Systemic tool · Genogram
What you need to know about the genogram, a systemic tool
Over the centuries, many people have had this intuition: we can suffer, in our present, from stakes that go beyond us. To address this question within the space of therapy, there is an ideal tool. Its name: the genogram.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana (1863-1952)
What is at stake here is a transgenerational inheritance: things that played out at the level of our parents, our grandparents, and even beyond, and that continue to weigh on our lives.
Behind its mysterious name, the genogram conceals a set of signs that make it possible to visually represent the relational bonds within a family: the stakes, the repetitions, the patterns. It brings to light, sometimes with striking obviousness, things that were until then invisible to our eyes — things that give full meaning to our sufferings, our demons, our symptoms, and that sometimes allow us to free ourselves from them.
Resources for practising
Two reference works were used to build this presentation: Les génogrammes d’aujourd’hui : la clinique systémique en mouvement and Génogrammes : mille et un contes de familles.
To draw your own genograms, several software tools exist:
- EdrawSoft and its genogram software;
- Lucidchart, to build a genogram online;
- GenoPro.
If you want to know everything about this tool and learn the basics of using it, you are in the right place: I explain it all in the video below — in French.
How to cite this article
Besse, J. (2022, January 31). What you need to know about the genogram, a systemic tool. Complexe Systémique. https://app.complexe-systemique.com/en_GB/articles/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-genogram-a-systemic-tool
To go further
- The family map: master this basic tool of systemic therapyOften confused with the genogram, it nonetheless has its own use, from the social phase of the interview onwards.
- What does Steve Jobs' genogram reveal?The tool applied to a famous trajectory: the little-known family history of Apple's founder.
- The family novel: when writing becomes a training tool for therapistsPutting family history back to work through writing, in the training of therapists.
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