Genogram maker / What is a genogram?
What is a genogram?
A genogram is a diagram of a family across at least three generations that shows not only who is related to whom, but how the family works: the marriages and breakups, deaths and illnesses, and the emotional quality of its relationships.
A family tree with the story added
Start with a family tree: names, parents, children. Now switch on the layers a clinician adds. Deaths and a divorce appear. Shading shows the grandmother’s drinking and the mother’s depression. Relationship lines reveal conflict between those two women, and a teenager who is very close to her sister but distant from her father.
Nothing about the family changed. What changed is what you can see, and that is the whole point of a genogram. Patterns that take a long interview to describe become visible at a glance: here, a line of conflict and illness running from grandmother to mother, which is worth asking about.
On ahaboo, you move parts yourself to understand ideas from the Moon's phases to photosynthesis, each explainer grounded in reliable sources.
What a family genogram shows
- Structure. Everyone in at least three generations, including those who have died, miscarriages and pregnancies, adoptive and foster children, and ex-partners.
- Life events. Dates of births, deaths, marriages, separations and divorces, migrations and other turning points.
- Health and behaviour. Physical and mental illness, substance use and recovery, often with a short note naming the condition.
- Relationships. Closeness, fusion, distance, conflict, cutoffs and abuse, drawn as emotional relationship lines.
All of this uses a shared set of genogram symbols, so a genogram drawn by one practitioner can be read by another.
Where genograms come from
The genogram is rooted in Murray Bowen’s family systems theory, which sees individual difficulties in the context of multigenerational family patterns: triangles, emotional cutoff, and the transmission of anxiety across generations. Monica McGoldrick and Randy Gerson turned the practice into a standard notation in Genograms in Family Assessment (1985); the later editions with Sueli Petry, Genograms: Assessment and Treatment, remain the reference most courses use.
Why practitioners use them
- Assessment: a quick way to gather a family history and spot patterns worth exploring.
- Engagement: drawing the genogram together is a low-pressure way to start talking about difficult history.
- Reframing: seeing a problem repeat across generations can shift blame away from one person.
- Medicine and genetics: a medical genogram maps inherited risk.
- Education: social work, counselling and nursing students often draw their own genogram as a reflective assignment.
Genogram vs ecomap
A genogram looks inward at the family across time. An ecomap looks outward at the present: the family’s connections to school, work, health services, friends and community. Many assessments use both.
Frequently asked questions
What is a genogram in simple terms?
A genogram is a family diagram that shows at least three generations of a family along with the events, health conditions and emotional relationships that shape it. Think of it as a family tree with the clinical story added.
What is the purpose of a genogram?
To make family patterns visible so they can be discussed: repeated divorces, cutoffs, illness or addiction running through generations, losses near important dates, and alliances and conflicts. Clinicians use it for assessment, engagement and planning; clients often find it helps them see their situation from outside.
What is the difference between a genogram and a family tree?
A family tree records lineage: names, births, marriages and deaths. A genogram uses standardised symbols to add the quality of relationships (close, conflictual, cut off), health and substance use, and significant events, so it can be used for clinical assessment.
Who uses genograms?
Family therapists, marriage and family counsellors, social workers (especially in child and family services), psychologists, nurses and family physicians, genetic counsellors, and students on these courses, who are often asked to draw their own.
Who invented the genogram?
Genograms grew out of Murray Bowen’s family systems theory in the 1970s. Monica McGoldrick and Randy Gerson standardised the symbols and published them in Genograms in Family Assessment (1985), later Genograms: Assessment and Treatment with Sueli Petry.
Draw your genogram now
Free, no sign-up. Charts are saved only in your browser.