THREE GENERATIONAL GENOGRAM

Three Generational Genogram

Three Generational Genogram

Who will be involved in the project?

A Genogram is a map of the family system that offers a framework to understand family patterns. This course offers the opportunity for participants to discover their own family history and create a visual representation of important aspects of their family system. There is often an opportunity for relearning emotional experiences through advanced emotional empathy. As the relationship between the client and counsellor develops so it becomes possible for the client to cautiously re-experience feelings. This marks the dawning of self-awareness, recognising links between past and present, preparing the ground for problem resolution. (Winawer & Wetzel 1996)

What I intend to learn

Based on a class reading, the Hardy and Laszloffy article entitled “The three generational genogram: Key to training culturally competent family therapists,” I will do a three generational genogram on myself. In this article, the authors stressed the importance of self-awareness knowing about their own cultural background and inherent cultural values, before they can effectively work competently with clients of other cultures. (Thernstrom & Handlin 1980) I realized that I do not know a lot about my ethnic make-up, and cannot really tie any of my family's values to a specific culture. In fact, I never really thought about the things that I've been taught, both consciously and unconsciously, as even coming from a cultural background. The things I intend to learn through this project are:

What my dominant ethnic make-up is.

What the “Organizing Principles” and “pride/shame issues” are in my identified dominant culture(s).

Which of those “Organizing Principles” and “pride/shame issues” I can identify in my own family and in myself.

How learning this will contribute to my self-awareness

This will contribute to my self-awareness in that it will hopefully make me a more culturally competent person and worker. Since self-awareness in general often requires working with persons of different cultures, and since I specifically want to work in international self-awareness, I will definitely be working cross-culturally. It will be important for me to understand my own culture so that I can better understand what the differences are between my culture and the culture(s) with which I will work. Also, in working with people of other cultures, it will be important to be able to identify which aspects of myself are reflexive of my cultural make-up, rather than just thinking that they are universal norms in order to have more of a respect for the cultural values that may be different in the people with whom I work.

How I'll go about learning what I want to learn

Using this historical information, participants will look at patterns, themes and recurring behaviours in the family of origin, current family system and next generation. Ones own life can be understood more clearly against the context of ones family history and generational influences. Awareness of ones place within the generational web leads to being able to make new choices so dysfunctional cycles don't keep being repeated; deeper understanding of ones place in life ...