If needed, the creator of the diagram can add additional, custom-made shapes that contain more specific information and describe them in a legend. The predefined symbols of genograms contain basic information whether a member of the family has a physical or mental illness, or even if there is a suspicion of a drug or alcohol abuse. They are often used by psychologists, psychiatrists, and physicians. Health information genograms Genograms with health information are often drawn to serve as a starting point for diagnosing a disease or even for predicting a possible illness that a child may inherit genetically. Here are some examples of the shapes and their meanings: The connector lines and shapes can also tell who is living and who has passed away, if people are married or simply living together and more.

This is done by specific symbols and connectors, telling the viewer if a child was miscarried, if there was an abortion, if there are twins, if someone is adopted, etc. Unlike family trees, however, genograms contain additional information including the way people are related. Let's look at them in further detail.īasic genograms The most basic layer of the genogram contains the family members and the way each person is related to the rest. While in some genograms all layers co-exist, sometimes diagrams are drawn separately for each of the above-mentioned purposes. The third layer adds additional clarity of the emotional bonds and relationships, including who was in love with whom, who is obsessed by someone else, who is abusive mentally and/or physically, etc. The second layer usually contains information on diseases such as heart condition, diabetes, etc. The first layer describes the basic information related to the people in the family - marriage, divorce, children, etc. The main task of genograms is to visualize the relationships between the members within a family on a very deep level, as well as the genetic diseases which may be transferred from/to a family member.ĭespite that genograms are not strictly categorized on different types, most of them contain three layers. Although they are used to describe families and blood relatives connections, genograms greatly differ in look and purpose from the family tree diagrams. Genograms are amongst the youngest members of the diagramming family, with a starting use in 1985.

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