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This material may be protected by
Gathering family information and constructing a genogram
should always be
part of a more general process of joining, assessing, and helping
a family. The
information is gathered and organized as family members tell
their story. While
basic genogram information can be collected in a structured
format as part of a
medical record, the information should always be treated with
respect and gath-
ered for a purpose. Sharing a family's history is a sacred
relationship, not a mat-
ter of technical fact-gathering.
Genogram information can be obtained by interviewing one
famlly mem-
ber or several. Clearly, getting information from several family
members
increases reliabil~ty and provides the opportunity to compare
perspectives and
observe interactions directly. By interviewing several family
members, we get
many points of vlew, and together these verslons become a
whole story.
Since family patterns can be transmitted from one generation to
the next,
the cllnlc~an should scan the genogram for patterns that have
repeated over

several generations. Such repetitive pattems occur in
functioning, relation-
ships, and famlly structure. Recognizing such pattems often
helps families avoid
repeating unfortunate pattems or transmitting them into the
future. Tracking
critical events and changes in family functioning allows us to
notice anniver-
sary reactions, make systemic connections between seeming
coincidences,
assess the impact of traumatic changes on family functioning,
its resources and
vulnerability to future stresses, and then try to understand such
events in the
larger social, economic, and political context. This tracking
enables the clini-
cian t o seek ways to promote resilience based on past sources
of strength and
modify adaptive strategies that in the past have proved
dysfunctional.
Of course, seeing several family members is not always
feasible, and often
the genogram interview is used with one person. The time
required to complete
a genogram assessment can vary greatly. While the basic
information can usu-
allv be collected in 15 minutes, a comprehensive familv
assessment interview
involving several family mernbers may take one to two hours.
Clinicians often
prefer to spread the interviewing over a number of sessions or
to develop the
genogram as they go along in their work with families.

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Mapping the Family Structure
T h e backbone of a genogram is a graphic depiction of how
different family
members are biologically and legally related to one another
from o n e genera-
tion to the next. This map is a construction of squares and
circles representing
people and lines delineating their relationships.
Each family member is represented by a box (male) or circle
(female),
depending o n his or her gender (Genogram 2.1). For t h e
index person or iden-
tified patient (1P) around whom the genogram is constructed,
the lines are dou-
bled, as for Woody Allen and Mia Farrow o n this genogram.
For a person who
is dead, a n X is placed inside t h e symbol, as indicated for
Mia's brother Michael
and her Darents J o h n and Maureen. Birth and death dates are
indicated to the
left and right above the symbol. T h e person's current age or
age a t death is usu-
ally indicated within the symbol, as indicated for Mia's oldest
brother Michael,
who died in 1958 a t t h e age of 19. T h e figures
representing family members are
connected by lines t h a t indicate their biological and legal
relationships. Two
people who are married are connected by lines t h a t go down
and across, with
the husband o n t h e left a n d t h e wife o n t h e right, as

indicated o n Genogram
2.1 for Martin and Nettie. "m." followed by a date indicates
when t h e couple
was married. Sometimes o n l y t h e last two digits of t h e
year are shown (e.g., met
Genogram 2.1 Woody Allen and Mia Farrow
room. WA
NU" the",
umio Kooigsbug
m a l P m 3 1
Allan Stewart Ko-iphrl Mia F a m w
(Woody *Il.s,)
Rank si0.w Andm R r r i n
logcUla 80 1 9 1
.................................................... /
.....................................................
Developing a Genogram to Trairk Famrly Pattern 15
29 m. 3 1 ) when there is little chance of confusion regarding
the appropriate
century. The marriage line is also the place where separations or
divorces are
indicated. The slashes signify a disruption in the marriag-ne
slash for sepa-
ration (as in Mia Farrow's separation line from Woody Allen,
which occurred
in 1992 (indicated by s. 92) and two for a divorce (as in the

divorces of Mia
from Frank Sinatra and Andre Previn and of Woody from his
previous wives.
In extended genograms that go back more than three
generations, symbols for
individuals in the distant past are not usually crossed out, since
they are pre-
sumably dead. Only relevant deaths are indicated on such
genograps. Other
Genogram 2.2 Fnsrer and adopted children, twins, miscarriages,
sctllbirrhs, aborr~ons, pregnancies
I
fraternal ide~tical adopted foster miscarriage stillbirth abortion
pregnancy
twins owios child child
symbols are used to indicate twins, foster and adopted children,
pregnancies,
miscarriages, abortions, and stillbirths (Genogram 2.2).
Converging lines con-
nect twins to the parental line. If the twins are identical, a bar
connects them
to each other (Genogram 2.2). A dotted line is used to connect a
foster child
to the parents' line, while a dotted and a solid line connect an
adopted child to
the parents' line (Genogram 2.2).
Genogram 2.3 Husband w ~ t h many wives: Henry VIII
16 GENOGRAMS: ASSESSMENT AND ~NTERVENT~ON

Genogram 2.4 Husband (Ted Turner), wife (Jane Fonda), and
several partners of each
Ted Turner Jane Fondn
1. I . Ebaugh Judy Roger Tom
Vadim Hayden
m. 1965.70 m 1973-s. 19% d. 1991
'../ .... ,, , N // ,/
Multiple marriages add a degree of complexity t h a t is
challenging to depict.
Genogram 2.3 shows one way of indicating several wives of o n
e husband ( t h e
wives of King Henry VIII). T h e rule of thumb is that, when
feasible, the dif-
ferent marriages foIlow in order from left t o right, with the
most recent mar-
riage coming last. T h e marriage and divorce dates should also
help to make t h e
order clear. However, when each spouse has had multiple
partners (and possi-
bly children from previous marriages), mapping t h e complex
web of relation-
ships can be very difficult indeed. O n e solution is t o place t
h e relationship you
are focusing o n in t h e center and the partner's other spouses
off t o t h e side, as
in Genogram 2.4 (Jane Fonda a n d Ted Turner). Of course,
such situations c a n
get very compIicated, as they d o for Jackie Kennedy's sister
Lee Bouvier
(Genogram 2 . 5 ) , because Lee's first husband, Michael
Canfield, went o n t o
many a woman, Laura Dudley, whose first husband, Eric

Dudley, went o n to
marry Stas Radziwell's previous wife, Grace Kolin.
Genogram 2.5 T h e Bouvier family
81mct lack
B0v"icr
A u h r o r N o u . I.. Nio.
Onuris b w a G-e
-75 j Dudlry r*IdlcY Kolm sw ~ . d u = ~
-63
lack Michael
flair 62-3
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . n. 53 r 51 m. sa
Developing a Genogram to Track Family Partems 17
Genogram 2.6 Fonda rnarrlages
If previous spouses have had other partners, it may be necessary
to draw a
second line, slightly above the first marriage line, to indicate
these reIationships.
For example, in Genogram 2.6 (Henry Fonda), each spouse has
been married
several times. Henry's first wife, Margaret Sullavan, had been
married once
before she married him, and she remarried afterwards. Fonda's
second wife,

Frances Seymour, had earlier been married to George Brokaw,
who himself had
previously been married to Clare Booth, who in tun1 later
married Henry Luce.
Whenever possible it is preferable to show children from
different marriages
in their correct birth order (oldest on the left, youngest on the
right). But some-
times, when there are-many partners, this becomes impossible,
as with
Genogram 2.6, where Jane and Peter Fonda are shown after
Amy, their adopt-
ed half-sister, who was 13 years younger than Peter, but who
grew up with them
for the first two years. Their older half-sister, Pan, who was
five years older than
Jane and lived with them from age five until she went to
college, is also not
shown in birth order, since, in fact, she was the oldest of all. A
n alternative
genogram showing all the Fonda siblings in birth order
(Genogram 2.7) could
be relevant for understanding the siblings in relation to each
other. Notice that
in this case Brokaw's next wife, Clare Booth Luce, has been
omitted to keep the
graphic clear. With complex families like this, choices always
have to be made
between clarity, accuracy, and level of detail.
Genogram 2.7 Fonda children in birth order
Genogram 2.8 Heterosexual and homosexual couple

relationships:
Jodie Foster's family
I f a couple are involved in a love affair or living together but
not legally
married, their relationship is depicted as with married couples,
but a dotted line
is used (as shown for Mia Farrow and Woody Allen in
Genogram 2.1). When
spouses have had partners of both sexes, it may be necessary to
draw separate
connecting lines to clarify who had a relationship with whom.
Genogram 2.8
shows the family of lodie Foster. Her father Lucius fathered
children by five
partners: three wives and two other partners. The dates for
lodie's mother,
Brandy Almond's marriage to Lucius are indicated by "m. 54 s.
59 d. 62."
Recording the specific dates to track couple relationships can be
significant in
tracking family patterns. Jodie, for example, was conceived and
born three years
after the parents separated, indeed shortly before the divorce
came through. It
turns out she was the product of the father's financial,
emotional, and physical
abuse of the mother, conceived under pressure from the father
for sex in return
for owed child support.
lodie's mother was in a committed couple relationship with 10
Dominguez
from 1959. The couple began living together in 1962 ("LT 62").
lo's promi-
nence in the family is indicated by depicting the couple line for

Brandy and Jo
just above that of the biological father. "Aunt lo" became a
haven of stability
to the children, providing financial, physical, and emotional
support to them
for many years. They separated in 1969. lo's husband is shown
smaller and high-
er, along with the woman he spent the rest of his life with. He
never divorced
lo and was thus not free to many again, so his other relationship
is indicated
with a dotted line.
If a couple has children, each child's symbol hangs down from
the line that
connects the couple. Children are drawn left to right, going
from the oldest to
the youngest, as in Genogram 2.1, with the index person shown
lower than the
others, to distinguish him or her. If there are many children in a
family, an alter-
nate method (depicted for Margaret Sullavan and Leland
Hayward's three chil-
dren, Brooke, Bill, Bridget, on Genogram 2.6) may be used to
save space.
Parents of the index person are also depicted larger and lower
than their sib-
lings to clarify their importance (see Woody and Mia on
Genogram 2.1).
Developing a Genogram to T~ack Famrly Patterns 19
Grnogram 2.9 h h a Farrow's children: Blologlcal and adopted

Single parent adoption can be indicated as in Genogram 2.9.
This genogram
shows the fanlily of Mia Farrow, who had biological children
(including twin
sons, Matthew and Sasha) and interracially adopted children
(Soon-Yi, Lark,
and Dalsy) wlth her second husband, Andre Previn. She then
adopted another
interracial child (Moses) and one who was American born
(Dylan/Eliza) during
her relationship with Woody Allen, after which they had a
biological child
together (Satchel, now called Seamus), and finally she adopted
five more chil-
dren on her own, Tam, Kaell Shea, Isaiah, Thakdeus, and
Frankie-Minh Farrow.
If at all possible, we indicate the cultural background, since it is
an important
part of anyone's history.
Where living situations are complicated, a line can be drawn to
encircle the
household(s). This is especially important in multi-nuclear
families, where
children spend time in various households, as in Genogram 2.10
for Jackie
Bouv~er Kennedy and her sister Lee after their parents'
separation when Jackie
was seven. During the school year they lived with their mother,
maternal
grandparents, and maternal greategrandmother. During the
summers they spent
tlme w ~ t h then father, paternal grandparents, and all their
paternal cousins on
Long Island.

When the "functional" family is different from the biological or
legal fami-
ly, as when children are raised by a grandparent or in an
informal adoptive fam-
ily, it is useful to create a separate genogram to show the
functional structure
20 GENOGRAMS: ASSESSMENT AND I N T E R V E N ~ O N
Genogram 2.10 The family of Jackie Bouvier (Kennedy)
(see Watts Jones, 1998). Where children have lived as part of
several f a m i l i e s
biological, foster, and adoptive-separate genograms may help to
depict the
child's multiple families over time (Genogram 2.11; see also
Colon's genograms
in Chapter 3). McMillen and Groze (1994), who have suggested
another way
to show children who have grown up in multiple placements,
suggest accom-
panying the graphic with a chronology, as shown in Genogram
2.12.
We can also indicate on a genogram (Genogram 2.13) a lesbian
couple with
a child born to one of them and adopted by the other. The very
small square indi-
cated as the biological parent of Meg is a sperm donor. Fran and
Martha, the par-
ents of Meg, had previous couple relationships that are also
indicated on
Genogram 2.13. Burke and Faber (1997) have suggested using a
"gendergrid," an

adaptation of the genogram, to help to depict the liaisons, long-
term bonds,
communities, and social networks of lesbian couples. The
gendergrid provides for
three levels of relationship: historical influences, primary
emotional and social
influences, and primary intimate relationships for an individual
or a couple.
Constructing the Genogram
Using the basic symbols and procedures for mapping the family
structure o n a
genogram, we can illustrate the construction of a genogram for
Sigmund Freud.
Neither Freud nor his biographers ever did extensive research
into his family,
and the details of his family life are sketchy. Nevertheless, we
do know the basic
structure of the Freud family.
Developing a Genogram to Track Family Patterns 2 1
Genogram 2.1 1 hlultiple livlng s~tuations of child raised in
foster care and adoption
w
Age 0-2
B W F d y
Fiml Fmorur F d y
John
rrrdennal rchm

Age 8-10
Rssrdroud Tru-l
If we map a basic three-generational genogram for Freud
(Genogram 2.14) we
can see Sigmund and his siblings, and then we can look back a
generation and
include Sigmund's parents with their siblings and parents
(Sigmund's grandpar-
ents). To highlight his central importance, the figure for
Sigmund is lowered out
of h e sibling line. T h e same has been done for the parents,
Jacob and Amalia. In
general, s~blings are shown in a horizontal line, except for any
who have died
early; they, like Sigmund's brother Julius, are depicted higher
and smaller.
In taking a genogram we usually go back to the grandparents of
the index
person, including a t least three generations on the genogram
(four or even five
generations if the index person has children and grandchildren).
T h e spouses
of siblings are also usually placed slightly lower than the
siblings themselves, to
keep the sibling patterns clear.
T h e year that a genogram depicts is usually written in the
upper lefthand
comer. Usually the genogram depicts the current year, but a
clinician might
also use the genogram to freeze-frame a moment in the past,
such as the time

Genogram 2.12 Placement genogram
based on M c M i l l e n & Grors (1994)
.,.&%I q Q QI Q
Family
h p a r u o l 1n1orm.um
M n h u left when A m 3
k H unrupsnirad lor r r t r n d d piad.
A m n L d m a ! of hovvhold choru
A d j u r d well in horn
Gmd rclstimrhlpr wtlh lorur lull.
I r f f g e c m = r and l a t e r 1-ly mkd
A m b d vlmr pmblcm m u n d s h
Robl.rn, in r b m l
hvon u t c r flmily or
Running .ray
Roblcm m whml
Dllrcrpcdul wilh s d f
Rlt"S2 m ~ O C ~ O N
of symptom onset or critical change in a family. When we
choose one date in a
person's life, other information, deaths, ages, and important
events are calcu-
lated in relation to that date. It is then useful to put each
person's age inside his
or her figure. If the person is dead, the age a t death is used
instead (Chapter 6
shows a number of Freud genograms for different dates in the

family's life cycle,
indicating the ages of family members at each point).
Genogram 2.13 Lesbian family
Biological child v r F m
Adopled n blnh by Msnhs
Devehping a Genogram to Track Family Patterns
Genogram 2.14 Sigmund Freud family
When only partial information can be unearthed, that is
included. For
instance, Sigmund's father was married three times. We know
that he had four
children with his first wife, two of whom died early, but nothing
is known about
these two children or about his second w~fe, Rebecca. T h e
third wife, of course,
was Sigmund's mother, Amalia Nathansohn.
Tracking Family Patterns on the Genogram
Once the basic family structure or skeleton of the genogram is
drawn, we can
start adding information about the family, particularly about
demographics,
functioning, relationships, and critical family events. A t times
it may be useful
to make several different genograms to show the different kinds
of information.
Demographic Information: Getting the "Facts"

In fleshing out the history of the nuclear and extended families,
our initial con-
cern is with getting the "facts" on each family member. These
are the vital sta-
tistics of the family, the type of objective data that can usually
be verified by
public record. Demographic information includes ethnic
background, ages,
dates of birth and death, whereabouts, income, occupation, and
educational
level. There is a specific place to put some of this information:
current age or
age at death (inside the symbol); birthdate (above left);
deathdate (above
right); income (above birth and death dates). T h e other
demographic informa-
Genogram 2.15 Fonda family: Demographics
Dhuh (1Wi.n) Aosb h s l o
Wm BRrs Fan&
A l d r n S h i r k 1
P r m s k " *d.",.
Forhcr did "0, ."<d
J0nd3 Irr *.ddinb
vmuu Tmy ncnru 8.589 8.A W
tion goes near the person's symbol wherever there is room (see
Genogram 2.15
for Fonda family demographic information). The following

information would
be relevant for each family member:
dates of birth, marriage, separation, divorce, illness, and death
(includ-
ing cause)
sibling position
ethnic, class, and religious background
any changes in class through education, income, or marriage
current religious practices
occupation and education
current whereabouts
As the clinician collects more and more "facts" about family
events, certain
gaps will appear in the history. The clinician can use the
genogram to map the
family's evolution through time and to broaden the histurical
perspective on
the family. A t times family members themselves become so
interested in their
story that they begin historical research to expand their
perspective. Family
members may learn more information by speaking to relatives,
consulting farn-
ily bibles, reading local or regional histories, or obtaining
medical and
genealogical records.
Developing a Genogram ro Track Family Pattern 25
Genograrn 2.16 Fonda family: Functioning
P m n b r n w

4.3 .d&k
vm- 'h, U d** 83.89
,j,,,i,,", .a PPL1L"ho, *lflim&
father on h~ncynoa
Information about functioning includes more or less objective
data on the
medical, emotional, and behavioral functioning of family
members. Objective
signs, such as absenteeism from work and drinking p a t t e r n ,
may be more useful
indications of a person's functioning than vague reports by
family members that
someone is "weird." Signs of highly successful functioning
should also be includ-
ed. T h e information collected on each person is placed next to
his or her sym-
bol o n the genogram. Addictions are shown by filling in the
bottom half of the
square or circle. Those in recovery from addiction have only the
lower left half
filled in, while the lower right half has only slash marks (as
shown for Ella o n
Genogram 2.21). If they have attended therapy, AA, or another
recovery pro-
gram, or indeed if they have any strong institutional affiliation,
such as with a
church, fraternal organization, or other group, this can be
indicated by a line out
to a triangle. On Genogram 2.16 triangles linked to Ted Turner
and Peter Fonda
indicate these relationships with their therapists. T h e dates of
treatment can

also be shown. Suspected alcohol or drug abuse can be indicated
by slanted lines
o n the bottom half of the symbol, as indicated for Peter Fonda
o n Genogram
2.16. In Peter's case, he has acknowledged using drugs over
many years, but sees
himself as lucky that it never became an addiction (Fonda,
1998).
Serious mental or physical illness can be indicated by filling in
the left half
of the symbol. In general, the nature of the illness should also
be indicated near
the symbol. Where a person has both an addiction and a mental
illness, three-
quarters of the symbol is filled in, and where he or she is
mentally ill but in
recovery from addiction, the left half is filled in, and the lower
right has light
dots. Genogram 2.16 shows the functioning information for the
Fonda family.
P a t t e r n of Functioning
T h e functioning of family members may repeat itself across
several generations.
I n such cases, a particular style of functioning (whether
adaptive or maladap-
tive) or of dealing with problems is ~ a s s e d down from one
generation t o the
next. This transmission does n o t necessarily occur in linear
fashion. A n alco-
holic father may have children who become teetotalers, and
their children may

again become drinkers.
Often the presenting problem of the family will have occurred
in previous
generations. Numerous symptomatic patterns, such as
alcoholism, incest, physi-
cal symptoms, violence, and suicide, tend to be repeated in
families from genera-
tion to generation. By noting the pattem repetition, the clinician
may be helped
to understand the family's present adaptation to the situation
and to short-circuit
the process. For example, let's look again at the Fonda
genogram (Genogram
2.16). Margaret Sullavan's daughter Brigit Hayward committed
suicide less than
a year after her mother did the same. Given the evidence that
one suicide seems
to make suicide an option for others in the family, specific
efforts at suicide pre-
vention may well be indicated in such families. T h e same can
be said for preven-
tive intervention in families with a history ofsuch symptoms as
alcohol abuse and
incest. For example, Ted Tumer (Genogram 2.17) reached a
crisis at age 53, the
same age at which his father had shot himself in the head with
the gun with
which he had taught Ted to shoot years before. Ted, like his
father, had led a dri-
ven life of work and hard drinking. But in this case Ted
managed n o t to repeat
his father's pattem, and, in fact, that age became for him a time
of critical trans-
formation of his life. I t was the year h e married J a n e
Fonda. Both of them gave

up drinking, and Ted committed himself to expanding his life
rather than letting
his obsession with work drive him over the edge, as it had with
his father.
Clinicians can crack multigenerational patterns of resilience,
strength, and
success as well as failure (Walsh, 1995, 1998). All families
should be assessed
for their resilience as well as their problems. Among the most
amazing in this
book are the Hepbums (Genogram 3.6), who illustrate the
repeated trauma of
suicide and depression along with the resilience and power of
strong women on
their own; the Fondanumer families, which show a n amazing
ability to survive
and transform themselves beyond the trauma of loss, suicide,
silence, and men-
tal illness, turning hardship into productivity and self-
regeneration; the Belt
family (Genogram 5.4), in which deafness is complemented by
inventiveness
and resourcefulness with sound; and the genogram of Frida
Kahlo and Diego
Rivera (Genogram 5.5), which illustrates a n amazing ability t
o transform cul-
Deueloping a Genogram to T~ack Family P a t m
Genogram 2.17 Ted Turner family: Functioning
c,.nnum
tural difference and disruption, loss, trauma, and physical

disability into tran-
scendent strength and creative energy. The Blackwell family
genogram
(Genogram 2.18) shows a pattern of strong and successful
women. Included in
this remarkable family were the first woman physician and the
first woman
minister in the U S . , as well as numerous other successful
woman physicians,
ministers, artists, and suffragettes. Yet patterns of success and
failure may coex-
ist in the same family and in each succeeding generation.
Looking again at the
Blackwell family, we see that among all these successful
women, one daughter
in each generation appears to have been an invalid.
Another common functioning pattern is success in one
generation followed
by remarkable failure in the next. This may be particularly true
of the families of
famous people, where children may rebel against pressure to
live up to the repu-
tations of their parents. The Adams family (Genogram 3.13) is a
powerful exam-
ple of that phenomenon, with all but one of the children of John
A d a m having
serious problems. T h e same was true for the one successful
son in that second gen-
eration, John Quincy Adams, whose first two sons had serious
problems. Only in
the next generation did the one successful son, Charles Adams,
manage to pm-
duce a group of children who were, all but one, relatively
functional.

Specific patterns of functioning may also be repeated across the
generations.
A good example would be the family of Carl Gustav Jung
(Genogram 2.19). A
GENOGR~MS: ASSESSMENT AND ~NTERVENTION
Genogram 2.18 Blackwell family
quick glance at his genogram shows the preponderance of
ministers: Jung's
father, two paternal uncles, all six matemal uncles, the matemal
grandfather,
and two maternal granduncles. Next one sees that both his
paternal grandfather,
for whom he was named, and his paternal great-grandfather
were physicians;
finally, one can note several family members who believed in
the supernatural:
his mother, matemal grandfather, and matemal cousin, Helena
Preiswerk, who
claimed to be a medium and whose seances Jung attended in his
youth. Thus,
his becoming a physician with a profound interest in religion
and in the super-
natural very much fit with the predominant patterns in his
family.
Family Relationships and Roks
The third level of genogram construction is the most inferential.
This involves
delineating the relationships between family members. Such
characterizations
are based on the report of family members and direct

observations. Different
lines are used to symbolize various types of relationship
between two family
members (Genogram 2.20). Although such commonly used
relationship
descriptors as "fused" or "conflictual" are difficult to define
operationally and
have different connotations for clinicians with various
perspectives, these sym-
bols are useful in clinical practice. Relationships in a family do,
of course, change
over time, so this aspect of genograms is one of the most
subjective and most
Detrloping a Genogram to TTnck Family Pattern 29
Genogram 2.19 Jung family
subject to change. Furthermore, one might argue that any
conflictual relation-
ship implies underlying connection, so that any highly
conflictual relationship
by definition reflects fusion as well as conflict. However, the
fused/conflictual
lines are usually used to illustrate a relationship that shows a
high degree of con-
nection as well as conflict at an overt level. Cut-offs can also
involve great con-
flict or silent distanc~ng. Dominance or relationships in which
one person focus-
es an enormous amount of energy on another may be illustrated
by a heavy
straight line with an arrow in the direction of the one who is
focused upon, as

in Genogram 2.20. Other important relationships, such as
h~stilelde~endent
and ambivalent ones, are harder to depict on a genogram.
Relationships involv-
Ing physical or sexual abuse are deplcted by a zlgzag line
ending in a filled-in
arrow, indicating who was abused by whom (Genogram 2.20).
Since relationship patterns can be quite complex, it is often
useful to repre-
sent them on a separate genogram. Questions on relationships
include:
Are there any family members who do not speak to each other
or who
have ever had a period of not speaking? Are there any who
werelare in
serious conflict?
Are there any family members who are extremely close?
GENOCRAMS: ASSESSMENT AND ~ N ~ R V E N T I O N
Genogram 2.20 Relationship lines on a genograrn
W h o helps out when help is needed? In whom d o family
members con-
fide?
All couples have some sort of marital difficulties. W h a t sorts
of problems
and conflicts have you encountered? W h a t about your
parents' and sib-
lings' marriages?
How d o you each get along with each child? Have any family
members

had particular problems dealing with their children?
T h e clinician should get as many perspectives o n family
relationships as pos-
sible. For example, the husband may be asked, "How close do
you think your
mother and your older brother were?" T h e wife might then be
asked for her
impression of that relationship. T h e goal is to uncover
differences, as well as
agreements, about family relationships and to use the different
perceptions of
the family to enrich the genogram picture for both the clinician
and the family.
From the relationships between family members, the clinician
also begins to
get a sense of the complementarity of roles in the family.
Questions that eluci-
date the role structure include:
Has any family member been focused o n as the caretaker? T h
e problem-
atic o n e ? T h e "sick" o n e ? T h e "bad" one? T h e "mad"
one?
Who in the family is seen as the strong o n e ? T h e weak o n
e ? T h e domi-
nant one? T h e submissive o n e ?
W h o in the family is seen as the successful o n e ? T h e
failure?
W h o is seen as warm! As cold? As caring? As distant!
Labels or nicknames used by family members are particularly
instructive. Often,

each family member has a family-wide label that describes and
even circumscribes
Developing a Genogram to Track Family Pattems 3 1
liis or her position in the family, e.g., the tyrant, the
supermother, the star, the
rebel, or the baby. Labels are good clues to the emotional
patterns in the system.
sometimes it is useful to ask how members of the present family
would be
characterized by other famlly members, e.g., "How do you think
your older
brother would describe your relationship with your wife!" or
"How would your
father have described you when you were 13, the age of your
son now?" Again,
gathering as many perspectives as poss~ble e n r ~ c h e s the
family's view of itself
and introduces channels for new information.
Relationsh~p patttlms of closeness, distance, conflict, etc., may
also repeat
themselves over the generations. Genograms often reveal
complex relational pat-
terns that would be missed if not mapped across a few
generations. Recognizing
such patterns can, it is hoped, help families avoid continuing
the repetition in
future generations. O n e example of such a repetition would be
a family in which
mother and son in each generation have a special alliance while
father and son

have a negative conflictual relationship. Realizing t h e
predictability of such a
pattem and the m ~ l t i ~ e n e r a t i o n a l programlning
involved, a son might choose
consciously to change his relationship with his parent5 to vary
this pattern.
T h e O'Neill family (Genogram 2.21) shows a
multigenerational pattem of
estrangement between father and children. James O'Neill's
father deserted his
Genogram 2.21 O'Ne~ll family: Repetitwe patterns
family, returned to Ireland and probably committed suicide.
Both Eugene and
his older brother Jamie felt estranged from their father,
although they were both
totally dependent on him emotionally and financially, and all of
them blamed
each other for the mother's drug addiction. In the next
generation, the p l a y
wright refused to see or even mention the name of his daughter
Oona after her
marriage to Charlie Chaplin or his son Shane after Shane's son
died of neglect.
O'Neill never even saw his oldest son, Eugene, Jr., until he was
12, and he was
estranged from him at the time of this son's suicide.
In the family of Eleanor Roosevelt, the pattern was one of
mother-daughter
resentment and close feelings between father and daughter
(Genogram 2.22).

Although both her parents had died by the time she was 11,
Eleanor remem-
bered having a special relationship with her father while feeling
her mother was
harsh and insensitive to his predicament. Her father was in fact
a n alcoholic
and irresponsible, and her mother had to have him committed to
a n asylum and
later she separated from him. In the next generation, the
daughter, Anna, an
oldest like Eleanor, preferred her father and saw her own
mother as overly
harsh. Throughout her adolescence she had a stormy
relationship with Eleanor,
which did not change until her father contracted polio. Eleanor
felt the ulti-
mate betrayal in her daughter Anna's entertaining FDR and his
girlfriend
behind Eleanor's back at the m i t e House and C a m p David.
But in later life
Eleanor and A n n a reversed this pattern of mother-daughter
cut-off a n d became
very closely connected (see McGoldrick, 1995).
-
Genogram 2.22 Eleanor Roosevelt's family: Repeated patterns
Developing a Genogram to Track Family Pattew 33
Critical Life Events
Predictable life cycle transitions and unpredictable nodal life
events are tracked
on a genogram; they include important family transitions, job
changes,

entrances and exits of family members, relationship shifts,
moves or migrations,
losses and successes. These give a sense of the historical
continuity of the fam-
ily and of t h e effect of the family history on each individual.
Some of these
events will have been noted as demographic data, e.g., family
births and deaths.
Others include new romances, marriages, separations, divorces,
moves, and job
changes. Critical life events are recorded e ~ t h e r in the
margin of the genogram
or, if necessary, on a separate attached page.
l l e r e are certain critical life events that may be important t o
explore in
detail.
How did other family members react when a particular family
member
was born? W h o attended the christening ceremony or bris? W
h o was
named after whom and who "should have been"?
How did the family react when a particular family member
died? W h o
took it the hardest? T h e easiest? W h o attended the funeral?
W h a t was
the effect when the will was read? W h o wasn't there? W h o
"should have
been"?
W h e n and why did the family migrate t o this country? How
did they
cope with the multiple losses of migration? How many
generations of the
family have lived in the U.S.? W h a t was the context into
which they

came and how did they fit into it! How did the initial
generations man-
aee t h e adaotation to these new circumstances? How did thev
survive? -
Which members of the immigrant generation learned the
language?
W h a t gender constraints have the women and men in the
family expe-
rienced?
W h a t cultural prejudices have family members experienced?
Family Chronologies
I t is useful t o keep a family chronology (or listing of
important family events)
with the genogram (Weber & Levine, 1995). A timeline of
important family
dates is a n excellent way to track family patterns. I (MM)
remember being
stunned the first time I did my own chronology to see that the
only two major
health threats of my life before midlife were breast tumors that
occurred a t ages
17 and 20, within six months after the only two major deaths I
had ever expe-
rienced. Recognition of this time sequence led me to track my
own family's
patterns of handling loss and later t o make a concerted effort
to deal as fully
as possible when deaths occurred. At times it is beneficial t o
make a special
chronology for a critical time period, to track a family member's
illness in rela-
tion to other concurrent significant events or to events at the

same point in
the life cycle of other family members (Barth, 1993; Huygen,
1982).
A n individual chronology may also be useful for tracking a
parricular family
member's functioning, transitions, and symptoms within the
context of the fam-
ily. Generally each occurrence is listed with the date of its
occurrence. When
family members are unsure about dates, approximate dates
should be given, pre-
ceded by a question mark, e.g., ?84 or -84 (see Freud's maternal
grandparents in
Genogram 2.14). A chronology of family events may be written
o n the side of
the genogram or, if necessary, on a separate sheet of paper. T h
e following
chronology illustrates key dates indicated on the genogram for
Ted Turner
(Genogram 2.17). All the items on the chronology are shown o n
the genogram,
but the patternof family events gains clarity from the
chronology. O n the other
hand, the family structure would be hard to envision without the
genogram.
Short Chronology for Ted Turner: Critical Events
1953 Ted's sister, Mary Jean, age 12, diagnosed with lupus
erythematosus
followed by encephalitis, which left her with brain damage.
1957 Parents separate. There are conflicts over sister's care.
Mother does
not want her institutionalized. Sister is suffering horribly-

racked
with pain.
1960 (Dcc. 15) Sister dies age 19. Neither Ted nor his father's
new wife
knew she was still alive at the time.
1961 (July) Ted's daughter Laura Lee is born.
1961 (July) Father, Ed Turner, goes to Silver Hill, a psychiatric
hospital,
to withdraw from alcohol.
1962 (September) Father, Ed Turner, makes multimillion dollar
deal of a
lifetime, turning his advertising business from middling
company to
largest outdoor advertising business in the south.
1962 (December) Ed Turner goes back to Silver Hill.
1963 (January) Ed Turner leaves Silver Hill.
1963 (March 5) Ed Turner, age 53, shoots himself in the head
with gun
with which he taught Ted to shoot, following one of the many
fights
father and son had had over the years. Son Ted is 25.
1991 Ted Turner, age 53, suffering from depression, and having
felt that
as his father died tragically at that age he would do the same,
instead changes the pattern. He is stabilized by therapy and
med-
ication. He marries Jane Fonda, whose mother committed
suicide
when she was 17.

Develol~in~ a Genogram to Track Family P a r t e m 35
Clearly, a family chronology ,ill vary in length and detail,
depending o n
the hreadth and d e p t h of t h e information o n
demographics, functioning, rela-
tionships, and critical e v e n t s available or needed for a
particular assessment.
Assessing genograms also requires a n understanding how life
events and
changes in family functioning are interconnected. Since t h e
genogram records
many critical dates in t h e family's h~story, it is useful t o the
clinician for look-
Ing a t coincidences of various life events and changes in
family functioning.
Often seemingly unconnected events that occur around the same
time i n a
family's history are systematically related and have a profound
impact o n fami-
ly functioning.
I t is particularly helpful t o track changes in a family's long-
term Functioning
as they relate to critlcal family life events. We examine t h e
genogram carefully
for a p ~ l e u p of stresses, t h e impact of traumatic events,
anniversary reactions,
and t h e relationship of family experiences to social,
economic, and political
events. Thus, we c a n assess t h e impact of change o n t h e
family and its vulner-

ablllty t o future changes.
Coincidences of Life Events
Whenever several critical family experiences occur around t h e
same time, it is
wise t o request details. It is particularly Important t o notice t
h e c o i n c ~ d i n g
dates o n t h e genogram, which may indicate hidden
connections and reveal
emotional and systemic patterns. Such "coincidences" may
indicate a stressful
time in the family's history. If nothing else, they pinpoint t h e
critical periods i n
a family history, which are likely to have left an emotional
legacy. W e are n o t
talkinn here about o n e event "causina" another, but about t h e
association of - -
events that may be influential i n t h e development of family
patterns. Q u e e n
Elizabeth referred t o t h e year 1992 as t h e "annus
horribilis" due t o t h e multiple
traumas t h a t had plagued t h e royal family t h a t year: t h e
separation of o n e son,
Andrew, from his wife, Sarah Ferguson; the divorce of Princess
A n n e from
Captain Mark P h i l i p ; t h e ongoing rumors of marital
problems between Charles
and Diana; and a horrendous fire a t Windsor Castle that had d
o n e $60 million
dollars i n damage (Genogram 2.29). In situations where there
is such a pileup
of stressful life events, o n e must be o n t h e lookout for
emotional reactivity
among all family members as well as other hidden stressors
influencing t h e fam-
ily. T h e stress of such a pileup may show itself in physical

symptoms as well, and
indeed, w h e n the Q u e e n gave her speech o n the topic she
had a severe cold and
had almost lost her voice, perhaps a coincidence or perhaps a
physical indica-
tor of t h e stress she was describing, and it was reported t h a t
she had difficulty
sleeping for many months that year. As t h e Queen noted, h e r
family's stress was
compounded by stress i n the country a t t h e time. T h e r e
had been months of
36 GENOGRAMS: ASSESSMENT A N D INTERVENTION
worldwide turmoil and uncertainty, and Britain had had three
years of severe
recession, with millions unemployed and a record number of
personal bank-
ruptcies and homes repossessed.
In other situations the coincidences take place over time,
perhaps o n
anniversaries or at the same life cycle trans~tion. For example,
Gregory
Bateson's genogram (Genogram 2.23) depicts a number of
interesting coinci-
dences. First, Gregory's parents were married shortly after the
death of his
mother's father. Second, the middle son, Martin, committed
suicide o n the
birthday of the oldest brother, John, who had died four years
earlier. A n d final-
ly, Gregory met Margaret Mead shortly after h e cut off from
his mother.

Viewed systemically, these events may be more than
coincidence. Gregory's
parents' engagement was called off by Beatrice's mother when
W. B. Bateson got
drunk. This was a reaction t o Beatrice's father's alcoholism.
However, three
months after the alcoholic father died, Beatrice put a notice in
the newspaper,
hoping t o reconnect with W.B., who then recontacted her.
They were married
shortly afterward. In the next generation, Gregory happened t o
meet and fall in
love with Margaret just after becoming estranged from his
mother. She and her
second husband were doing anthropological work in a remote
area of the world
~ -
Genogram 2.23 Bateson family
1829-1918
William 8-n Arthur D u b
M y E d r d
pm1*c hi,,onan m b n i d j d ~ r
William B~cwrn
Dec'eloplng a Genogram to Track Family Pattern 37
a t that time. We might speculate that the children in this

family could only con-
nect to their spouses after disconnecting, through death or cut-
off, from a parent.
Gregory Bateson, t h e youngest of three sons of a famous
British geneticist,
was considered t h e least promising of the three, sickly in
childhood and not a n
outstanding student. T h e oldest son, J o h n , was supposed to
be t h e leader. H e
and the middle brother, Martin, two years apart in age, were
extremely close.
Gregory, four years younger, grew up somewhat separately. W h
e n J o h n was 2 0
h e was killed in World W a r I. A few days later his mother
wrote to Martln t h a t
"You and Gregory are left to me still and you must help m e
back to some of t h e
braveness that J o h n h a s taken away" (Lipset, 1980, p. 71).
Following John's d e a t h a rift developed between Martin and
his father,
whose own mother had died two months before J o h n (another
coincidence).
T h e father now began t o pressure this second son, Martin,
who was a poet, t o
become a zoologist. Relations between father and son
deteriorated. W h e n , i n
a d d i t ~ o n , Martln felt rebuffed by a young woman h e
admired, h e took a gun a n d
shot h ~ m s e l f in Trafalgar Square o n his brother John's
birthday, April 22, 1922,
in what was d e s c r ~ b e d as "probably t h e most dramatic
and dellberate suicide
ever witnessed i n London" (Lipset, 1980, p. 93). Martin's
choosing to kill him-

self o n his brother's birthday is also a n example of a n
anniversary reaction,
which will be discussed below.
Genogram 2.24 Kennedy family
Schema Theory and Scaffolding
Prior to engaging in this discussion, be sure to watch the What
are schemas? video, read “The Value of Peers and Support From
Scaffolding,” “Learning Theory – Schema
Theory,” and “Constructivism in Theory and Practice” articles,
and review any relevant Instructor Guidance. This guidance can
be very helpful as it may include strategies that support your
preferred learning.
Information on how we learn can be applied to areas such as in
health, leadership, business, employee training, and the family.
It can also help you to assist people to understand the needs of
others’ more successfully and create more successful learning,
organizational, and personal environments. In this discussion,
you will demonstrate your understanding of schema theory and
scaffolding by sharing about your educational background and
the ways you have been taught new knowledge in the past.
· First, evaluate schema theory and its potential application to
learning psychology.
· Second, compare one method of learning you have experienced
that did not align with anything you knew or believed to a
method that built on your existing schema (scaffolding).
· Third, thinking critically about the inherent differences in the
outcomes in these two situations, what differences were there
for you in the level of difficulty of remembering the material?
· Fourth, analyze and comment on how this learning theory
applied to these two real-life situations.
· What other differences you can think of?
· How might you apply the principles of this theory when

providing new information to a diverse group of individuals?
Example 1:
Evaluate schema theory and its potential application to learning
psychology.
Schema theory believes that any information received or
observed by an individual can be stored and referenced to as a
past experience that becomes their schema, which subsequently
controls their future behavior, for example, the schema that
allows you to always lock the doors wherever you are, will
always make you lock the doors, hence, if you are in an office
or a different place where the doors are not locked due to their
schema and past experience, you will be uncomfortable because
you feel they are not abiding to your schema or past knowledge
of door closing, it will become difficult for you to change the
pattern that organize your interaction with the environment,
because your schema is a tool that enables you to learn about
the world and it changes and expands all through our lives,
according to Learning theory – Schema theory . (n.d.). In
Education encyclopedia. Retrieved January 15, 2014 “In order
to account for these findings, Bartlett proposed that people have
schemata, or unconscious mental structures, that represent an
individual's generic knowledge about the world. It is through
schemata that old knowledge influences new information.” In
other words the past experience about door closing became a
mental knowledge that controlled the future behavior.
In a learning psychology which is a continuous process,
individuals tend to learn new things either through cognitive
understanding or based on past experience, which helps them
make critical decisions by categorizing or prioritizing or
accepting a viewpoint, for example, whom to vote for, could be
based on past experience or just a personal decision based on
cognitive knowledge of the candidate, according to Theories of
Learning in Educational Psychology. (n.d.). Jerome Bruner
(1915 - )., “Bruner's theories emphasize the significance of
categorization in learning. "To perceive is to categorize, to
conceptualize is to categorize, to learn is to form categories, to

make decisions is to categorize." Interpreting information and
experiences by similarities and differences is a key concept.”
Compare one method of learning you have experienced that did
not align with anything you knew or believed to a method that
built on your existing schema (scaffolding).
The method of learning that I have experienced that did not
align with anything I knew was casting a vote, although, I grew
up with the perception for a particular party was irrelevant,
because at the end of the day there would be a winner and a
looser, however, my existing schema of voting, allows me to
summarize reasons to vote for a particular candidate, which will
based on their past performance or proposed ideas, According to
Yang, (2015), “In acquiring reading and writing skills, students
need to identify keywords or phrases from each paragraph,
construct concept maps to decode texts, and integrate main
ideas or key elements into organized and logical summaries.” In
other words the schema helps the individual succeed or adapt
cognitively in an ever changing world.
Thinking critically about the inherent differences in the
outcomes in these two situations, what differences were there
for you in the level of difficulty of remembering the material?
The difference that was there in the level of difficulty of
remembering the material was the fact that voting is a civil
responsibility that everyone was expected to participate in,
however, after studying the information about the candidate and
the importance of my vote, it helps me to decide who will be the
best candidate to vote for. Therefore, creating an organized
logical summary helps me to arrive to a positive outcome.
Analyze and comment on how this learning theory applied to
these two real-life situations.
The learning theory which is the use my mental intellect and the
influence of the environment to helps me succeed in the ever
changing world, therefore, after realizing the importance of
casting a vote and the change that it could make, I had to apply
critical thinking by summarizing the ideas of the candidates
before deciding whom to vote for.

What other differences you can think of?
The other difference I can think of is trying to learn a different
or a new language other than the language that I grew up with,
the schema of the language I learned growing up will always
have influence over the new language I am learning.
How might you apply the principles of this theory when
providing new information to a diverse group of individuals?
When providing new information to a diverse group of
individuals, I will not allow my knowledge or understanding to
influence their decision, rather, I will give them an opportunity
to present their hypothesis and allow them to make their own
mental decision, which will be based on their past experience
and environmental influence, because as a diverse group their
ideas will vary. Which will encourage learning development.
Reference
Learning theory – Schema theory . (n.d.). In Education
encyclopedia. Retrieved January 15, 2014
from http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2175/Learning-
Theory-SCHEMA-THEORY.html
Theories of Learning in Educational Psychology. (n.d.). Jerome
Bruner (1915 - ). Retrieved
from http://www.lifecircles-
inc.com/Learningtheories/constructivism/bruner.html
Yang, Y. (2015). Automatic scaffolding and measurement of
concept mapping for EFL students
to write summaries. Journal Of Educational Technology &
Society, 18(4), 273-286.
Theory Versus Theory Versus Theory
Prior to engaging in this discussion, please read
the “Constructivism in Theory and Practice,” “Rona's Story and
the Theory of Symbolic Interactionism,” and “Symbolic
Interactionism and Critical Perspective” articles, and review
any relevant Instructor Guidance. This guidance can be very
helpful as it may include strategies that support your preferred
learning.

1. Demonstrate your understanding of the complexities of how
we learn by evaluating the potential correlations between
symbolic interactionism and constructivism.
2. Apply basic research methods in psychology to your post by
synthesizing the principles from the articles in your own words
with appropriate citations.
· Do not quote the articles directly.
3. Based on your course resources, scholarly articles, and the
knowledge you have developed throughout the past four weeks,
critically consider how/if these correlations might affect a
person’s ability and/or willingness to learn new material.
· Consider the following in your analysis:
· Symbolic interactionism is actually a theory posed in
sociological psychology. Do you believe this theory can be
aligned with the framework of constructivism, which originates
from learning psychology? Why, or why not? Support your
statements with scholarly research and personal examples.
· In your opinion, what prevents (or substantiates) their
correlation?
· Based on these theories, what possible needs should be
considered when teaching skills to a group of diverse learners?
Demonstrate your understanding of the complexities of how we
learn by evaluating the potential correlations between symbolic
interactionism and constructivism.
The correlation between symbolic interactionism and
constructivism is that language, symbols, and thought have been
shown to be related and therefore, the act of representing
objects, interactions, or meaning in an experience, within a
medium such as language, paint and canvas, or pen and paper,
appears to create a discussion that will benefit thought (Eisner,
1993). Simply put, each medium has its own constructs that has
attributes and thus produces new variations on the embedded
meaning, which is unique to each individual. In order to
develop meaning, you must make sense of your experiences and

doing so often requires dialogue and communication, which
essentially relies on symbolic interactionism (Applefield,
Huber, & Moallem, n.d.).
Symbolic interactionism is actually a theory posed in
sociological psychology. Do you believe this theory can be
aligned with the framework of constructivism, which originates
from learning psychology? Why, or why not?
I do believe that the theory of symbolic interactionism can
be aligned with the framework of constructivism, even though
they are derived from two different types of psychology because
they overlap in application. Symbolic interactionism is the
thought that human interaction is guided by words, symbols,
and other gestures, while constructivism is a learning theory
that believes in the theory that we construct our own knowledge
out of our experiences and interactions with others, the personal
meaning we find in the lesson. As stated above, in order to
develop meaning, you must make sense of your experiences and
doing so often requires dialogue and communication, which
essentially relies on symbolic interactionism (Applefield,
Huber, & Moallem, n.d.). Therefore, symbolic interactionism is
vital to the process of constructing our own knowledge.
One personal example would be a situation I encounter in
my position with MiHope Michigan, which often times
counsel’s families that lost children to overdoses. I had no
existing schema on this subject matter until I became close to
the mothers that had lost their children. They told me, in detail,
about the experience of losing their child, I cried with them,
held them while they sobbed, but their words, the pictures they
showed me, the videos…The symbols. Moving forward, I could
speak of the experience, teach others what I had learned or
experienced, and now could attach my own meaning to the
situation, that I would not have been able to gain if these
women had not used the symbols, gestures, and dialogue that
they did.
In your opinion, what prevents (or substantiates) their
correlation?

In my opinion, it is the fact that symbolic interactionism is
so vital to gaining the meaning needed to actively participate in
constructivism that substantiates the correlation for me. Without
the words, symbols, and gestures of others, meaning could not
be gained in some situations therefore making the construction
of knowledge impossible.
Based on these theories, what possible needs should be
considered when teaching skills to a group of diverse learners?
As always, when teaching these theories to a group of
diverse learners the instructor must be prepared for those that
will have differing viewpoints as to the effectiveness of one
theory upon the other or each theory individually. For example,
if I do not subscribe to the theory of constructivism whatsoever,
it will not be possible for me to view symbolic interactionism in
relation to a theory that I do not believe is effective to begin
with. I may discount all applications of that theory so it will be
hard to see any other theories relating to it. I guess the bottom
line will be, the instructor needs to prepare for different
opinions, thoughts, and levels of comprehension when teaching
these skills.
Applefield, J. M., Huber, R., & Moallem, M. (n.d.).
Constructivism in theory and practice: Toward a better
understanding. Retrieved from
http://people.uncw.edu/huberr/constructivism.pdf
Eisner, E. (1993). Forms of understanding and the future of
educational research. Educational Researcher, 22(7), 5-11.
Also by Monica McGoldrick
Genograms: Assessment and Intervention, Third Edition
with Randy Gerson and Sueli Petry

Women in Families: A Framewort^for Family Therapy
with Carol Anderson and Froma Walsh
Living Beyond Loss, Second Edition
with Froma Walsh
The
Genogram Journey
Reconnecting
with Your Family
Monica McGoldrick O
W. W. Norton & Company
New York • London
Bright © 2011,1995 by Monica McGoldrick
LOUS edition published as
J CAN GO HOME AGAIN:
mnecting with Your Family
ights reserved
ted in United States of America
: published as a Norton paperback 1997 as
J CAN GO HOME AGAIN; revised 2011

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•ary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
joldrick, Monica.
: genogram journey : reconnecting with your
ily/
lica McGoldrick. - Rev. ed.
/iously published under title: You Can Go Home
in.
udes bibliographical references and index.
N 978-0-393-70627-7 (pbk.)
•amUies—Psychological aspects. 2. Family

ssment.
jenealogy. I. Title.
>518.M382011
.87-dc22
3027653
N: 978-0-393-70627-7 (pbk.)
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3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
All the genograms for this book were drawn
with the software GenoPro. While they
have been modified here to maximize their
visibility, the GenoPro software allows readers
to reproduce these genograms with virtually
all their features, including the insertion of
pictures.
I am extremely grateful to Dan
Morin for the efforts he put in over the past
several years to make GenoPro, originally
a genealogy charting system, conform to
the format for genograms that has been

developed over the past three decades through
a collaboration of family therapists, family
physicians, and others interested in this
extremely useful tool.
Because GenoPro stores genograms in
XML, an open database format, researchers
will soon be able to examine data from
multiple genograms, making it possible to
track family patterns over generations and
across families and cultures.
In the future, GenoPro plans to release
a "collaboration module" enabling multiple
users to edit the same genogram. Although
this collaboration module is designed for
geographically distant family members to
work together via the Internet to create a
common shared database of their family tree,
it will be equally useful for family therapists
who want to share genograms with each other
and with their clients, allowing them, for
example, to complete their genograms at home
before a session.

All readers are welcome to download
GenoPro from www.genopro.com/
genogramformat. This version of GenoPro has
specialized settings to display the genogram
symbols used in this book. This version is
being offered for free for the first six months,
after which the user is welcome to purchase
GenoPro for a one-time fee ($49.00 as of this
book's printing).
Please note: All technical questions
regarding the software should be directed to
www.genopro.com
F O R M Y M O T H E R
who taught me that it is possible to repair a cutoff and come to
love
someone with whom you have had profound conflicts. I believe
that it
is not so much our mothers who have let us down as it is the
yardsticks
by which we have measured them. I dedicate this book to her
for her

courage as a woman and for her willingness to keep growing
until
her last breath. She lives in my heart every day.
A N D F O R B E T T Y C A R T E R
my mentor, soul mate, and sister, with whom I thought through
so
many of the issues discussed here about how to reconnect with
your
family. I dedicate this book to her in gratitude for her love,
humor,
and brilliance in systems thinking, and for the blessing of over
30
years of collaboration with her.
5 8 T H E G E N O G R A M J O U R N E Y
through her denial now," try to be very clear as to whose denial
you are wor-
ried about. Work on the assumption that all people do the best
they can.
Given the benefit of the doubt, people often respond to a sincere
request to
learn about the family—even if they have spent a lifetime acting

crazy, reject-
ing, hostile, intrusive, oblivious, or inept in other ways.
Even in-laws (so often viewed as crass, materialistic, haughty,
dippy, or "lower
class") can be astonishing sources of information about family
stories. They have,
of course, spent years observing the patterns of the family, and
by now they are
probably experts. Another good source is family friends, or
even former family
friends. They, like in-laws, might tell the stories that everyone
else avoids because
they are not as bound as the insiders by rules about "family
secrets."
Here are a few questions that may help you get started on your
family
journey:
n How do family members think about each other? What
characteristics
are mentioned? Is someone considered the loudmouth? the
spendthrift?
the soft touch? the dead hero? the all-knowing matriarch? What
are
the roles and labels in the family? Does someone play the
"goody two

shoes" and somebody else the "bad seed"? Is one the villain and
another
the hero? Is one "weak, boring, and slow" and another "brilliant,
domi-
neering, and manipulative" ? List the different ways family
members are
described, noting especially the opposites in role or label.
it Who was named for whom in the family and why? Do names
reveal the
roles people have played? Who chose the names? Why were
they chosen?
If names have no apparent rhyme or reason, could there be
hidden mean-
ings? Was someone named for a mother's lost sweetheart? If
members are
named for the dead, have they taken on their characteristics?
What were
the naming patterns in the family and are they reflected in the
structure
or have they influenced the psychological patterns of family
members?
m Were there coincidences between the births of family
members and
moves or migration? illness or death? changes in family

finances? How
did migration influence children's family experience? How did
financial
changes influence the lives of children? How did illness and
death influ-
ence them at different ages?
m How much did your family conform to the gender stereotypes
of your cul-
ture and era? Which family members did not conform to these
expected
gender roles and how were they viewed by others? What can
you learn
about your family's flexibility or inflexibility from its history of
allowable
gender roles?
I I 3 Family Stories, Myths, and Secrets
Storytelling is fundamental to the human search for meaning . .
.
each of us is involved in inventing a new kind of story.
Composing a Life
—MARY CATHERINE BATESON
Remember, what you are told is really threefold: Shaped by the
teller,

reshaped by the listener, and concealed from them both by the
deadman
of the tale.
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
—VLADIMIR NABOKOV
All history, including the histories of our families, is part of us,
such that
when we hear any secret revealed, a secret about a grandfather
or an uncle,
or a secret about the battle of Dresden in 1945, our lives are
made suddenly
clearer to us, as the unnatural heaviness of unspoken truth is
dispersed.
For perhaps we are like stone—our own history and the history
of the
world embedded in us.
A Chorus of Stones
— SUSAN GRIFFIN
Wer e are born not just into our family, but also into our
family's stories, which
both nourish—and sometimes cripple—us. And when we die,
the story of our

lives becomes part of our family's web of meaning (Kotre &
Hall, 1990). Family
stories tend to be told to remind members of the cherished
beliefs of the fam-
ily. We sing the heroes and even the villains whose daring the
family admires.
Taping or writing down the stories of older family members can
bring a rich-
ness to people's search for perspective on family that cannot be
achieved in any
other way. Technology now allows us to convey the sound and
visual reality of
family stories better than at any other time in human history.
The passage of time shears away some details and highlights
others, yielding
a subjective, continuously reedited overview of memories and
stories that strive
for a meaningful narrative. When a disjunctive experience is
introduced—
60 T H E G E N O G R A M J O U R N E Y
F A M I L Y S T O R I E S , M Y T H S , A N D S E C R E T S
61
one that doesn't jibe with a family's story or the culture's
dominant narrative—

we may be left challenged and bewildered. Everything that gets
said in a family
crosses the intersection of the said and the unsaid. Traumatic
family expe-
riences can create myths and superstitions about the dangers of
the outside
world that flow down the generations, influencing descendants
who have no
conscious awareness of the origins of the beliefs. Nor do they
understand how
family stories develop around the facts to reassure, to explain,
or to limit the
pain of certain family experiences. Family stories and myths are
worth ana-
lyzing for the signals they contain about the family's covert
values and rules.
Families transmit messages that seem to prescribe behavior for
generations to
come. They embed in the narratives the sense they make of their
lives, as well
as rules for relationships and behavior.
One family's stories may revolve around the courage of family
members
against great odds, another's about their humorous comeback
after humiliation.

In families characterized by pessimism, stories may carry a
message that "you
never win." Usually people have stereotyped roles in family
stories— hero, vil-
lain, jokester, victim—roles that, by identifying the "good guys"
and "bad guys,"
reveal the values in the family. Becoming aware of family
messages allows people
to consciously decide whether or not to maintain these roles and
beliefs.
Family myths are transmitted both explicitly and—more often—
implic-
itly, which increases their power to influence the next
generation, as these
beliefs are generally accepted as reality. People may need to be
exposed to
values different from those of their own families before they
can question or
become fully aware of their family's rules. Families
communicate in numer-
ous subtle verbal and nonverbal ways. All families develop
private jokes, rou-
tines, and references, which are transmitted from one generation
to another.

My mother used to say, "Never trust a short woman." She was 5
foot 9; her
mother-in-law was about 4 foot 6; we can guess the implications
of her imper-
ative. Other messages, such as putting a plate under the orange
juice when
certain guests visited, conveyed important class messages about
where she felt
we stood in relation to others. We had other communication
rules about never
mentioning a person's race or cultural background, which
conveyed messages
about our place in the social setup. Children learn early what
can and cannot
be discussed. All families convey messages about gender, social
class, race,
and ethnicity, which can be valuable to examine.
Children may be drawn into a family myth or expectation to
carry out mis-
sions left incomplete by another member's death, or they may be
constrained
by parental fear of repeating a painful experience in the past.
Whether family
experiences lead parents to compensate by neglecting or

overfocusing on a
child, the legacy can become a burden for the next generation.
The Bronte Family
The Bronte family (Genogram 3.1) seems to have developed the
belief that
leaving home was dangerous, and in the end no one could leave
at all. The
belief probably originated in early family experiences of illness
and death,
but the myth itself influenced later reactions when family
members did leave.
Charlotte, the oldest to survive to adulthood, once wrote an
epitaph for one of
her heroines, which also seems apt for her family: "The orb of
your life is not to
be so rounded; for you the crescent-phase must suffice" (Bronte,
2004, p. 340).
Much information is missing about the earlier generations of
this extraor-
dinary family, which produced two of the greatest novelists the
world has
known: Emily Bronte, author of Wuthering Heights, and
Charlotte Bronte,
author of Jane Eyre. Probably there was a legacy of emotional

conflicts in the
family of the Bronte father, Patrick, as his father, Hugh Bronte,
and grand-
father, Welsh Bronte, were both apparently adopted and then
mistreated in
their adoptive families in a story extremely reminiscent of
Wuthering Heights.
The Bronte mother, Maria Branwell Bronte, came from a family
in which
four children died in infancy or childhood, including the three
closest to her
in age. And there were many more losses, including the loss of
both parents,
before Maria married Patrick in a double wedding with Maria's
first cousin
and Patrick's best friend; on the same day Maria's younger
sister, Charlotte,
married another cousin of theirs, Joseph Branwell, in a different
town.
If we take a systemic view of the coincidence of events,
concurrent events
in a family often represent more than random happenings. The
fact that four
members of the same family were married on the same day may

suggest some
fusion in the Bronte family, which often results from loss. In
fact, the family
had just suffered a series of pivotal losses: As mentioned, both
parents had
died—Maria's father, Thomas Branwell, in 1808, and her mother
in 1809.
The family business had then been taken over by Thomas's older
brother,
Richard, and Richard's son, Thomas, but then Thomas died
tragically in
December 1811 and Richard died the following year. This final
death precipi-
tated the breakup of the family. Richard's other son, Joseph,
married Char-
lotte, Maria's younger sister, and Maria married Patrick Bronte,
while her
cousin Jane (daughter of Richard's only sister) married Patrick's
best friend.
There followed in the family of Patrick and Maria Bronte a
further series
of tragic losses, which seem to have influenced the future
behavior of family
members profoundly, limiting their ability to leave and turning

them inward
on themselves and on one another. Patrick came to see himself
as "a stranger
in a strange land," and seems to have conveyed to his children
this sense of
alienation and need to protect oneself from the outside world.
The six Bronte
Hugh I Brunty
6 3
XT7U
abandoned by his parents, r
adopted by Hugh I
Welsh Mary
I
18081745-
adopted and abused by Uncle Welsh
who married Aunt Mary
Hugh If Bronte
only 4 children married but 9 lived long live

-S i>H jJ**>; |v-H /-% /-v ^"< V
Welsh
1777-1861
x,* J>x--«i
Rev. Patrick Bronte
m. Dec 29,1812
1813-1825
Maria
1815j1825
XX
Elizabeth
n
4
caretaker from ĵ;>,
1820s on
Tabby
• An "X" appears in cases of untimely, recent, or significant
death.
Richard Thomas
Bran we 11

6 4 T H E G E N O G R A M J O U R N E Y F A M I L Y S T O
R I E S , M Y T H S , A N D S E C R E T S 6 5
children were born in a 7-year period; soon after the youngest
was born, Maria
developed a serious blood disorder. During her painful illness,
all six children
developed scarlet fever, which must have intensified the
family's sense of fragil-
ity and trauma. Maria died an excruciatingly painful death a
year later, having
rarely seen the children in the final year because of her
suffering. The oldest
daughter was only 9 and the youngest was not yet 2. Following
her death, the
father, Patrick, found his children's presence a painful reminder
of his wife
rather than a comfort: "Oppressive grief sometimes lay heavy on
me ... when
I missed her at every corner, and when her memory was hourly
revived by the
innocent, yet distressing prattle of my children" (Frazer, 1988,
p. 28).
Patrick withdrew into himself and began dining alone, which he
contin-

ued to do for the rest of his life. His daughter Charlotte later
said that "he did
not like children . . . and the noise made him shut himself up
and want no
companionship—nay, to be positively annoyed by it" (Frazer,
1988, p. 28). He
appeared to outsiders eccentric, carrying a loaded pistol at all
times, even dur-
ing prayers. From the time of Maria's death, nothing in the
Bronte home was
changed—no furniture was moved, added, or eliminated—and
very few peo-
ple visited. Such rigidity is a common response in families beset
by trauma.
Maria's unmarried sister, Elizabeth, moved in and remained
there for the
rest of her life. Four years later a family caretaker, Tabby, was
added. She also
stayed for the rest of her life, dying within a few weeks of the
death of the
last surviving Bronte child, Charlotte. Throughout their
childhood the six
children were left very much on their own and, while the
externals in their

lives remained constricted, they developed a most extraordinary
inner life of
imagination and fantasy.
When the oldest daughter was 12, she and her sisters were sent
to a local
boarding school, but further tragedy followed this attempt to
leave home. The
two oldest sisters developed tuberculosis at the school and died
within a few
months. The death of the oldest, Maria, named for her mother,
was especially
tragic, because the school authorities were extremely abusive to
her in her last
days. The other sisters were witness to the torment of their
favorite sister, who
had become their mother's replacement. The morbidity of it all
was exagger-
ated by the fact that the cemetery where mother and sisters lay
buried sur-
rounded the family house on two sides. There was no getting
away from the
eerie sense of death. Probably the stories about children
mistreated in school
situations and misunderstood by parent substitutes in the

writings of the
Brontes reflect attempts to work through these painful
childhood memories.
Such early losses must have reinforced the developing Bronte
"story" or
belief that life in the outside world was dangerous. After the
oldest daughter's
death, the other children were withdrawn from school, and from
that point
on, whenever the remaining four children tried to leave home,
they were
forced to return because they or another member became ill or
needy. The
only son, Branwell, on whom the greatest hopes were placed,
was accepted
at the Royal College of Art in London and left home to attend,
but he never
actually enrolled, returning home addicted to drugs and alcohol.
Thereafter
he periodically left home for jobs, which he never managed to
keep. The real
deterioration of Branwell coincided in reciprocal fashion with
his three sisters'
initial publishing success, which they accomplished under male
pseudonyms,
telling neither their father nor their brother what they were

doing. As Char-
lotte said: "My unhappy brother . . . was not aware t h a t . . .
[we] had published
a line. We could not tell him of our efforts for fear of causing
him too deep
a pang of remorse for his own time misspent and talents
misapplied. Now
he will never know. I cannot dwell longer on the subject at
present—it is too
painful" (Frazer, 1988, p. 315). By the time Branwell died, 3
years later, the
sisters were renowned under their own names. Branwell painted
their por-
trait, painting himself out of the image (Figure 3.1). Of the
three surviving
Figure 3.1. Portrait by Branwell Bronte of himself and his
sisters in which he has
obliterated himself.
sisters, Charlotte was the most successful at leaving home,
managing at one
point to stay away at a school for 2 years; she was the only one
able to develop

friendships outside the family, but she too always returned
home.
There was something eccentric as well as extraordinary about
the Bronte
family. Patrick Bronte rarely spent time with his family, though
he could not
tolerate their leaving him. The children, deprived of outside
stimulation, cre-
ated an amazing fantasy world of shared stories, invented and
written jointly
in minuscule, almost indecipherable handwriting and put
together in about
800 tiny manuscript books, about 400 of which still survive. It
is almost as
if they were fusing in the private world of their imagination;
their minds
roamed free in fantasy, creating historical sagas with imaginary
characters, as
well as historical personages they had heard about. As Charlotte
later wrote,
they "wove a web in childhood" (Fraser, 1988, p. 99). As an
adult she feared
their childhood dreams "withered the sod."
Charlotte, even in her youth, looked somehow like a little old
woman, but

described herself as "undeveloped." Even as a woman in her
mid-thirties, she
wore children's chemises. Charlotte's fantasy world remained
her "secret joy,"
and when she was forced to work as a teacher, she found it
difficult to stay
at her task, longing for the fantasy life on which she had
become extremely
dependent and which she used as an escape from her mundane
existence: "I
carefully avoid any appearance of preoccupation and
eccentricity which might
lead those I live amongst to suspect the nature of my pursuits"
(Fraser, 1988,
p. 111). Whenever she was away, Charlotte tended to have an
"indefinite fear"
about those at home, a legacy, as her biographer Rebecca Frazer
called it, of
"her overcast youth," worrying unceasingly about her father, as
he himself
always exaggerated fears about his own health. When she was
away, she expe-
rienced a variety of symptoms, from a hysterical form of
blindness to chronic

and severe headaches, anxiety, and depression. She wrote: "At
home . . . I talk
with ease and am never shy—never weighed down by that
miserable 'mau-
vaise honte' which torments and constrains me elsewhere" (p.
128). A friend
warned her that staying home would "ruin her," but she gave up
encouraging
her to leave when she saw Charlotte's response, though she
could never "think
without gloomy anger of Charlotte's sacrifices to the selfish old
man" (Fraser,
1988, pp. 221-222). Charlotte herself wrote of her life: "I feel
as if we were all
buried here—I long to travel—to work, to live a life of action
but saw these as
my fruitless wishes" (p. 224). To another friend she wrote:
"Whenever I con-
sult my Conscience it affirms that I am doing right in staying at
home—and
bitter are its upbraidings when I yield to an eager desire for
release" (p. 183).
The other Bronte siblings were even more unable to leave tjie
family. Emily,

6 7
after a few unsuccessful forays, gave up completely. She
became ill at the time
of Branwell's funeral and died 3 months later. Anne became ill
at this time as
well and died 5 months after Emily, leaving only Charlotte of
the six siblings.
Charlotte feared that the shadow of her brother and sisters' last
days would
now linger forever. Her description of her reactions at the time
are an excel-
lent expression of ways the legacy of trauma can shut a family
down, locking
them into myth, secrecy, and avoidance of any experience that
reminds them
of what they cannot bear to face: "I must not look forwards, nor
must I look
backwards. Too often I feel like one crossing an abyss on a
narrow plank—a
glance round might quite unnerve" (Fraser, 1988, p. 320). She
buried herself
in her work, clinging to her faculty of imagination to save her
from sinking.

Several years later a most persistent suitor, her father's curate,
Arthur
Nicholls, persuaded her to marry him. Her father went into a
rage and fired
him. A year later, unable to put up with Nicholls's replacement,
Patrick
relented and agreed that Nicholls could marry Charlotte, if they
would both
agree never to leave him. They agreed. Charlotte was not really
in love with
Nicholls, as we know from her letters to her two close friends,
but shortly
after the marriage she accompanied him to his home in Ireland
and there she
began to see him in a different light. She saw his humor and
found him more
interesting in the context of his family. She began to fall in love
with him.
She became pregnant. She returned from her travels, however,
out of anxiety
about her father's health, which soon improved. Hers, however,
began to dete-
riorate and she soon died, losing the baby as well.

The cause of Charlotte's death is unclear. Many have speculated
on a pos-
sible psychological component. Her beloved caretaker, Tabby,
had died just
before she did. Charlotte died at age 38, the same age her
mother had been at
death. Only Patrick lived on, dying at the ripe age of 86.
Thus ended a most creative family. One might almost think they
were
"doomed" psychologically by the narratives they had created in
response to
their many losses, even while the narratives they created in their
writings will
last as long as our culture.
The Adams Family
The Adams family story (Genogram 3.2) involves a belief in
high achieve-
ment, which meant that for four generations they were a family
of spectacular
highs and lows—amazing successes and abysmal failures. They
seemed to
accept a myth that there were only two options: You were either
a great suc-
cess or a great failure. Charles Frances Adams, the most

successful member
of the third generation, observed: "The history of my family is
not a pleasant
one to remember. It is one of great triumphs in the world but of
deep groans
within, one of extraordinary brilliancy and deep corroding
mortification"
(Nagel, 1983, p. 3). The public accomplishments of many
members of the
Adams family are astonishing, as are the catastrophic failures of
others. As
their biographer Paul Nagel has pointed out, "No Adams,
success or failure,
made a comfortable accommodation to life" (p. 6).
In this family across four generations, there were two U.S.
presidents, a
famous diplomat, accomplished essayists, historians, and
wealthy business-
men. There were also illiterates, alcoholics and ne'er-do-wells,
failed mar-
riages, and suicides. In fact, even the most successful family
members were

often depressed, full of self-doubt and rarely satisfied with their
efforts.
The Adams family had a sense of being different from the
common
crowd. This is not surprising, given their accomplishments.
They saw them-
selves as having a unique independence of mind, devotion to
public service,
and freedom from impulses of greed or political ambition.
Along with this
sense of specialness and expectation of greatness came self-
criticism. They
were hard on others in their demands but even harder on
themselves, holding
themselves up to impossible standards.
John Adams, the second president, was his own greatest critic,
extremely
sensitive to the criticism of others, full of self-doubt, and
questioning of his
own motives. He was equally quick to criticize his children in
the hope that
they might avoid succumbing to weak nature. As Abigail once
said to her
husband: "Sometimes, you know, I think you too severe. You do

not make so
many allowances as Human Nature requires" (Nagel, 1983, p.
21).
John's letters to Abigail are marked by self-criticism that
continued to
characterize the Adams family. Despite his extreme diligence as
a lawyer and
patriot, he repeatedly castigated himself as a lazy wastrel. The
family intoler-
ance for human frailty joined their pessimistic view of human
nature that led
them to expect it. Like his own father, a deacon, John believed
in dedication
to family, self-reliance, and service to others. The father of his
wife, Abigail
Smith, was an independent-minded minister who resisted the
religious hys-
teria of his day. Both families were steeped in a Puritanism that
emphasized
original sin and human fallibility. Like many families living in
times of great
change, the Adams developed a strong sense of family identity
that brought
the parents and children together in common cause against

adversity. As the
family grew in eminence they developed a sense of mission as
the moral con-
science of the nation.
Once he became involved in politics, John spent more and more
time
away from his New England home, leaving Abigail to run the
farm and rear
the children. She had nurtured the hope that out of the American
Revolution
6 9
would come greater equality for women and recognition of their
rights. She
was sorely disappointed, as even her husband did not take her
cause seriously.
To justify her deprivations and disappointments, she tried to
focus on her
husband's goals and ideals. She commiserated with John that his
efforts and
sacrifices for his country were never sufficiently appreciated,
that he alone was
not stooping to partisan politics and knew what was best for the
country. His

project was to start a nation, and hers to produce a new
generation that would
lead that nation. John, too, was interested in raising the children
correctly, but
he often had to be satisfied with giving advice and admonitions
by mail.
Both parents were demanding of their children. Perhaps because
Abi-
gail's brother's dissipation had devastated her family of origin,
to the point
they would not speak his name, she was obsessed with her
children's good
behavior and achievement. Indeed, her dissipated brother's own
son died of
alcoholism at the same age as his father, and the
multigenerational pattern
was evident in the family. Abigail said, "God grant that we may
never mourn
a similar situation" (Nagel, 1983, p. 33). She pondered the sins
of her brother,
knowing that, despite the most earnest parental efforts, vice and
viciousness
could take early root and, as she put it, "tho often crop'd, will
spring again"

(Nagel, 1983, p. 28). She told her oldest son, John Quincy,
when he was only
10: "I had much rather you should have found your Grave in the
ocean you
have crossed, or any untimely death crop you in your infant
years than see you
an immoral profligate or a Graceless child" (Nagel, 1983, p.
30).
As much as they tried to get their children on the right track,
John and
Abigail's entire lives were marred by problems with their
children. They
never realized that their anxiety, high standards, harsh
criticism, pessimis-
tic expectations, and the suffocating togetherness of the family
might con-
tribute to their children's difficulties. To a considerable extent
their worst
parental fears were fulfilled. Their oldest daughter, Abigail
(Nabby), partly
in response to her parents' intrusions, ended up marrying an
uncaring, irre-
sponsible husband who eventually went to prison for fraud and
debt. Charles

Adams became alcoholic, lost the family investments, and
became cut off
from his parents and family. Thomas, also alcoholic and a failed
lawyer, was
described negatively by everyone as an embittered and difficult
bully; he too
made a disaster of his and his family's lives. Thomas was
apparently reminded
through his life that he was responsible for his maternal
grandmother becom-
ing ill and dying while caring for him when he had cholera at 3.
John and
Abigail ended up having to support Charles's and Thomas's
wives and raise
their children.
The one exception seemed to be the eldest son, John Quincy. At
the age of
14 he accompanied his father to Europe on a diplomatic
mission. He returned
70
T H E G E N O G R A M J O U R N E Y F A M I L Y S T O R I
E S , M Y T H S , A N D S E C R E T S 71
1691-1761

1709-1797
illiterate
deacon, farmer,
shoemaker, m. at 43
lived away from
family most of
each year '74-79; C J O LJ^r—
John '79-87 lived abroad
with JQA
UHffl
suicide
180lil829
lost
family »28
money
George
Washington
1803FI834
Q
Mary
Jolhn Hellen
later life
addicted to t 8
morphine

Mary
1831-11870
lived abroad to
escape family 9
legacy
Louisa
Catherine
Genogram 3.2. The Adams Family.
to go to Harvard and eventually start his own law practice. At
the age of 27, he
was sent to his own diplomatic post in Holland and began a
career in public
service. Eventually he became the sixth president of the United
States. John
Quincy shared not only his father's dedication as a statesman
but also his out-
look on life, taking it even further in harshness and severity.
The expectations
for him had been great. His father had said to him: "You come
into life with

advantages, which will disgrace you if your success is
mediocre. And if you do
not rise to the head not only of your Profession, but of your
country, it will be
owing to your own Laziness, Slovenliness, and Obstinacy"
(Nagel, 1997, p. 76).
Unlike his brothers, John Quincy was partly able to fulfill these
expectations,
but at great personal cost. Despite his achievements, his life
was even more
overshadowed by self-doubt and depression than his father's
was. He never felt
that he was living up to the standards handed down to him by
his parents. Like
his father, he was defeated after a single term as president and
saw the world
of politics as crass, devoid of ideals, and unappreciative of what
the Adams
family had done for the nation. It was not until years later,
when he returned
to Washington as a congressman and became the major
spokesman for the
antislavery movement, that he developed some sense of
accomplishment.

John Quincy's marriage was a difficult one. His wife, Louisa
Catherine
Johnson, an extraordinarily capable woman, was a joyous and
affection-
craving spirit. She wondered in later life whether, if she had
been more
mature, she might have recognized that her husband's
"unnecessary harsh-
ness and severity of character" would make the marriage a
perpetual trial.
Not surprisingly, she had problems with the outlook of the
Adams family,
which took itself so seriously and saw the world as prone to
such evil. Her
father's bankruptcy at the time of her marriage humiliated her
and left her
painfully dependent on her critical and distant husband, who
ignored her as
he attended to his career or withdrew in bouts of depression.
Often left alone,
she became depressed herself. Her husband could not or would
not respond
to her emotional needs. She had four miscarriages before she
had a child who

survived. Many more losses followed. In all she bore 10
children, only three of
whom lived to adulthood.
John Quincy took up the family escutcheon of public service,
family great-
ness, and intense anxiety about childrearing and passed it on to
the next gen-
eration. He taught his children that much was expected of an
Adams in the
constant struggle against an unappreciative world. He once
wrote to his son:
Your father and grandfather have fought their way through the
world
against hosts of adversaries, open and close, disguised and
masked . . .
and more than one or two perfidious friends. The world is and
will
7 3
continue to be prolific with such characters. Live in peace with
them;
never upbraid, never trust them. But—"don't give up the ship!"
For-
tify your mind against disappointments. (Shepherd, 1975, p.
xxi)

He also taught that the family must stay together and recognize
its special
place in history. However, long separations again had their
impact on the next
generation. Because of his diplomatic duties, John Quincy and
Louisa spent
many years abroad, leaving the older children behind with their
grandpar-
ents. Their oldest son, George Washington Adams, later felt that
his parents'
absence during those formative years left him unprepared for
life. George
was the oldest son of the oldest son of John Adams, who was
the oldest son of
another John Adams. As if this positioning wasn't enough
pressure, George's
birth followed four miscarriages, which must have intensified
the parents'
expectations for the first surviving son. A lot was expected of
this unfortu-
nate young man, who was born just after his grandfather lost a
bitter election
for a second term as president. Further conflict was embedded
in his very

name. Instead of being named for his father, grandfather, and
great grand-
father, he was named for our first president, which wounded
John Adams
(McCullough, 2001), who believed that Washington owed his
career to
Adams himself (Adams, 1976). Surely there must have been
conflicted family
meaning to this naming.
Sadly, George Washington Adams was ill-equipped to live up to
the
expectations of the Adams family. He once said he could not
remember a
day when he didn't think about becoming president. The parents'
letters
from abroad exhorted him to live up to his legacy. He never
could. Just before
entering college at 16, he had a dream in which he was showing
interest in a
young woman when his father appeared, "his eyes fixed upon
me" (Nagel,
1983, p. 268). Under his father's gaze, George lost interest. He
said he was

always trying to escape that gaze.
Years earlier in 1816, his grandfather had written to him: "I fear
that too
many of my hopes are built upon you" (Musto, 1981, p. 57).
George, in fact,
was unruly and difficult from childhood on. He did poorly at
everything he
tried. He blamed his parents' long absences for his difficulties
and lack of self-
discipline, though he seemed also relieved of the pressure of
their presence
when his father moved to Washington to become our sixth
president. Left
behind in Boston to handle family affairs, he made a mess of
them and of
his own life over the next 4 years. Finally, in 1828, his father
was defeated for
reelection. George's engagement to a flirtatious first cousin,
Mary Catherine
Hellen, was broken in February when she married his younger
brother, John,
which must have been painful for him. (She had also had a
romance with the

74 T H E G E N O G R A M J O U R N E Y F A M I L Y S T O
R I E S , M Y T H S , A N D S E C R E T S
7 5
third brother, Charles Francis!) George then impregnated a maid
and she
gave birth in December.
By the spring of 1829 George's life was in shambles. His
parents requested
that he come to Washington to accompany them home to
Boston. On the
boat on the way to meet them, he became very disturbed, and in
the middle
of the night jumped overboard and drowned, probably in
anticipation of hav-
ing to live again in the shadow of his father. Born at the
moment of failure
of his grandfather and of the miserable death his dissipated,
alcoholic uncle,
Charles, who had lost the family savings, George killed himself
at a similar
moment of failure in his father's life, leaving a painful and
humiliating legacy
like that left by his uncle.
John Quincy's second son, John, also became an alcoholic
failure and died

from a mysterious disease at the age of 31. As in the earlier
generation, only
one son, the third, Charles Francis, survived to carry on the
Adams legacy.
As a youngest son and probably freer of the family constraints,
he was a
very different man from his father. Charles Francis was also the
only child
to accompany his parents on their travels. Perhaps because of
her connection
to him, Louisa was better able to soften for him the negative
aspects of the
Adams family legacy. Louisa later warned him: "Go on and do
not suffer
yourself to be intimidated or brow beaten as your brother was,
but pursue
your course steadily and respectably" (Musto, 1981, p. 44).
Charles Francis
was more relaxed, less self-critical, and better able to face
differences with
his father squarely without letting his father dominate him. He
still had the
strong sense of the Adams legacy and the family's special place
in history. It

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