preview

Family Genogram Analysis

Better Essays
Open Document

Family is a multifaceted entity that shapes an individual’s identity throughout their life. The interpersonal experiences gained through interactions often leads to the assumption of roles and development of communication styles influencing the families’ conflict handling and resolution styles. In family counselling, a genogram is drawn out to understand family’s developmental stage, intergenerational patterns and to develop therapeutic interventions. This essay will present my family genogram with an aim to reflect on the adjustment issue faced to transition into the role of a new mother, whilst wrangling with the potentiality of losing my father to a life –threatening heart attack. It will endeavour to present an analytical overview of the …show more content…

The first observation made was the expansiveness of my extended family. Although my immediate family, made up of my parents and brother before marriage, husband and kids after marriage would by definition be classified as a nuclear family (Raina, 1988), examining my parent’s generation illustrates a larger family structure where my father was the sixth child of the family of ten children and my mother twelfth child of the family of thirteen children. An interesting fact which was uncovered during this process, was the revelation that my maternal grandmother may have had many more miscarriages than denoted on the genogram. To complete the maternal side of my genogram help was sought from my aunty, an oldest surviving member of the family. The revelation that my mother was unaware of her own family rank could be indication of either disconnected communication between my maternal grandmother and children of the lower rank or attributed to the cultural taboo where topics like abortion or miscarriage were not openly discussed and often hidden even to family …show more content…

In addition to basic counselling skills, family sculpting or narrative therapy may prove to be effective therapeutic interventions. Family sculpting is a form of psychodrama that allows family to enact their self -reflective position to gain some distance from their entrenched role (Sori & Hecker; 2003). This intervention proves to be particularly helpful in communicating the emotional need for gratification, acknowledgement and appreciation which would in turn be effective in breaking the vicious cycle of attacking and withdrawing. The second intervention which may be effective is narrative therapy. Narrative therapy operates on the tenets of externalising an issue and re-authoring the story, based on the client’s strength (Flaskas, McCarthy & Sheehan, 2007). This intervention involves achieving change by understanding the meaning assigned to the individual’s experience, helping the client liberate themselves from destructive or limiting stories to create an alternative stories.
The above essay outlined the journey of handling transitions in my life as a new mother and simultaneously dealing with the stressor of losing my father. Through the help of genogram it aimed to conceptualise the stage of family development as the “child bearing” phase and discussed the transference of intergenerational

Get Access