Using the family genogram to assess relationship patterns in father-son therapy

¶ … road is not just the road; the road is the way that you walk it." -- Juan Ramon Jimenez

Because not all changes affect all family members, and alterations in one individual are not going to influence the rest of a person's family, it seems families can use whatsoever techniques to ease smooth performance. Then, what is the meaning of family and how family therapists aid families when difficulties do arise? A family is a collective of persons, and family therapists have certainly been dealing with people within families. Therefore, it is rather difficult for family therapists or counselors to deal with the family as it needs observing people as characters and as part of a whole. With that said, in assessing the family of the father and son in the scenario, it is very important that they are properly assessed in order to get to the root of the problem.

Family Genogram

The whole point of using the genogram is to get to know the patient by getting a better understanding of their family background. Evaluating the family using systemic method allows health care suppliers to learn about the ways in which family members interrelate, what are the family prospects and standards, how operational is the member's communication, which makes resolutions and how the family is handling with the life time stressors (Hockenberry & Wilson, 2007).

Purpose

In family therapy, a genogram will be used to study and record the correlation repetitions between Jeff and his son Roger and the individual characteristics of the father and son that make up these arrangements that are happening in their association with each other. As a therapist, they will use the genogram to make a suitable evaluation of the relationship patterns among Jeff and Roger and where involvement may be required to support the family decrease their dysfunction and/or problematic state of affairs that brought them into therapy in the first place. Using the genogram with Jeff and Roger would be effective since it will be able to depict the emotional relation between the father and son. It will also be useful to analyze the root of the problem between the two.

It can be a positive tool because the genogram will go beyond a traditional family tree by allowing Jeff and Roger to analyze their hereditary patterns and psychological issues that interrupt relationships in their family past. It will be positive for them because it will quickly recognize and understand numerous prototypes in the patient's family history which could possibly have an influence on Jeff and Roger current state of their mind. However, this can be negative for Roger and Jeff because the information that will be provided by the individual generating the genogram is subjective, prejudiced by that person's perspectives or memories. This can every so often produce the genogram's material to not be completely correct and hence uncooperative to the individual as the patterns needed to regulate the individual's current mental health situation can be distorted.

Clients Additional Information

Additional information that the therapist made need to assess proper evaluation would be finding out rather or not if there have been any diagnoses of severe stress or adjustment disorder in the family. Also would want to gather information regarding their relationship with other family members.

Five Critical Questions

1. How would you describe your family Migration?

Migration history. If there is any migration history. The therapist needs to know why the family migrated. What were they looking for, (survival, venture, wealth)? What were they leaving behind (e.g., religious or political persecution, poverty)? Therapists need to be very aware to migration pressures and ethnic identity conflicts as they are to other strains in the family's past or history (Hernandez & McGoldrick, 2005). Measuring such factors is vital for controlling whether a family's dysfunction is a "normal" response to a high degree of cultural stress or whether it goes outside the bounds of transitional stress and needs expert intervention. The pressures of migration can at times be "buried" or overlooked. The cultural heritage before migration may have been suppressed or forgotten, however it can still influence the family's viewpoint, if only faintly, as they try to adapt to new circumstances (Lund, Zimmerman, & Haddock, 2002). Numerous immigrant groups have been forced to give up their ethnic heritage and thus have lost a part of who they are. The results of this concealed history may be all the more influential for being influential. Families that have experienced devastation and trauma and within their own society

Before even starting the procedure of immigration will have an intensely more hard time regulating to a new life than those who traveled for adventure or financial improvement. Particular areas to investigate concerning migration include things like Premigration history or Post migration history and culture shock.

2.) What are your connections as a family to the community if any?

Connections to community are important. How able are family members' in keeping together friendships? How available are friends, religious organizations, neighbors, schools, physicians, community institutions, and other social service and healthcare resources, counting therapists? when family associates move away sometimes the stresses of adaptation are likely to be harsh, even many generations after immigration. The therapist should study about the community's ethnic system and, when applicable, inspire the rebuilding of informal social influences through letters, family visits, or by the structure of new social networks.

3.) Are there any language barriers that run in the family? Family members differ in how rapidly they change, how much of their tradition they preserve, and the rate at which they learn English. Are there differences in language skills and acculturation within the family that may have led to conflicts, power imbalances, and role reversals, particularly when children are compelled to interpret for their parents or just do things in general?

4.) Are there any particular Belief systems, religion, or spiritual beliefs that you have? What are the main beliefs that establish the family? What is their typical worldview, and are they prepared by particular methodical myths, rules, spiritual beliefs, or family secrets? What is the history of the family's religious beliefs and practices, including changes in belief? What has been the impact of intrafamily religious dissimilarities or those between the family and the neighboring community? Have any family members left their religion? How did other family members respond to this change if it occurred?

5.) What is you cultural heritage? What is the ethnic and racial background of family members? Have they lived in an ethnic reserve or community, or in a public in which they were observed as foreigners? Have their religious and spiritual beliefs reinforced or reduced their acknowledgment of their ethnic inheritance?

Strategy for communication

The objective of any family is for all members to live in agreement with each other. It is the first basis of a Childs education and moral standards (Gouze & Wendel, 2007). With that said, a strategy called floor planning is what will be utilized for Jeff and Roger.

Floor Planning

This method should also be done throughout the instigating stages of counseling for Jeff and Roger. Jeff and Roger will be requested to draw a floor plan of their house. They will then be asked to remember the odors, sounds, colors, and people that are in their home. While they are drawing particular questions are asked regarding the environment such as;

What room does the family gather in?

What conversations take place in the various rooms?

Are any rooms restricted or off limits?

Where do guests gather?

This technique will reveal the comfort levels between Roger and Jeff, space adjustments and policies. It can also specify family triangles and subsystems. Debates often bring out expressive issues connected to their past. This can be a positive experience for Roger and Jeff because it will give them time to learn about themselves and concerns that they may have about each other. If done properly, it will break the ice between them (Thompson, Bender, Cardoso, & Flynn, 2010). The negative part about it is that either person could close up and make the decision not to be open thus building a greater wall of separation.

The researcher believes that Childhood-Onset Bipolar Disorder is one of the most incapacitating mental disorders disturbing children today. Childhood-Onset bipolar disorder is a manic-depression that emerges early in life as with Roger. With the onset of adolescence, sometimes it is hard to distinguish what behaviors are usual for a teenager and what is over-the-top. As a therapist communication goes both ways and with that said, the therapist should also suggest that Roger also takes some time and take a little responsibility for his actions (Robbins, Mayorga, Mitrani, Szapocznik, & Turner, 2008). During adolescence, the brain is still developing, in specific, the regions connecting the frontal cortex, so at times it may not be that easy to tell what the normal onset of adolescence may be. To be genetically predisposed to any disease is unnerving for a family with a teenager. However, environmental factors are a significant part of what genes do and do not display.