The Spiritual Genogram in Family Therapy

Abstract

Spiritual and religious issues often surface during marital and family therapy. In this article, I describe a spiritual genogram that is a multigenerational map of family members' religious and spiritual affiliations, events, and conflicts. Used as a tool in family therapy, the spiritual genogram enables clients to make sense of their families' religious/spiritual heritage and to explore the ways in which their experiences impact present couple or family issues.

The family therapy journals in 2000: a thematic review

“…For therapists who are unsure about how to unravel spiritual beliefs during the course of therapy, Frame (2000) and Hodge (2000) describe the specific use of 'spiritual genograms' and 'spiritual ecomaps'. As their names suggest, these tools help a therapist trace the origin of beliefs with a family and also to trace sources of strength that can help families overcome difficulties.…”

The Color-Coded Timeline Trauma Genogram

“…These questions serve as a starting point for further exploration to learn more about the complexity of the family. The focused genogram can be theory guided, such as the solution-focused genogram (Kuehl, 1995(Kuehl, , 1996; topic guided, such as the spiritual genogram (Frame, 2000) and the cultural genogram (Halevy, 1998;Hardy & Laszloffy, 1995), including foci such as the anger genogram, the attachment genogram, and the emotional genogram (DeMaria, Weeks & Hof, 1999); or population guided, such as a genogram with lesbian clients (Magnuson, Norem, & Skinner, 1995) or spinal cord injured patients (Engelman, 1988). These are just some examples of the focused genograms in existence today.…”

Mulheres dependentes de álcool: levantamento transgeracional do genograma familiar

“…O genograma proporciona um quadro trigeracional da família e seu movimento através do ciclo de vida, é um retrato gráfico da história e do padrão familiar mostrando a estrutura básica, a demografia, o funcionamento, os relacionamentos da família e os padrões de repetições de comportamentos, valores e patologias ao longo das gerações (Jones, 1997;Moysés et al, 1999;García et al, 2000;Frame, 2000;McGoldrick, Gerson, 2001;Holtslander, 2005). Ao estudar a extensão do atual contexto familiar, o terapeuta pode avaliar a relação dos atores imediatos entre si no drama familiar, assim como sua relação com o sistema maior, e avaliar também a força e vulnerabilidade da família em relação à situação global.…”