayi ...
*
Genetic genealogy#Genetic similarity among relatives (for general genetic similarity)
*
Genealogical numbering systems
Several genealogical numbering systems have been widely adopted for presenting family trees and pedigree charts in text format. Among the most popular numbering systems are: Ahnentafel (Sosa-Stradonitz Method), and the Register, NGSQ, Henry, d'Abo ...
*
Pedigree chart
A pedigree chart is a diagram that shows the occurrence and appearance of phenotypes of a particular gene or organism and its ancestors from one generation to the next, most commonly humans, show dogs, and race horses.
Definition
The word pedigree ...
References
{{Reflist
External links
Introduction to genogramsGenogram Analytics, software for genograms and ecomapsUseful PDF including medical geneogram example
Charts
Psychological tests and scales
Family therapy