Running head: FAMILY GENOGRAM 1
My Family Genogram Project
Katherine Vaughan
Liberty University
FAMILY GENOGRAM 2
Abstract
A genogram is graphical picture of a family. This helps to identify patterns of behavior that are
both negative and positive. My personal genogram revealed both negative patterns and what
disrupted those patterns. For this paper, I will dive into my personal genogram and look at 5
generations and how dysfunction has repeated itself. I will also highlight how spiritual
connectivity provide an alternative narrative in the generations of my family.
FAMILY GENOGRAM 3
My Family Genogram Project
Marriage and family systems theory states that individuals cannot be understood in
isolation from one another due in part to their connectivity as a family unit (Goldenberg, 2017).
As an interconnected system, families cannot be understood in isolation from the system
(Goldenberg, 2017).
My Family
My family is made up of country and city people. Its where the city meets the country.
The man I know as my dad is from the hills of Missouri. My mom is from Wicked Hill in
Massachusetts. My dad was raised hunting and farming. My mom was raised in society
polishing the silver and going to boarding school. After the death of my mom’s parents in the
late 1960’s she set out to live the hippy life. She met my dad in St Louis and they fell in love.
Their relationship was unstable, and they fought a lot. My mom says they were both rebellious
and they never developed effective communication skills.
I never knew my biological father and did not know my dad was not related to me by
blood till he told me in a rage at the age of 12. He told my sister the same thing. That is when I
learned it was possible that I was conceived by rape. My mother never knew for sure because
she had a sexual relationship with my dad during the same time she was raped. A DNA test
confirmed I had a different biological father. The man who raped my mom was black, but my
skin is fair to medium, so it was not obvious, and the DNA test cleared things up.
Our nuclear emotional system consisted of marital conflict, dysfunction in both spouses
but for different reasons, emotional distance, and impairment of the children [Gol08]. The
transmission of emotional problems (neglect, broken relationships and abuse) is clear from the
genogram for three generations[Gol08]. The multigenerational transmission process is also clear
FAMILY GENOGRAM 4
economically and spiritually[Gol08]. Emotional cutoff is at every generation surrounded by
abuse and neglect reproducing itself not only in family relationships but leaving us cutoff
socially[Gol08].
Economically my parents raised us poor. My mom’s early high society existence never
played a part in my upbringing. We went without food, electricity, gas, phone and more.
Although my dad was in the military for a time he was forced to get out because he would not
get his GED and only had an 8th grade education. My mom had a high school diploma and some
skills training at a dental hygienist school where she met my dad. My dad was forced to join the
army when given the option to or jail. He loved the army but hated school, so he was jobless and
we went without.
Spiritually, my mom had found God after a friend invited her to church when I was 6.
She has never wavered as a Christian since although she had a lot to learn. I remember my
parents fighting over Christian beliefs and principles although my dad was raised Christian and
believed in God. Both parents had a Christian upbringing of sorts. My mom didn’t have a
relationship with God till her adult years, but she went to a catholic boarding school and had a
nanny that loved God. My dad grew up in church but when his parents lost the oldest of 8
children to cancer they began to drink and in a drunken rage my grandfather shot my
grandmother and killed her.
Issues throughout my family have been things like insecurity, abuse, rage, divorce,
neglect, abandonment and substance abuse. My dad’s parents both self-medicated with alcohol.
Even after their mom died from a drunken rage my aunts and uncles still used alcohol to self-
medicate. My sister was a drug addict in her twenties and currently still drinks alcohol. My
sister also married a man who beat her so often that she formed blood clots at the base of her
FAMILY GENOGRAM 5
brain and had a stroke at 19. My first husband also physically abused me many times. My
sister’s son has been put in jail for abusing both girl friends and boyfriends and is a drug addict.
Analyses
What I understand about myself, within the context of this multigenerational family is
that we are connected and the problems of one generation are easily pasted on to the next
generations if things are addressed. The genogram highlights repeated patterns of abuse, neglect
and spiritual connectivity. It’s a tail of two roads and it is easy to see the results of the road
choice. For my personal narrative. I was on a road directed by neglect and abuse but at a critical
time in my life I made the choice to pursue spiritual connectivity.
Culturally, I was given options through church or spiritual relationships that help broaden
my understanding of who I could be while my home life only offered, poverty, abuse and
neglect. Outside influence from church offered a new culture with new hope. Historically, I
should have had two financial models, but I had no access to grandparents who were well to do
and societal because they both died before I was born.
My early adulthood was spent in the same negative patterns family. These patterns
include trouble with family life cycle transitions[Gol171]. Launching was done by the child not
the parents[Gol171]. I married an abusive alcoholic. But it did not take me long to figure out I
was repeating bad family patterns. One good pattern was my mom’s devotion to God. At age 24
that became part of me and I began a journey of breaking what I saw as family curses and adding
new goals for my life. Goals of joy, fearlessness, love, better communication and removal of
unhealthy crutches. This happened when my new fiancé’ lost his leg in an industrial accident. At
the age of 24 everything changed.
FAMILY GENOGRAM 6
A very interesting thing that the genogram does not cover but it is a pattern in my life is
neglect through loss. My grandfather lost his parents at a young age and he and his sister were
orphaned then he and his wife lost their firstborn daughter to cancer in her early twenties. My
dad lost his mom in his late teens and so did my mom. My first husband lost his dad to cancer
when he was 12. My second and current husband loss both his parents to cancer when he was
teenager. This loss has influenced my choices where intimate connection is concerned. I only
figured this out a few years ago but understood it is a pattern. This pattern was connected to
physical and substance abuse in the past but in my relationship with my second husband he was
able to overcome (porn addiction) through spiritual connectivity and heal the neglect and
abandonment he felt while providing stability, and safety of my kids whose biological father had
abandoned them. According to Bowen, family patterns are transgenerational and deeply
embedded in unresolved issues in the families of origin and hold both explicit and interactional
and behavior patterns[Gol171]. This produces implicit value-laden patterns just like the one I
just mentioned[Gol171].
Spiritual connectivity has been my biggest influence. It has given me options to break
away from negative generational patterns. My sister and I both followed the pattern of abusive
relationships through substance abuse. Like my mom we both had pregnancies that were out of
wedlock from men we did not want to be marry (my mom was raped, my sister and I were not). I
chose God at 24 and my sister did not. My sister continued the negative family patterns and
neglected her children, had one abusive relationship after another and suffers to this day with
guilt, shame, poverty and instability in her relationships. She has now begun a spiritual
awakening and her life is taking a new course. That course change came for me at age 24 and
because of it I no longer have an abusive relationship. My children never new physical or sexual
FAMILY GENOGRAM 7
violence. They both drink reasonably without dependency. My daughter is a stay at home mom
who is a nurturer with a stable relationship with a Christian husband. My youngest son has
graduated college and surrounds himself with God fearing men and women as he searches for the
love of his life. My oldest son. Who I gave up for adoption at the age of 17 has recently come
back into our life and is building a relationship with us is serving God and a minster of music
just like me. He is happily married to a God-fearing woman and they chose adoption to have
their first son to pass on the blessing.
One of the ways spiritual connectivity helped changed the patterns in my life was with
my dad. We were estranged, and our relationship was broken. Out of a desire to honor God, I
searched out forgiveness and a way to honor my father (Ephesian 4:32, Colossians 3:13, and
Ephesians 6:2 CJB[Ste98]). This set me on a path to a change in identity. No longer was I timid
because I faced my giants. No longer was illegitimate, I was favored. No longer was I afraid.
The man had gone from monster to a person full of hurt and pain. This created an opportunity to
resolve problematic issues and adjust course[Rip14]. Emotional cut-off became an enemy that
needed to be overcome[Rip14]. Nuclear family emotional system or unfinished issues were
being acted out within now nucleus family helping me adjust the mimicked patterns from the
past[Rip14]. There may be some day that I will meet my biological dad and if it is possible I will
overcome and have a course change with him as well.
My genogram is the tail of two roads. It shows a spiritual road and road without God. It’s
contrast the patterns of these choices. If I held my genogram up to my sister’s, you would see
these two roads clearly. This is not because I am better than she is. It is because in my weakness
He is strong. God shifted my course and because He did my children now have a new set of
things being passed on to them. I am still working on being bold and courageous. I am also still
FAMILY GENOGRAM 8
working on not feeling neglected when things don’t go the way I think they should. Everyone is
not failing me because I’m learning that what they do is more about them and far less about me.
FAMILY GENOGRAM 9
References
Goldenberg, I. S. (2017). Family therapy: an overview (9th ed.). Boston, MA: Cencade Learning.
Goldrick, M. G. (2008). Genograms: assesment and interventions. New York, NY.: Malloy
Printing.
Ripley, J. &. (2014). Couple therapy: a new hope-focused approach . Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press.
Stern, D. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible. Baltimore Maryland: Lederer Messianic Publication,
Inc.
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
