Anyone who facilitates genograms without having drawn their own systematically overlooks the places where their own family history resonates within their client work. This workbook guides you through a structured process of working with your own genogram — a compulsory element of many German Association of Systemic Therapy and Family Therapy (DGSF) and SG curricula, here presented as a personal-process format for the Academy.

Introduction

The DGSF (German Association of Systemic Therapy and Family Therapy) and the SG (Systemic Society) anchor self-reflection as a mandatory component in their advanced training curricula. This is not a trend, but is empirically and clinically well-founded: countertransference — the unconscious reaction of the practitioner to the client system — is a central factor in systemic work: it is a resource when reflected upon, a blind spot when it is not. The practitioner’s own genogram is the specific tool for this step of reflection.

Important in advance: This workbook is personal-process work, not therapy. It may touch on topics that deserve therapeutic support — at the end of the lesson you will find guidance on when to seek this. The work is voluntary, at the pace that suits you, and to the extent that feels right for you.

Materials and Preparation

Materials: - Large sheet of paper (at least A2 size) or GenoEasy software in the solo version. - Pens in at least three colours (e.g. black for structures, blue for close relationships, red for conflicts). - Optional: family photos, old family trees, birth certificates, letters — any document you have come across. - A reflection journal for the weeks following the work.

Setting: - Uninterrupted time slots. You can complete the workbook in one sitting (approx. 4 hours) or spread it over several days. The latter is usually more comfortable. - Quiet room, no screen distractions (no email tab in your peripheral vision). - A glass of water, a cup of tea — small self-care markers.

Confidentiality: - Your own genogram is your personal document. It does not belong in a personnel file, clinical documentation, or a supervision report — unless you actively choose to include it. - If you bring it into a supervision group, the same confidentiality applies as for client cases.

Exercise Block 1: Taking Stock (45 min)

Goal: Structural family sketch covering three generations upwards (yourself, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, as far as known) and one generation downwards (children, if any), including siblings.

Instructions: 1. Draw yourself in the centre of the page (□ or ○ or another symbol of your choice). Note your year of birth. 2. Add parents, grandparents, great-grandparents — with names, birth and (where applicable) death dates. Leave gaps consciously where you do not know the information. 3. Add siblings, aunts/uncles, your own children. 4. Mark separations, second marriages, stepchildren, adoptions. 5. If you get stuck: the genogram can be incomplete. Gaps are information.

Reflection questions: - Who do I naturally consider part of my family, and who has an unclear status? - Which names do I not know? Which gaps are systematic (e.g. an entire line unknown)? - When was the last time I spoke with someone in my family about my family? - Who was my source for the information I just wrote down — my mother, my father, a grandparent? Whose perspective is therefore overrepresented?

Exercise Block 2: Relationship Map (45 min)

Goal: Make the emotional qualities between the people you have drawn visible.

Instructions: 1. Use the standard symbolism for relationship qualities: double line (close), dashed line (distant), jagged line (conflictual), crossed-out line (broken off), triangle (triangulation). 2. Start with the relationships that come to mind first — usually your own parents and siblings. 3. Work your way up to the grandparent generation: How did you experience their relationships? If you did not know them directly — how were they described to you? 4. Mark alliances (who was allied with whom?), coalitions (who joined forces against whom?), outsiders.

Reflection questions: - Which relationship was central for me in childhood? How is it today? - Where do the main emotional axes of my family run? - Which triangles do I see (classic: father–mother–child, mother–daughter–grandmother)? - Who in the system had power, who had a voice, who had neither?

Exercise Block 3: Hot Spots (40 min)

Goal: Identify topics that trigger a physical-emotional response — the "resonance hotspots" in your own genogram.

Instructions: 1. Look at the overall picture slowly. Let your gaze wander without searching for anything. 2. Pay attention to physical reactions: tightness in the chest, heaviness, tiredness, irritability, the urge to close the page. 3. Mark the spots where you feel something with a small symbol (e.g. a dot in a third colour). You do not need to know what it is — you are only marking where it is. 4. If something becomes too intense: take a break. Stand up, drink water, get some fresh air. Do not force anything.

Reflection questions: - Which person can I hardly look at, which do I noticeably idealise? - Which topics have never been spoken about in my family? (Death, money, sexuality, mental illness, Nazi involvement, migration, addiction — the classic taboo areas) - Which family secrets do I suspect without knowing them? - Which spot would I most like to avoid looking at? (This is often the most important one.)

Exercise Block 4: Mandates and Legacies (45 min)

Goal: Identify unspoken intergenerational mandates that are active in your own life.

Instructions: 1. Look at your own position in the genogram and at the life paths upwards (parents, grandparents). 2. Note keywords for: career choice, partner choice, desire for children, place of residence, religion/worldview, politics. What have you taken on? What have you consciously distanced yourself from? 3. Boszormenyi-Nagy’s concept of loyalty is helpful here: To whom are you loyal without having consciously decided? Who "accompanies" you in your decisions? 4. Stierlin’s concept of delegation mandate: What were you supposed to do "for the family" — consciously or unconsciously?

Reflection questions: - Which life decision was "family-compatible", which was a distancing? - To whom in the family did I affirm with my career choice — to whom did I contradict? - Which unfinished business of my parents or grandparents has not let go of me? - If I were to make a different life decision today — to whom in the system would that be disloyal?

Exercise Block 5: Resonance with Clients (30 min)

Goal: Connect your own genogram with your professional practice.

Instructions: 1. Think of three to five client cases in which you were particularly engaged — or, conversely, inexplicably distant, irritable, or impatient. 2. Note the family constellation in each case in a keyword (e.g. "single mother with adolescent daughter", "widower caring for adult disabled son", "sibling conflict after inheritance"). 3. Compare these keywords with your own genogram. Where are there structural similarities? 4. You are not looking for a perfect match, but for resonance patterns.

Reflection questions: - Which client constellations particularly activate me — positively (excessive identification) or negatively (aversion)? - Where might I systematically confuse someone else’s story with my own? - Are there topics I avoid in client conversations because they affect me personally? - Where would I specifically need supervision or peer consultation — and where possibly my own therapy?

Exercise Block 6: Integration and Self-Care (15 min)

Goal: Bring what you have worked on into a usable form, without pathologising it.

Instructions: 1. Write three sentences: "What I am taking from this workbook into my practice is…" 2. Identify one or two concrete next steps: a supervision topic, a conversation with a family member, a literature recommendation you give yourself. 3. Plan an update: in one year, in five years. Your own genogram is not a one-off ritual, but a recurring exercise.

Recommendations for practice: - Update your own genogram once a year — on the same occasion as a practice review or birthday. - Schedule supervision specifically for resonance topics, at least once per quarter. - If you feel significantly shaken by the workbook: avoid new client genograms with heavy emotional load for the next one to two weeks. - Do not stigmatise personal therapy as an ongoing option — even experienced practitioners benefit from it repeatedly.

Conclusion and Integration

You now have an image that no one but you can see in this way. It is not objective — see Lesson 17 on reliability — and it is not complete. But it is yours, and it contains information you can use in your professional work.

Three reading recommendations for what you have just worked on:

Firstly: Your own genogram is a diagnostic tool for your own reactions, not a diagnosis of your family. The aim is not to "find out the truth about the family", but to become aware of your own resonance patterns.

Secondly: Some areas in the picture will still not "make sense" to you in a year’s time. That is fine. Genogram work is never finished — not with clients and not with yourself.

Thirdly: What you have done here does not qualify you for more client work, but for different client work. You will listen more subtly, ask more carefully, and recognise your own reactions more quickly. That is the point.

When to Seek Professional Support

Personal-process work can trigger issues that go beyond what you should work through alone. You should consider seeking therapeutic or professional counselling support if:

  • You feel persistently distressed in the days after completing the workbook (sleep disturbances, rumination, irritability, low mood).
  • Memories arise that you cannot place — especially trauma memories.
  • You notice that a particular client group systematically destabilises you.
  • Family conflicts become acutely worse after the workbook (for example, because you feel the urge to address issues with family members).
  • You generally have the impression that "something bigger" has been stirred up than you can carry alone.

Low-threshold first steps: supervision with an explicit focus on your own genogram, peer consultation, an initial personal session with a licensed psychotherapist or a counselling centre. This is not a diagnosis of pathology, but professional craft.

Further Links

  • https://www.dgsf.org/weiterbildung — DGSF curricula and standards
  • https://www.systemische-gesellschaft.de/ — SG curricula and personal-process work
  • https://www.carl-auer.de/magazin/systemisches-lexikon/genogramm — Carl-Auer Lexicon, entry: Genogram
  • https://multiculturalfamily.org/ — Multicultural Family Institute (Hardy & Laszloffy, McGoldrick)
  • https://www.bptk.de/ — Federal Chamber of Psychotherapists (for information on therapy places)