Family Genogram
Working on the genogram of my family.
One of my absolute favorite classes this semester is Methods and Procedures of Counseling… I LOVE IT! I learn so much in that class. My professor, Dr. Terri Pardee, assigns us a lab/assignment every week (as well as a test every Friday). She believes that we cannot ask our (future) clients to do anything that we have not done ourselves. For example, if we ask them to keep track of their self-talk during the week, then we need to know how difficult and time consuming (yet possible) it is to actually do. Therefore, we took a week to record our personal self-talk. This week, we are studying Rogerian Therapy (inspired and founded by Carl Rogers). This is also known as Person-Centered Therapy. For our assignment this week, we had to create a genogram of our family.
Sound confusing? It was actually a really interesting assignment! A genogram is basically like a psychological family tree. It is a pictorial display of a person’s family relationships and in my genogram, I also recorded education and religion. We had to track our immediate family, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and our grandparents’ siblings. I had to make several phone calls to my parents and grandparents in order to research my family history. I think it is so fascinating to look back through my family and see patterns in marriages, religion and education.
Fortunately, I have a pretty small family so I was able to fit my entire genogram on a piece of computer paper. However, I’m sure that some family trees can get to be pretty extensive. Have you ever taken a look at your family tree? You may discover some things that you never knew about your extended family.
God bless! Have a wonderful week.
