Genogram

Personal Experience on Family Genogram

Through reflecting upon my family genogram of mine I have enhanced my personal experience about my family. By identifying all the relationship statuses among my family members, I have understood the presence of different challenges and strengths which have been faced by my parents through my journey of upbringing. I understand that my father is the only brother of his five sisters; however, among them two of his sisters have already passed away which I figured to be a huge loss of my parental side.

On the other hand, my mother has two other sisters and all three of them have hypertension but even after having this health condition seeing them alive, I felt hope within me for believing in the management approaches associated with this type of health condition.



The genogram has made me realised that I am close with my other two sisters the most apart from my other four brothers and among my brothers two of them are twins. So, overall, the use of this genogram helped in understands the bond among my family members while also increasing the aspect of self-discovery along with increasing my understanding of the future and past of my family members. 

3.0 Strengths, Effectiveness, and Limitations of Genogram in Social Work

3.1 Strengths 

    The major strength of using genogram in social work involves the presence of increased capacity to reveal the patterns and challenges within different generations (Michiel-Derksen, 2022). Through developing a visual representation of the relationships in the families I figured the presence of different issues like trauma and other mental health issues can be identified by all the practitioners.

The thorough analysis of the condition helps in understanding the behaviour changes and also the well-being status of the individuals while also understanding the challenges associated with change which acts as another strength of using a genogram (Şahin et al., 2017). The use of a genogram helped me increase the engagement status among the family members while developing active participation approaches among them to understand their own histories of their families. 

In social work, the use of genogram also helps in developing an alignment between the client and social workers while increasing the level of trust among them and can also help in increasing the approaches associated with open communication (Bishop, 2017). The overall use of genogram has also helped me understand the family while also increasing the approaches associated with self-reflection among all the members of the family which is one of the major strengths of this approach. 

3.2 Effectiveness

    The overall effectiveness of genogram in the area of social work involves the presence of a specific ability to organise the information of the families by including a systematic approach (Joseph et al., 2023). I understand that the use of genogram can help in dealing with the issues of families like addiction, domestic violence, and challenges associated with mental health. The increased use of genogram can help in analysing all the challenges in the families to help the social workers for the development of an effective intervention plan for securing the families (Piasecka et al., 2018).  

Furthermore, I also assessed that the effectiveness of a genogram is also related to the assessments of clinical health among the individuals of a family while providing information about the health status of the family members. Tools like genogram are not only flexible to use but can also help in managing critical cases and developing appropriate therapies while also maintaining child welfare goals (Pistor, 2019). The effectiveness of a genogram can also affect all of my future practices associated with social work. 

3.3 Limitations

    Apart from all the strengths of genogram several challenges of involving genogram by the social workers can also be identified. As per Furtado Nogueira et al., (2017), one of the major limitations of genogram is the lack of analysis of the emotional challenges among the family members. I realised that the increased use of genogram can also help in the analysis of the relationship between any two specific members of the family but it is unable to identify the reasons behind the emotional challenges within the member. 

Another limitation is the involvement of bias in this tool as the whole diagram needs to be developed based on the provided information only (Alexander et al., 2022). I understand that the maintenance of accuracy levels in the genogram diagram mainly depends on my increased understanding of the relationships of the family members while also focusing on analysing the reasons behind them.   
The last limitation involves the decreased effectiveness of the genogram at the time of working with families who are unfamiliar with the whole concept (Joseph et al., 2023). I identified that there are families who find the whole process to be uncomfortable for them. 

4.0 Ethical Challenges Associated with Genogram

The presence of different ethical challenges in social work assignment help related to genograms first involves revealing sensitive family information, such as mental health issues (Libbon et al., 2019). However, I realized that if the information is shared with the individuals' consent, maintaining privacy rules becomes a crucial positive approach for social workers.

All social workers are required to help family members understand the importance of a genogram when collecting consent (Chege et al., 2023). Another ethical challenge, as per my understanding, involves obtaining fully informed consent from all family members, particularly those in vulnerable states.

As per Michiel-Derksen (2022), family members might feel pressured when sharing personal information with social workers, especially due to limited understanding of genograms. Other ethical challenges include the lack of a hierarchical structure in families for developing genograms and the presence of cultural differences, which can create issues in explaining family structures.

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Reference List

Alexander, J. H., Callaghan, J. E., & Fellin, L. C. (2022). Genograms in research: participants’ reflections of the genogram process. Qualitative Research in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2018.1545066 
Bishop, J. L. (2017). The importance of trauma-informed practice and how it links to social work practice in the field of mental health (Doctoral dissertation, University of Northern British Columbia). https://doi.org/10.24124/2017/1370   
Chege, C. N., Fu, M., Bustrum, J. M., & Jenks, E. H. (2023). The Worldview Genogram: A process model for enhancing diversity responsiveness and competence in education, training, and clinical supervision. Psychological Services, 20(2), 219. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/ser0000719 
Furtado Nogueira, A. P., Tavares de Lucena, K. D., Vieira Pinto, B. P., Furtado Araújo, M., Carvalho de Ataíde, M. C., Pedrosa Neto, W. D., & de Souza Chaves Deininger, L. (2017). THE IMPORTANCE OF USING GENOGRAMS FOR UNDERSTANDING OF FAMILY DYNAMICS. Journal of Nursing UFPE/Revista de Enfermagem UFPE, 11(12). https://doi.org/10.5205/1981-8963-v11i12a23522p5110-5115-2017 
Joseph, B., Dickenson, S., McCall, A., & Roga, E. (2023). Exploring the therapeutic effectiveness of genograms in family therapy: A literature review. The Family Journal, 31(1), 21-30. https://doi.org/10.1177/10664807221104133
Libbon, R., Triana, J., Heru, A., & Berman, E. (2019). Family skills for the resident toolbox: the 10-min genogram, ecomap, and prescribing homework. Academic Psychiatry, 43, 435-439. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40596-019-01054-6 
Michiel-Derksen, A. (2022). The seven-generation concentric circular genogram. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 18(1), 10-18. https://doi.org/10.1177/11771801221088876 
Piasecka, K., Slusarska, B., & Drop, B. (2018). Genograms in nursing education and practice a sensitive but very effective technique: A systematic review. Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education, 8(6), 1-5. DOI: 10.4172/2161-0711.1000640
Pistor, M. (2019). The utilisation of family counselling by social workers in child and family welfare organisations (Doctoral dissertation, Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University). http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/107150 
Şahin, Y. (2017). Using spiritual genograms in family therapies. Spiritual Psychology and Counseling, 3(1), 47-60. https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/spiritualpc/issue/36824/419480