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Genograms for counselling students

Most counselling, psychotherapy and social work courses set a family of origin genogram in the first year, usually with a reflective essay beside it. This page describes what the assignment asks for, how to draw three generations of your own family in the standard notation, what to leave out, and how to practise first on a family that is not your own.

Last checked on 20 October 20267 minute read

The assignment asks for three generations and a reading of them

The brief varies between courses, but what tutors ask for is consistent. The chart covers three generations, with you as the index person and your parents and grandparents above you. Every person has a birth year, couples are joined by union lines with their dates, and deaths are marked. The standard symbols of McGoldrick, Gerson and Petry are used, a key is printed, and the emotional lines between the people who matter to the story are drawn.

The chart is then read. A reflective essay usually goes with it, and the marks for the essay are often higher than the marks for the drawing. The essay asks what repeats across the generations, which relationships were close and which were cut off, and what you have learnt about yourself as a future practitioner from seeing it on one sheet.

771944–2021Walter HawkinsHeart diseaseRetired postman791947–Joan HawkinsDepressionRetired schoolsecretary801946–Raymond FletcherRetired electrician771949–Pauline FletcherRetired pharmacyassistant571969–Carol HawkinsDistrict nurse531973–Neil HawkinsCar mechanic541972–Dawn ReillyUnknown551971–Paul HawkinsAlcohol misuseTrain driver521974–Helen HawkinsPrimary schoolteacher202006–Jack HawkinsApprenticeplumber172009–Ellie HawkinsGeneralised anxiety disorderSixth form student
Hawkins · anxiety and lossA finished three-generation chart, drawn by the editor. The index person is in the third generation, the key is on the chart and five emotional lines are drawn.

A famous family is the right place to learn the notation

Before drawing your own family it helps to draw one whose facts are settled. The famous templates are families whose genograms have been published and discussed, and the Brontë family is a good first case. Patrick Brontë outlived all six of his children, every one of whom died of tuberculosis, an aunt came from Penzance to raise them in one household, Branwell drank and took laudanum, and Charlotte was fused with her father, who stayed hostile to the man she married.

Open the template, read the case note beside it, and find each sentence of the note on the chart. Then draw the family from the note on a blank chart and compare. The exercise teaches the symbols for death and cause of death and the difference between a close line and a fused one, on a family about which you have no feelings of your own to manage.

Haworth Parsonage · 1821–1842621746–1808Thomas BranwellMerchant661743–1809Anne Branwell841777–1861Patrick BrontëCataractPerpetual curate ofHaworth381783–1821Maria BrontëCancer661776–1842Elizabeth Branwell111814–1825Maria BrontëTuberculosis101815–1825Elizabeth BrontëTuberculosis391816–1855Charlotte BrontëTuberculosisNovelist (Jane Eyre)871819–1906Arthur Bell NichollsCurate of Haworth311817–1848Branwell BrontëAlcohol misuseLaudanum (opium) addictionTuberculosisPainter and writer301818–1848Emily BrontëTuberculosisNovelist(WutheringHeights)291820–1849Anne BrontëTuberculosisNovelist (AgnesGrey)
Brontë · loss and boundariesThe Brontë family as a practice case. A household, six deaths from tuberculosis, two addictions and a fused father and daughter.

Your own family is drawn with more care than a case

Drawing your own family is different from drawing a case, because you are a person on the chart and so are people you will see at Christmas. Start with what you know and mark what you do not. A grandparent whose birth year you are unsure of gets an approximate year in the notes, and a relative whose cause of death you do not know is drawn with the death alone. Asking a parent or an aunt fills in a great deal, and that conversation is itself material for the essay.

Choose the emotional lines slowly. Draw the ties that bear on the pattern you are writing about, date them in the notes, and remember that a close line and a fused line say different things. A close line says two people are warm with each other. A fused line says they are entangled, with little room between them. The key on the chart tells the reader which you meant.

681958–Ruth421984–Leah

Close

681958–Ruth421984–Leah

Fused

681958–Ruth421984–Leah

Distant

681958–Ruth421984–Leah

Cutoff

Close, fused, distant and cut off, drawn by the editor. The first two are the ones students most often confuse.

Writing the family down first makes the drawing a check

Writing the family down as prose before drawing it helps, and the draft feature turns that prose into a chart. Write each person with a birth year, each couple with the years of their marriage and any separation, and each tie that matters in the words of the notation. The draft returns every person and line it found, each marked as stated in the notes or inferred from them and each with the sentence that supports it, and sets aside anything it could not decide.

The draft does not know your family and does not fill gaps. If a sentence says that your grandparents separated but gives no year, the separation is set aside for you to date or to leave undated, and a tie described in words the notation does not use is set aside rather than drawn. For an assignment this is useful, because every line on the chart has a sentence behind it that you wrote.

Your notes

Ellie Hawkins, born 2009, is the index person. Her parents are Paul Hawkins, born 1971, and Helen Hawkins, born 1974, married in 2003. Paul’s parents are Walter Hawkins, born 1944, who died in 2021, and Joan Hawkins, born 1947, married in 1968. Helen’s parents are Raymond Fletcher, born 1946, and Pauline Fletcher, born 1949, married in 1972. Ellie is close to her brother Jack, born 2006.

Found in the notes

  • Ellie Hawkins, 2009, index
  • Jack Hawkins, 2006
  • Paul Hawkins, 1971
  • Helen Hawkins, 1974
  • Walter Hawkins, 1944, died 2021
  • Joan Hawkins, 1947
  • Raymond Fletcher, 1946
  • Pauline Fletcher, 1949
  • Three marriages, 1968, 1972 and 2003
  • Ellie and Jack, close

On the chart

771944–2021Walter HawkinsHeart diseaseRetired postman791947–Joan HawkinsDepressionRetired schoolsecretary801946–Raymond FletcherRetired electrician771949–Pauline FletcherRetired pharmacyassistant571969–Carol HawkinsDistrict nurse531973–Neil HawkinsCar mechanic541972–Dawn ReillyUnknown551971–Paul HawkinsAlcohol misuseTrain driver521974–Helen HawkinsPrimary schoolteacher202006–Jack HawkinsApprenticeplumber172009–Ellie HawkinsGeneralised anxiety disorderSixth form student
Three generations written as prose and drafted. Each grandparent, each marriage and the one emotional line is traced to a sentence.

The guided sheet is the place to begin on paper

The Templates page has a guided three generation sheet as a free PDF and PNG. It lays out the three rows with prompts for what goes in each, and the key is on the sheet. Filling it in by hand with a parent on the telephone is a good first evening’s work.

From the sheet the sequence is short. Type the family as sentences, let the draft place it, correct it against the sheet, and export a PDF for submission. The free plan exports PNG and PDF with a small watermark and a JSON backup, and the JSON is the file to keep, because a chart that reopens with its notes is worth more than a picture later in the course.

  1. Fill in the guided sheet

    Print it and write in the three generations by hand, asking a relative where you are unsure.

  2. Write the family as sentences

    One sentence per person with a birth year, one per couple with dates, and the ties in the words of the notation.

  3. Review the draft

    Check each item against the sheet, and date or remove whatever was set aside.

  4. Export and keep the backup

    Save a PDF for submission and the JSON backup to reopen the chart later.

From the guided sheet to a chart ready to submit.

Before you decide

The watermark on a submitted chart

The free plan exports PNG and PDF with a small watermark in the corner. The chart is marked on its content and most briefs say nothing about watermarks, but if yours asks for a chart without one, Pro at $12 a month or $99 a year exports without it and adds SVG.

Relatives who would rather not appear

A sibling or a parent may not want their diagnosis or their divorce on a chart that a tutor will read. Initials in place of names, a condition left off, or a note that a detail has been withheld at a relative’s request are all accepted practice, and a sentence in the essay saying so shows more judgement than the detail would.

How much detail is enough

Three generations with dates, the unions and their endings, the conditions you know of and the ties that bear on your reading are enough. The editor draws up to 50 people without an account and up to 100 on a free account.

What the chart is for after the course

Many students return to the chart in supervision, in their own therapy or when the family changes. A free account keeps two genograms, and the JSON backup reopens one with its notes and lines, so the first year’s chart can be revised rather than redrawn.

Open the Brontë template to practise the notation, or start your own three generations on a blank chart. Nothing has to be installed and the first chart needs no account.

Open the editor