Have them submit their medical records and see if there is any pattern to them. To get started in finding out your patient’s family history you need to find out about their own health first. Look Into Your Patient’s personal History If you are wondering where you can start in making a medical genogram continue reading to find out. You will also have to know your symbols and legend in order to organize all the information into a coherent visual diagram. In order to have a better understanding of a patient’s medical history through the genogram you have to make sure you got all the accurate information from them. That is why medical genograms are quite the reliable tools for medical professionals to use for determining a diagnosis for their patients.
A lot of medical conditions such as diabetes and cancer are hereditary and genetic.
These genograms in particular are used to determine a family’s medical history to determine the health conditions of the current family members and future generations. These relationship characteristics give you, the family of origin explorer, a quick way of seeing relational habits in your family, as well as any relational generational patterns.A medical genogram is a visual diagram that displays a family tree along with their medical conditions indicated along with their names. Relational dynamics are noted on your genogram with a variety of relationship lines that illustrate the type of relationship two parties have currently. Relational dynamics, including closeness, distance, fusion, conflict, and cut-off, for as many relationships as possible.Marital separations marked as one slanted line perpendicular to the marital line.Divorces marked with two slanted lines perpendicular to the marital line.Any deceased persons marked with an X through their symbol.The name and current age, or date of birth, of each person, inside their symbol.After adding relational dynamics, your genogram should have: Your genogram will most likely have more relational symbols than Amy's genogram, because I've only added details to a few relationships on Amy's genogram, in order to illustrate the five basic relational dynamics. Include relational lines for as many relationships as possible. If you have information about additional relationships in the generations "above" you on your genogram, add relational dynamics to those relationships as well. This family is your chosen family (partner and/or children), or your family of origin (siblings and parents). Begin noting relational dynamics in your current immediate family. Take a look at the basic genogram you completed in step one. How to Add Relational Dynamics to Your Genogram Geograms are useful for giving the family of origin "explorer" a great deal of information, but of course, any hypotheses developed via genogram information must be tested in conversation with family members. This would be a tentative hypothesis based solely on genogram information. Mary is the "common denominator" in these relationships, which suggests that she initiated the cut-off. In Bob's family system, his paternal grandmother, Mary, is cut-off from her ex-husband (Dan) as well as her son, Mark (Bob's father). In fact, Bowen explains cut-off as a response to fusion it occurs when the extreme closeness of fusion has become unbearable. Cut-off is characterized by a lack of communication, usually due to ongoing conflict, or a conflictual event (Marlin, 1989).Īccording to Bowen (1985), both cut-off and fusion (another term for enmeshment) are responses to the anxiety generated within the family system. Cut-off is marked in Figure 3 with purple "T" lines between Mary and Dan, as well as Mary and Mark.
Cut-off is noted on a genogram with two "T" lines placed between the members of a cut-off relationship.