This has been a good year for new books on narrative practice. First was Stephen Madigan's new book Narrative Therapy, and now I have found myself really enjoying the highly recommended Innovations in Narrative Therapy: Connecting Practice, Training, and Research.
There's much to find in this new book but one piece I wanted to highlight was Jim Duvall and Laura Beres approach to the socially constructed genogram.
The Traditional Genogram
The traditional genogram has been used for years to track the representation of a family tree, display detailed data on relationships among individuals, hereditary patterns, and psychological factors that punctuate relationships. Genograms represent a positivist view and can be described as locking people into a family not of their own choosing, or tracking pathology through generations and strengthening problems visually into relationships. According to Duvall & Beres the traditional genogram is a static device meant to diagnose and establish normative conclusions about people and their relationships. An example of a traditional genogram follows:
The Socially Constructed Genogram
What is so great about the socially constructed genogram when coupled with re-membering conversations is that it provides an alternative for understanding the multiplicity of identity, family, relationships, and culture. With the Socially Constructed Genogram people can regain agency when determining who belongs in, what Michael White called, their associations of life.
According to Duvall & Beres when creating the SCG with someone you are working with people are invited to express their relationships on the SCG as the actually experience them, and through re-membering conversations begin to explore the meaning of those relationships. In this process people are encouraged to expand beyond the normative view of relationships and can include people (living or dead), pets, archetypal heroes, friends who are like family, etc.
Below is an example of an SCG using circles. The person you're working with can be placed in the center circle and then asked to place others in respective circles based on closeness or distance, importance or lack of importance, etc. All of this goes a long way to developing an enlivened backstory.
The socially constructed genogram understands that meaning and understanding are generated socially in conversations with others. It also takes into consideration power and broader cultural discourses. Unlike the traditional genogram which can perpetuate the problem story, the SCG is a move toward unpacking and exploring the meaning that can be found in the experiences between people.
Who would you put in your circles?
I confess to not having been aware of the Genogram until now, but recognise an approach which I have enjoyed in a playful, creative sense.
As the backstory is enlivened, so the positioning, size, colour, and other possible variables of the circles, may change.
Options which allow for changes to be made to the circles during the conversation can facilitate a greater degree of creativity and introduce an element of play which can itself allow new possibilities to emerge.
Posted by: Sali | June 30, 2011 at 06:45 AM