Mental health across the lifespan

A narrative perspective on genograms: Revisiting classical family therapy methods

Szymon K. Chrzastowski Warsaw University, Poland

Abstract This article presents how genograms, a classic family therapy technique, can be used in the context of narrative therapy. Genograms create a unique opportunity to explore and re-tell family stories thus enabling their re-authoring. An important aspect of this process is that of tracking down family resources and wisdom. The graphic form of a genogram can be very helpful in distancing a person from the dominant narrations in her/his family. Additionally, genogram analysis is an excellent opportunity to conduct re-membering conversation and introducing the “club of life” metaphor. Finally, the creative approach to drawing genograms can be an invitation for family members to “play” with their family stories and, as a consequence, re-position their roles in these stories. The article completes the presentation of the family therapy case study which was inspired by narrative ideas and genogram analysis.

Keywords genograms, narrative therapy

The aim of this article is an invitation to reflect on how genograms – a classic family therapy technique – can be used by narrative therapists. An inspiration for this article was a workshop on attachment narrative therapy given by Arlene Vetere and Rudi Dallos (2008). They proposed, inter alia, how to explore attachment narratives through genograms (Vetere & Dallos, 2008). According to them, genograms can be particularly useful during therapy sessions with people who are characterized by a preoccupied attachment style, since it might help them to gain some distance towards their feelings, to be less emotional and more cognitive and rational in their thinking. Dallos (2006) points out that, for people who employ preoccupied attachment strategies, the emphasis is on strengthening the semantic process, which may be helpful in assisting them to gain some distance from their overwhelming emotions about their family relationships. Genograms can be employed not only to help make sense of different feelings, but also to assist in creating coher- ent stories encompassing these feelings. Moreover, an analysis of genograms enables the explora- tion of the content of their stories of connection and emotions – their dominant attachment narratives. For example, questions about emotional atmosphere in the family of origin can help to

Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry

16(4) 635 –644 © The Author(s) 2011

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DOI: 10.1177/1359104511400966 ccp.sagepub.com

Corresponding author: Szymon Chrzastowski, Faculty of Psychology, Stawki 5/7, 00-183 Warszawa, Poland Email: [email protected]

400966CCPXXX10.1177/1359104511400966ChrzastowskiClinical Child Psychology and psychiatry

Article

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bring out stories about the parent’s childhood experience and encourage the exploration of how this experience shapes their current relationships (Dallos, 2006). Alternatively, genograms can also be used in the opposite direction, with families whose attachment styles are emotionally distant and avoiding. Here they can be used to encourage the expression of feelings. A powerful prompt can be to utilize photographs of family members, including those who are deceased, to evoke hidden and suppressed feelings in the family. Hence the genogram, like many other family therapy techniques, is a flexible approach, and it is quite likely that many therapists do adopt its usage in these ways without fully locating these adaptations within an attachment theory framework.

This article aims to develop some specific ideas about implementing genograms in narrative therapy. Genogram analysis creates a unique occasion to explore and re-tell family stories. Prior to discussing these issues, a traditional approach to genograms1 shall be presented.

The evolution of the approach to genograms

A genogram is a kind of family tree which usually contains some basic information on three or more generations (McGoldrick, Gerson, Shellenberger, 1999). It is a graphic depiction of the fam- ily structure and dynamics, particularly in the context of transgenerational patterns. A genogram is not only a useful tool to gather such information, but can also be treated as a psychotherapeuti- cal technique. It helps in understanding how a family’s past shapes the present and the future of this family. It is a misunderstanding to think that genograms focus on the past history of a family. The analysis of genograms is like travelling into the past when you unexpectedly encounter your own future. This past history is re-told “here and now” so it opens the space for re-authoring the story. Additionally, the re-telling process enables a person to look at their life from a certain dis- tance (built on the basis of verbalization of the interlocutor’s2 experience). This distance is a pre- requisite for externalization.

The analysis of genograms puts family stories in a wider context. It enables us to track collab- oratively with family members how not only their family traditions but also their socio-cultural factors have, and may be continuing to have, an influence on their family (Hardy & Laszloffy, 1995). This is also a very good occasion to look at how historical events shape family functioning. As a consequence, using genograms during therapy may provoke telling of different kinds of stories rather than family problem-saturated stories. In terms of classic systemic therapy, it transfers the attention from the identified patient to the entire family, or even to that family in a particular socio-cultural context and historical time.

The approach to genograms has evolved with the development of systemic family therapy. The family therapy methods devised in the first and the second stage of the development of systemic family therapy can be considered as classic family therapy methods, therefore methods which were not inspired by social constructionism. Dallos and Draper (2005) proposed dividing the development of systemic family therapy into three phases. In the first phase, a genogram is used as a diagnostic tool which enables different transgenerational family patterns to be singled out. Psychotherapists assess these patterns by comparing them to some normative models of family functioning and, on the basis of this diagnosis, prepare the therapeutic intervention. Therapists, as experts, interpret genograms presented by family members. During the second phase the analysis of genograms becomes rather an occasion for therapists to create a different hypothesis about the family. Additionally, a genogram provokes curiosity. At this point, some therapists gave up using genograms during therapy due to being more interested in the family functioning at the present moment and not in the past. Conversely, a genogram could provide the answer to the question of how family history can potentially shape the family process. This question leads to the third phase

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of systemic family therapy, in which therapists analyze how the therapy participants construct their social world. In this phase, genograms turn out to be helpful in analyzing the socio-cultural context of families.

Narrative therapy has started to change the perspective on families. For narrative therapists, the story metaphor has organized the way of thinking about the participants of family therapy. The metaphor of a family as a collection of different stories has replaced the metaphor of a family as a system (Freedman & Combs, 1996). A genogram is an excellent occasion to get to know how family stories are created. In the narrative approach, the analysis of genograms is a process of re-telling family stories in a way which is helpful for the session participants.

The genogram as a source of family narrations

Genogram analysis is an excellent opportunity to become familiar with the array of family stories that constitute the given family. Also, in the traditional approach to this technique, genograms create a convenient and natural pretext to tell family stories and subsequently lead to reflection on these stories. The participants of a therapeutic session, based on the genogram, can ask themselves the question of how the stories told in their family in the past can affect what is cur- rently happening, and what stories are currently being retold. It is assumed that family narrations shape the way the family members perceive each other; they impose certain interpretations of behaviours of relatives and sometimes even dictate the very reactions towards family members. In this sense, the use of genograms to become familiar with the family narrations in essence does not differ from the way it is used in the first phase of development of family therapy. The therapist, however, does not place him/herself in the role of an expert-diagnostician who judges which family stories are a sign of pathology (cf. Dallos, Draper & 2005). The therapist does not consider which narrations can be deemed to be dysfunctional, as they assume that the persons telling these stories have their good reasons to do so. Sometimes these reasons lie in the personal experience of family members, but at other times these narrations were formed under the influence of stories told and passed on (sometimes from generation to generation) by various important people in the family.

A family can be approached as a group of related people, but also (which in itself is closer to the systemic approach) as a certain collection of stories (Freedman & Combs, 1996). A portion of these stories still need to be uttered, while a part are well-known: old stories retold countless times, each time in a new way. This new way of retelling stories allows them to be reinterpreted in a way that will better serve the person presenting the genogram.

A genogram also provides the opportunity to enrich the narrations told in a given family. Enrichment of stories is particularly important from the point of view of narrative therapy (Payne, 2006). According to this approach, narrations can be divided into “thin” and “thick” stories. Thin stories do not contain multiple interpretations, while thick ones are open to reinterpretation, take into consideration several different points of view, and have an individual perspective. Sometimes it is the case that family members participating in therapy assume a very concrete understanding perspective of the family stories told by them. A commonly-encountered standpoint is that return- ing to family history has to be a painful and difficult experience. In this perspective, genogram analysis is a way of returning to such experiences, an analysis of pathological reactions or trau- matic wounds. Genogram analysis is intended to assist therapists in noticing a person’s history which, until that time, had not been attended to. Genogram analysis can also take place based on a search for unique outcomes in family stories. Sometimes this different way of approaching the his- tory of a given family is also connected with looking for the resources, strong aspects and wisdom

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of the family. Genogram analysis should not be reduced solely to tracking down pathologies, trauma and a return to painful histories, but also (and perhaps above all) to involve searching for those stories that carry encouragement and support or provide knowledge on how to cope with difficulties in the future.

The students that I have contact with tell me just how much the analysis of unique outcomes helps to gain a fresh look at the heritage of one’s family. Students can choose a family therapy course as one of their options on the fourth year of their psychology studies (which in Poland lasts five years in total). One such course is dedicated to the analysis of one’s own genograms. At the beginning of the course, participants expect to be “tracking down the pathologies in their families”. Their expectations are shaped, among other things, by the classes dedicated to psychopathology mechanisms or family functioning disorders that they participate in during the course of their stud- ies. They also acquire the conviction that a therapist concentrates above all on the difficult and painful things. Therefore, the more prepared the students are to talk about the suffering connected with family experiences, the more difficult it is for them to talk about “unique outcomes”. At first they say that they are “unprepared” and that they “don’t know what to say”. However, by including “unique outcomes” in their family story, they enrich it. The story becomes multidimensional (which does not signify that it becomes easier or more positive for them). “Unique outcomes” do not so much always lead the students to construct an alternative story about their family, but they start to perceive different subtle nuances in the already-existing story.

The genogram as re-membering conversation

The concept of re-membering conversations is well known in the field of narrative therapy (White, 2007). White uses the metaphor of a “club of life” for people who are influential with regard to how the person constructs his or her identity (White, 1997). These people are members of that person’s club of life. On the other hand, some “forgotten” significant figures in life may not be members of this club for various reasons. Re-membering conversation leads to the development of a multi-voiced sense of identity by inviting some new people to the club or, in some cases, by excluding certain people from the club.

Genograms depict people who are already members of the club or who can potentially apply for membership. The club metaphor conveys important messages. First, membership is not obtained automatically. Some people hold the belief that a member of the family automatically has membership status. They are not aware that they can choose members of their club. There is a Polish saying: “You do not choose your family members.” Yes, this is true; however, you can choose who you admit to be a member of your club of life. Second, a genogram can also include non-family members who are members of the club of life. A family is a social construct and some- times people without any blood relations can be considered by the person as “family members”.

Working with genograms can engage all the participants of a psychotherapeutic session. Telling family stories has the power to rebuild or change relationships between family members. This process also enables the reconstruction of the genogram author’s identity as a family member. Other family members are witnesses of this reconstruction and can help to facilitate it. In order to avoid interpretations which often lead to a thin description of family history, participants of the sessions can be invited to make comments as an outsider witness.

Case example: Adam and Peter

The case material employed to illustrate the use of the “club of life” metaphor comes from a gay couple, Adam (34) and Peter (29)3, who were self-referred to the private practice of the author of

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this article. The couple had been together for seven years. During the first consultation, Peter said that the moment his father found out about his relationship with another man he demanded that he discontinue the relationship. When Peter refused to do this his father slapped him and threw him out of the home with the words “I no longer have a son!” The mother was an onlooker. She begged her son with tears in her eyes to “change his attitude”, as quoted by Peter. He rented a flat with Adam and, in time, they bought their own flat. They currently run an online shop. Unfortunately their business had not been doing very well of late. Peter fell into a state of depression and Adam considered him to be “feeling sorry for himself” and “whinging”. Adam was becoming increas- ingly more agitated by Peter’s attitude. Recently, after a particularly difficult day at work when Peter refused to go to a music club – explaining that he was not in the mood and was tired – Adam started calling Peter vulgar names. Peter reacted by hitting his partner. He was so shocked by what he had done that he decided to seek help.

During the therapy Peter returned to the incident of being hit by his father. He thought that he hit Adam because he (Peter) was like his father. This terrified Peter because, up until then, he had been trying to expel his father from his thoughts. He felt rejected by his family because of his sexual orientation. He didn’t keep in touch with any of them. According to him, the fact that he hit Adam meant that he would “never free himself from his family” and this made him feel sad and angry.

Adam, on the other hand, felt that Peter’s behaviour posed a threat to their relationship. Adam stressed that his partner and a few other friends of his were the most important to him and he referred to them as his family. He also didn’t understand Peter’s longing for his family. He knew them only from Peter’s accounts. These stories always placed Peter’s family in a bad light.

Adam had loose ties with his family. His mother was still alive; his father died five years before. He stated that his parents knew that he was gay but he never discussed it openly with them. He quickly moved out by going to a university that was located 500 km away from home. Because of the distance separating them, he seldom visited his parents. He had supported himself since the first year of his studies.

The family issue turned out to be very important both for Peter (particularly family patterns that he can repeat in his own life) as well as for Adam (the issue of who he can call his family). When they were talking about their families, they seemed to be emotionally moved. At the beginning Peter appeared anxious, as indicated by his difficulties in maintaining eye contact and the quiver in his voice. He shared information about himself in a chaotic way. Adam felt “overwhelmed by problems” and rejected by his partner. He said that, sometimes, he was so tired and angry that he wanted to “give it up” (he didn’t explain what he wanted to give up). Both Peter and Adam were more relaxed when talking about their friends. Their attachment style could be characterized as preoccupied.

To encourage the expression of cognition the therapist suggested that the pair draw a genogram extended by the persons that are important to them but with whom they are not connected by blood ties. They were both interested in this kind of work. They started creating their genograms on the second session but kept on referring to it at subsequent appointments. Initially, their work on the genograms enabled them to acquire a certain emotional distance towards the experiences they had had in their families. They started constructing a more cohesive narration about their past. The work on the genogram made them calmer because, according to them, they had greater control of what they were saying. The therapist, using the genogram, focused on the development of reflectivity in the couple.

As Peter and Adam’s sense of security increased, the narrative based on the genogram became richer. They accentuated their sense of being different, alienation and not belonging to a family.

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During family meetings they could not openly talk about themselves and, when Peter finally did talk about himself, he was hit and thrown out of home. They talked about their anger towards their family; they felt hurt and treated unjustly (“they have forgotten about us”). On the other hand, they longed for the sense of being a member of a family (they stressed that they were not so much even referring to their families of origin, but to a “family atmosphere” and a sense of belonging). While working on the genogram, they expressed their sense of loss that they had tried to compensate by building an alternative family with their friends. At this stage of therapy the genogram helped Peter and Adam to explore their feelings in a comfortable and secure way. The genogram is a flexible therapy method as it enables the strengthening of semantic and reflective processes but also assists people in analyzing their different feelings towards family members.

The very fact of drawing a family tree helped both Peter and Adam to come closer to their families once again. Adam commented on this by saying: “Regardless of whether they want it or not, we are their family!”. At first the couple concentrated on investigating the prejudices towards gay people in their families. By analyzing where the prejudices came from, they came to the conclusion that their root was in the stereotypical and widespread image of a gay person in their environments. They also started to think about whether all the persons in their family had a simi- larly negative attitude to them because of their sexual orientation. They came to the conclusion that many of the family members they knew had a very negative attitude towards gay people dic- tated by various types of cultural prejudices. By identifying these prejudices, Adam tried to simul- taneously illustrate them by the small caricatures added to the genogram (illustrating in this way different types of prejudices towards homosexuals). The genogram slowly started to look like a comic strip. Their stories also started to become richer. They exchanged anecdotes from their family life and laughingly returned to some of the stories. Adam and Peter also discovered that they presupposed a homophobic approach on some family members. The genogram allowed them to single these persons out.

At this point in the therapy the “club of life” metaphor could be introduced. Both participants of the therapy could relate well to it because they both had their favourite music club. They dedicated the majority of the session to thinking about who belonged to their club or who they would like to invite to it. For Peter, the realization that he himself can actually offer membership in his club rather than just being a person who is “thrown out of certain clubs” turned out to be particularly important (this also initiated a re-authoring conversation, which there is no space to discuss further at the moment). Adam started to consider inviting his cousin (a child friend with whom he has lost contact) to their mutual club. They also started to think about how their family messages influenced the way they built their clubs of life and who they invited to them.

The genogram as family drama

The visualization of a family tree helps people look at their families from a somewhat different perspective than usual. Family members are encouraged not only to verbalize their thoughts and feelings but also he or she can see some elements of his/her story on the picture. The picture of the family tree can help them to construct this story and make this story more coherent.

The graphic form of a genogram can be very helpful in distancing a person from some dominant narrations in their family. When family stories are overwhelming and saturated with emotions, it is difficult to re-tell them in a new way. The graphic form demands some distance from the story which is presented, and this distance opens the space for enriching the story.

A genogram can be portrayed not only in the conventional picture of a family tree. Although the classic form of a genogram is represented in a very clear way, it sometimes provokes the telling of

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a thin story. A genogram can be a creative picture full of individual metaphors and signs which are meaningful for therapy participants. They can make this picture very lively, full of different stories which are represented by various symbols on the picture. Family members are encouraged to draw their own genogram pictures (sometimes on the basis of conventional genograms) using different colours and adding small pictures and signs. This kind of work makes family members more engaged in the therapy process and also more curious. Moreover, drawing a picture also has a symbolic meaning. The clients themselves are the authors of these pictures so they can make re- authorization stories which they tell.

A creative approach to drawing genograms can be an invitation for family members to play with their various family stories. The idea of playing with problems comes from the works of Epston (Freeman, Epston, Lobovits, 1997). The therapy participants, in telling their stories, often take single fixed positions (or roles) in these stories; for example, it could be a position of a loving mother or the black sheep of the family. Playing with stories means that a person can re-position her/himself by paying attention to the neglected aspects of a re-told story. A genogram creates a good context for this re-positioning (cf. Vetere & Dallos, 2008). One of the ways for re-positioning are questions directed at the therapy participants, for example:

• How would other family members tell the story I have just heard? • If X had told the story I have just heard, what would it look like? • If X had told the story, what could she/he say about you, about your position in this story? • What are the important values for your family which are addressed in this story? Which of

these values would you like to fulfil in your life? In what other ways can this value be fulfilled?

• What would you like to do in a similar way and what in a different way from what your family members did in the past?

• What can you learn from this family history? In what way can this knowledge be helpful to you in the future?

Another way that facilitates “playing with ideas” is an invitation for the therapy participants to act out different scenes that would depict their family stories (cf. Vetere & Dallos, 2008). Various objects such as stones, shells or even buttons can symbolize given family members. People who have passed away that are important to the client can also be represented in this type of drama. Of course, the therapy session participants themselves lend voice to the symbolic objects. Reiterating, they direct their stories, which are told with the use of these objects. The consultant-therapist merely indicates the different possibilities that are open to “the director” of the scenes.

The genogram does not always have to be depicted in the form of a drawing but can be a com- position made up of different types of objects. The very choice of objects for the genogram can provoke a conversation about the family. This talk, based on the choice of objects symbolizing given family members, seems to be easier for the clients as it does not give rise to so much anxiety. Humour and certain elements of play accompanying the scenes create a safe atmosphere facilitat- ing the exploration of often difficult and painful stories.

Family drama was used in the work with the Kowalski family (Mary: 39 years old, Stefan: 43 years old, Eve: 15 years old, and John: 7 years old). The family was referred to the university fam- ily therapy centre by a psychologist who had contact with Eve after she ran away from home for a few days. Eve ran away from home after her parents forbade her to see her boyfriend who was five years older than she. According to her parents, her performance in school had deteriorated since she started seeing this boy. They could also smell alcohol on her breath on several occasions.

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Eve’s mother cried a lot during two consecutive sessions. She stressed how much she loved her children and “how she completely doesn’t understand why it happened the way it did”. Eve usually reacted with anger to her mother’s crying, which in turn deepened her mother’s grief. The father remained sitting in his chair unmoved by the situation and avoiding eye contact with both the mother and his daughter. Their son was playing with some shells that he found on the therapist’s desk. The conflict between mother and daughter seemed to evidently dominate during the meeting. The other persons could not be heard and both ladies seemed oblivious of what was going on around them.

The therapist suggested that they look at what other persons (not only the father and son) would say if they heard their conversation. He asked the daughter and mother if they would be interested in listening to it. He then asked whose opinion would be important to the therapy participants. For Mary, it would have been important to hear the opinion of her own mother and her sister, as well as her husband’s brother. The daughter chose her father (which her mother failed to mention) as well as her grandparents from her father’s side; she failed to mention her boyfriend. The husband also pointed to his brother but also his late grandmother. John did not choose anybody. The thera- pist asked him to choose a shell that would represent the persons that were mentioned a while ago the best. He also asked Eve to draw a diagram depicting her family (a genogram) under the direc- tion of the co-therapist.

This intervention dispelled the tensions that had mounted between the mother and daughter during the course of the meeting and introduced the perspective of other important persons. The mother and daughter started to talk more calmly and think about how other people could comment on their conversation (had they witnessed it). They distanced themselves more from what they were saying. The calmer tone of voice helped the father join in the conversation: he did not present his own perspective directly but simply added what comments other people could have made (in this way, indirectly and in a safer way for himself, he was presenting his own views). John also said something from time to time: he would put his hand on the shell representing the person and said “what that shell had to say”. Talking “through shells” at the next session was “transferred” to a discussion on the genogram, particularly showing feelings to one another in Mary’s and Stefan’s families.

Invitation to the genogram

Genogram analysis is only a proposal for the client or family and not a strictly constituent part of therapy. This proposal is offered to families when they start to talk about their families of origin and this issue seems to be particularly important for them. In this case, a therapist can ask a client if she/he is potentially interested in the conversation about her/his family of origin. A genogram can be introduced as a way of exploring family stories in the form of a family tree which some people find useful during psychotherapy sessions. A genogram points out certain directions that can be taken in the conversation without limiting it to this aspect alone.

There is always a danger for the therapist to direct the session according to her/his own views. For this reason it is crucial to ask family members during genogram analysis if they perceive this direction as a beneficial for them. The analysis of genograms can also be a technique which assists conversation during future psychotherapy sessions. Clients can refer to their genograms as the need arises. A graphic form of family tree can help them in returning to their family history at any point in time.

A case study shall be presented to illustrate family consultations inspired by narrative ideas and genogram analysis. The family consists of a mother, Carol (27 years old), a father, Peter (30) and

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a daughter, Kate (5). Kate suffered from eczema. The family was self-referred due to an increasing number of quarrels between Carol and Peter. They both wanted to reduce the number of quarrels.

Pater complained that his wife, after a row with him, told her daughter: “Your Daddy is bad”. He found these words very hurtful. Carol’s response to this was that she did not mean to say it but she was also so hurt that she could not help it. The therapist focused on the impact of “hurt” on their relationship. This issue quickly led them to talk about their families of origin.

Carol felt rejected by her parents. She disappointed them as she chose to study a subject which was not prestigious for her parents. Prestige was an important value for Carol’s parents. Whenever she mentioned her family she broke down in tears. Peter emotionally distanced himself from his wife’s crying. She interpreted Peter’s reaction as a sign of rejection and felt very lonely. When this type of interaction was repeated during subsequent therapy sessions, their daughter, Kate, fell asleep.

The therapeutic team asked the family if they were interested in discussing Carol’s and Peter’s families of origins in the context of their marital relationship. They both agreed that it could be potentially interesting for them. Peter found the genogram interesting as it helped him to “structur- alize the therapy and understand what is going on”. Carol said that the genogram helped her express her feelings “but in a calmer way”. This “calmer way” was important for her as it opened the space for reflection.

Carol discovered that her behaviour towards Peter was in some way similar to her mother’s reactions towards her father. Although her mother never said: “Your Daddy is bad”, Carol, as a child, was a “silent witness” of her mother’s tears after quarrels with her father and “now I am a silent witness of how the feeling of hurt is destroying my marriage”. Despite this, during genogram analysis, she unexpectedly found something which helped her cope with this feeling. It was a memory of a holiday she spent in her grandparents’ house during her childhood. This house was set in the middle of an apple orchard. She remembered the very intense smell of apples. The memory of this smell began to help her control her “hurt”. For her, this smell represented the safety and acceptance which she had experienced in her childhood. During the next session she successfully started to track the “smell of apples” in her life.

Peter also had a chance to analyze how emotionally distancing himself from a problem was a way of coping in his family of origin. He found it very useful in many situations but he decided not to use this strategy automatically in his marital relationship.

During the analysis of the genogram, Kate did not fall asleep. On the contrary, she was very active. She helped the therapist to choose different colours of felt tip pens and she checked if “the picture is pretty enough”. Kate helped her parents and the therapeutic team to enjoy drawing, which created a safe atmosphere during therapy sessions. This atmosphere helped the family to “play” with various options of their preferred future.

Final thoughts

The genogram is the technique which can be used in a variety of ways during therapy. Narrative therapy not only offers methods of implementing this technique during therapy but, more impor- tantly, indicates different possibilities of approaching genograms. A genogram is a map which can lead both consultant-therapists and his/her interlocutors to various territories. Despite all differ- ences, these territories are interconnected by a very specific sense of participating in human experiences. This experience is sometimes very painful, sometimes very beautiful, and it always escapes from being enclosed to a single, no matter, however rich story. The analysis of genograms generates a lot of stories but transports us beyond these stories to the point which was described

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by the Polish philosopher Prof. Andrzej Kloczowski (2005, p. 109) “Being present is such a terrifying abyss which we cannot fathom or control” – to the point of facing the mystery of our existence.

People who analyze their own genograms often report that this experience helped them to per- ceive themselves as a part of a wider network of people, events, cultural discourses and historical time. As a consequence, people feel less isolated and more connected not only with their own families but also with other people’s perspective.

In the context of genograms, one can always ask the question if it is possible to learn from our past, not only from the local, personal history of our families, but also from the stories which are told about general history? When we are looking back, usually pessimistic answers come to mind, but genograms teach us that only local and personal answers exist in relation to this general question.

Notes

1. By the traditional approach to genograms it is meant those methods of analysis that are not based on the premises of social constructionism.

2. The term “interlocutor” is used instead of “client” or “patient” to emphasize the conversational and collaborative nature of the therapeutic encounter.

3. The names of the persons involved and certain facts concerning the case have been changed to protect confidentiality.

References

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Dallos, R., & Draper, R. (2005). An introduction to family therapy: Systemic theory and practice. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Freedman, J., & Combs, G. (1996). Narrative therapy: The social construction of preferred realities. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Freeman, J., Epston, D., & Lobovits, D. (1997). Playful approaches to serious problems: Narrative therapy with children and their families. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Hardy, K., & Laszloffy, T. (1995). The cultural genogram: Key to training culturally competent family therapists. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 21, 227–237.

Kloczowski, A. (2005). Filozofia dialogu [philosophy dialogue]. Poznan: W. Drodze. McGoldrick, M., Gerson, R., & Shellenberger, S. (1999). Genograms: Assessment and intervention.

New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Payne, M. (2006). Narrative therapy: An introduction for counsellors. London: Sage Publications. Vetere, A., & Dallos, R. (2008, October/November). Attachment narrative therapy. Workshop materials

presented at the Workshop on Attachment Narrative Therapy given by Arlene Vetere and Rudi Dallos, Institute of Family Therapy, London.

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Author biography

Szymon, K. Chrzastowski is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology, Warsaw University, in Poland. He specializes in family and couple therapy and finds the systemic and narrative approaches particularly inspiring. In his research work, he analyzes the formation of closeness in families of persons who have mental disorders.