GENOGRAM IN SOCIAL WORK PROFESSIONAL

The specific tool of the creative genogram enabled us not only to provide a clear directive tool for family social workers but also to demonstrate the ways that social art corresponds to and can enhance the aims of family social workers in more detail. The genogram is an analytical tool, which enables one to visualize the family structure by a succinct and rapid graphic image often over several generations. A theoretical understanding of social versus psychological art is outlined. Ways to overcome these challenges and to utilize the benefits were discussed. Challenges were the unfamiliarity of art language and fear of being “diagnosed” through art. The findings point to the usefulness of including creative genograms in family social work contexts to intensify information, engagement, and stimulation and to re-perceive calcified problems through new visual terms. Traditional genograms are widely used and have been adapted to serve a number of discrete uses (Mc-Goldrick, Gerson & Shellenberger, 1999). A genogram will help social workers to make an assessment of the level of cohesiveness within a family or a group and to evaluate if proper care is available within that unit. A modified version of the traditional genogram would seem to present an ideal vehicle for this task. In social work, genograms are used to display emotional bonds between individuals composing a family or social unit. For example, a couples relationship might be represented as conflicted initially, but after some couples work, the genogram might include the symbol for a closer, less conflicted relationship.

This participatory research gathers the self-defined, phenomenological experience of family social workers who experienced creative genograms firstly on themselves and then administered it with their clients: Examples are analyzed within the text. proach that has traditionally informed social work. Social work theory: models and methods of assessment - selection, professional judgement, processes of risk assessment. Work on the genogram at different points in the treatment process to see how counseling may have affected family relationships. Creative genograms enable families to phenomenologically self-define recurring themes and issues, thus combining both historical, but also, experiential data on the same page. Genograms are widely used in family therapy as a way of visually mapping out systems and recurring family patterns. Research on Social Work Practice, Ahead of Print.

GENOGRAM IN SOCIAL WORK PROFESSIONAL

Genogram in social work