Creating a Genogram in 7 Easy Steps
Visualizing Family Histories: The Power of Genograms
Genograms are a valuable tool for visualizing complex familial, medical, and emotional histories across generations. These detailed family trees can reveal insights about different family members and their health conditions, relationships, and life events.
The Basics of Genograms
At their core, genograms consist of symbols and lines that represent family members and relationships. Squares are used for males, circles for females, and lines for relationships. Essential lines include those for marriage, divorce, children, and siblings.
Different Types of Genograms
There are various types of genograms, each serving a unique purpose. Family genograms depict the family structure across at least three generations, while medical genograms track hereditary health conditions and diseases within a family. Social or emotional genograms focus on family dynamics, mapping emotional connections such as closeness, tension, or conflict.
Color Coding and Shading
In medical genograms, different colors can represent various health conditions. For example, red can represent heart-related conditions, green mental health issues, and blue might indicate diabetes. Full shading can denote an individual affected by a specific condition compared to half shading, which could represent a carrier of a genetic trait or condition.
Symbols Within Symbols
Specific symbols inside standard gender symbols can communicate health conditions. For instance, a heart within a symbol can signify cardiovascular diseases, and a brain symbol might communicate a neurological disorder.
Creating and Managing Genograms
To create a genogram, first determine the type of information or insights you want from it. A user-friendly platform simplifies the process of adding or modifying symbols and lines in genograms, allowing users to point, drag, and replace items in a few clicks to keep their genograms updated. Our platform provides free, professionally designed genogram templates that are tailored for various use cases and industries to fit exact needs and requirements. Users can customize genogram templates by adding their own symbols, colors, or moving elements around on the canvas and changing the fonts and text to match their brand or style.
Updating and Sharing Genograms
Genograms should be updated as family relationships evolve and new information is learned to keep them accurate and relevant. Updates can be made on an event-by-event basis, every few months, or at least once a year. Once created and updated, genograms can be shared online or with family, therapists, researchers, or anyone else as needed. Users can download their genograms as a PDF or PNG once they're happy with their creation. Only users who upgrade to a Business plan can download their genograms.
Infographics and My Brand Kit
Infographics can be used to summarize information in a visually appealing format. Our platform's My Brand Kit feature lets users apply their brand colors to any template with one click, making their genograms reflect their brand design.
With genograms, complex familial, medical, and emotional histories can be visualized in a way that is easy to understand and interpret. By using color coding, shading, and symbols, genograms provide a powerful tool for understanding and managing family histories.
Genograms, used in fields like fashion-and-beauty, home-and-garden, and technology, can benefit from the My Brand Kit feature on our platform, enabling users to reflect their brand's style and colors in their personal genograms. As genograms expand to areas such as artificial-intelligence or lifestyle sectors, like fashion-and-beauty, they may require more specific symbols within symbols, similar to those used in medical genograms. Furthermore, gadget enthusiasts and technology enthusiasts might find genograms useful in visualizing the expansion and evolution of their favorite brands or companies across generations, just as they would with their own family trees.
