Adopted and foster children live in at least two family systems simultaneously — the genogram must be able to represent both equally, without privileging one over the other. It serves as both a diagnostic tool and a biographical work instrument for the child themselves.

Two Families, One Person

An adopted or fostered child is not a child "from" one family, but a child who simultaneously belongs to several families. Earlier systemic practice often hierarchised this duality: one family was marked as "the real one" (usually the adoptive or foster family as the social-legal reality), while the other was reduced to the past as the "birth family". More recent research — Brodzinsky, Palacios, Pertman — has identified this hierarchy as developmentally harmful. Children need the opportunity to think of both families as present reference systems, even if contact with the birth family has been interrupted.

For the genogram, this has a concrete consequence: both families must be represented equally — not as a main and secondary branch, but as parallel systems, with the child connecting them at the centre. Technically, this is demanding, as the classic McGoldrick notation was designed for a primary lineage system. In practice, it has proved effective to position the child twice — once in the biological lineage, once in the adoptive family structure — and to connect these two positions with a dedicated symbol.

Notational Conventions

There is no unified international standard for depicting adoption and fostering in the genogram. The following conventions, as set out by McGoldrick, Gerson, and Petry in Genograms (4th edition, 2020, Norton) in the chapter on adoption and fostering, have become established:

  • Dashed lineage line between adoptive/foster parents and child, solid line to the biological family
  • Adoption arrow: an arrow from the birth family to the adoptive family, dated with the adoption or foster placement date
  • "Known/unknown" marker: a question mark for parents whose identity is unknown to the child; a dashed person silhouette for "existent but not identified"
  • Status change marker: if a child moves from one foster family to another or returns to the birth family, each transition is marked with the date and a brief reason

It is important that this symbolism is negotiated with the clients — especially with older children and adolescents, who may have their own language for their situation. Some foster youth reject the solid line to foster parents ("they are not my real parents"), others reject the solid line to the birth mother ("she abandoned me"). Both positions are legitimate and reveal more about the child's self-understanding than any standard notation.

Loyalty Conflicts According to Boszormenyi-Nagy

In his contextual therapy approach, Iván Boszormenyi-Nagy developed the concept of "invisible loyalties": children feel obliged to their biological parents even if they hardly know them — a loyalty existentially linked to their own origins. In adoptive and foster families, this concept is highly relevant. The child is caught in a tension: recognition of the social reality (the foster parents provide care) versus loyalty to biological origins (the birth mother is the mother).

These loyalty conflicts are often not expressed as conflicts, but as symptomatic behaviour: sudden deterioration when moving closer to the foster family, idealisation of unreachable birth parents, dissociative reactions during attempts at contact. The genogram — when it visibly holds both families side by side — can make this conflict nameable without pathologising it. The central question is not "Who is the real family?", but "To whom am I allowed to owe what?".

Genogram as Biographical Work

Unlike in adult counselling, the genogram for fostered and adopted children is often not a diagnostic tool for the practitioner, but a biographical work instrument for the child themselves. In the tradition of the "life book" (Ryan & Walker), which has been standard in English-speaking foster care since the 1980s, the genogram helps the child organise their own story, identify gaps, and formulate questions.

The Competence Centre for Foster Children and the German Youth Institute (DJI) explicitly recommend biographical work as a protective factor for identity development in foster children. The methodology differs fundamentally from the diagnostic genogram: the child sets the pace, gaps can remain gaps, the order of processing is open, and materials can become physical (photos, scraps of paper, drawn symbols). For younger children, this transitions seamlessly into the play genogram according to Eliana Gil (see Lesson 10).

Special Cases: Late International Adoption, Open Fostering, Kinship Care

Three constellations deserve particular methodological attention:

Late international adoption: Children adopted at five, eight, or ten years old from another cultural and linguistic context often carry a profound loss of culture — heritage language, food culture, value codes, rituals. The genogram must make this cultural dimension explicit (see Cluster A: cultural genogram), otherwise half of the biographical reality is overlooked.

Open fostering with contact to the birth family: Here, the genogram is especially valuable, as it depicts the active relationship with both family systems. Contact visits, phone calls, sibling relationships across family boundaries are drawn as a separate axis.

Kinship care (grandparent or aunt/uncle care): The legal separation (foster parents as legal guardians) does not match the biological position (grandmother remains grandmother). The genogram must make these dual roles explicit — otherwise, family myths arise that either deny the legal reality or, conversely, dismiss the family bond as "merely legal".

Legal Framework in the DACH Region

For practice in German-speaking countries, three frameworks are relevant. The SGB VIII (Child and Youth Welfare Act) regulates foster care and care planning; § 36 stipulates the child's participation in decisions about their living environment — biographical work is explicitly covered here. Access to the adoption register is possible in Germany upon reaching the age of 16 (§ 9b AdVermiG); from this point, adopted adolescents can request information about their birth parents. Record-keeping in foster care services is subject to specific data protection rules — genograms created in counselling with foster children belong to the child and should not be included in the foster care file without their consent.

Practice Vignette

A twelve-year-old foster child, who has lived with the same foster family since the age of three, draws their genogram in a counselling setting. They consistently place the birth mother at the top right, in a separate, detached box. The foster family is placed centrally in the middle. When asked about the meaning of this spatial arrangement, the child replies: "The [birth mother] is my real mother, but I don't live with her. The [foster mother] is not my mother, but she is here." This statement becomes the starting point for a conversation about the child's own family concept — not as a therapeutic intervention, but as an appreciation of a mature, independent solution.

State of Research & Discussion

International adoption research — particularly the work of David Brodzinsky and Jesús Palacios — has established a clear consensus over the past three decades: openness about adoption is the central protective factor for the psychological development of adopted children. Models based on secrecy ("as if it were a biological child") have not proved effective; findings are consistent across cultures and forms of adoption.

For the German-speaking context, the foster care research of Heinz Kindler (DJI) and Klaus Wolf (University of Siegen) is central. In Sozialpädagogische Interventionen in Familien (2015), Wolf documented the regional heterogeneity of German foster care and showed that the quality of foster care support depends greatly on the local youth welfare office — a methodological finding with significant consequences for genogram practice: what is standard in one foster care service may be entirely absent in another.

The handling of foster care records is a subject of ongoing debate: who has the right to access, who has the right to self-representation, and how much family hypothesis should be recorded? Karl Heinz Brisch, in his work on attachment theory, has highlighted the particular vulnerability of attachment-traumatised foster children and warned that any form of storytelling about the child must not disenfranchise the child themselves.

Cross-References

  • Module 4 "Play Genogram according to Eliana Gil" — child-appropriate methodology for younger foster/adopted children
  • Module 4 "Forensic Genogram and Child Welfare Endangerment" — the pathway into foster care often begins here
  • Module 4 "Genogram in Multi-Helper Systems" — foster care services rarely work alone

Further Links