Magazine "Practice" · Reading time approx. 7 min

Counselling no longer takes place only in a shared physical space. What happens to genogram work when a screen stands between practitioner and client — and where do its limits lie?

From Emergency Solution to Everyday Practice

Not so long ago, video counselling was a stopgap for most practitioners — something you did when an in-person appointment was not possible. Today it has become a permanent second channel for many practices and counselling centres: not better or worse than meeting in the same room, but different.

For genogram work, this is a remarkable shift. The genogram is traditionally a tool of shared physical space: you sit side by side, lean over the same sheet of paper, point to a relationship line with your finger. That shared space changes when a session moves into the digital realm. It does not disappear — but it becomes something new.

It is worth looking more closely at what is gained and what is risked. Both are real.

Proximity and Distance: The Screen as Barrier and Window

The most common objection to digital counselling concerns the relationship: doesn't the screen destroy closeness? The honest answer is: yes, something is lost — and something else is gained.

What is missing is the full body. The camera shows a face, rarely the hands, almost never the restless legs or the way someone leans back when a topic comes too close. In genogram work especially, where physical reactions often reveal more than words, this is a tangible loss. Practitioners must listen more carefully and ask more explicitly, because the non-verbal channel narrows.

What is gained tends to go unnoticed: the client sits in their own space. They are not a guest in an unfamiliar practice but in their own kitchen or study, surrounded by photographs, furniture — sometimes by the very people being discussed. For many clients, this familiarity considerably lowers the threshold. There are clients who speak openly about their family for the first time because they are sitting on their own sofa rather than in a waiting room.

The screen is therefore not only a barrier. It is also a window into an environment that remains invisible in the consulting room.

What Works Better Online

Three advantages stand out clearly in practice.

A genuinely shared view. On paper, the practitioner tends to be closest to the genogram — they hold the pen, they have the overview. A shared screen reverses this dynamic. When both parties see the same digital genogram, at the same size, at the same time, a surprisingly equal situation arises. The client watches their family take shape in real time, and can correct, add, and object. The image no longer belongs to the practitioner alone.

Accessibility. Video counselling reaches people who would otherwise not come at all: clients in rural areas without specialist services nearby, people with limited mobility, parents without childcare — and, not least, those for whom travelling to a practice is itself a barrier. For them, the digital genogram is not a second-best option. It is the only one that becomes available at all.

Continuity. A digital genogram does not disappear into a file. It is ready at the start of the next session, it grows over weeks and months, and both parties can return to the same version. In longer processes it becomes a shared memory — something that a handwritten sketch on loose paper rarely managed to provide.

Where the Limits Lie

As real as these advantages are, the limits must be named honestly.

Technology is never neutral. A dropped connection at the wrong moment — in the middle of a difficult sentence about a deceased sibling — is more than an inconvenience. It severs a thread that cannot always be picked up again. Anyone working digitally needs a plan B and the composure to avoid mistaking a technical disruption for a relational one.

Data protection is not a formality. A genogram contains highly sensitive information: names, illnesses, suicides, separations, violence. The moment this data leaves a device and passes through services whose server location and encryption are unclear, a risk arises — one that should not be left for the client to bear. Responsible digital genogram work means knowing where data is stored, who has access, and whether it is encrypted. Tools that keep genograms local and encrypted rather than uploading them to an opaque cloud are not a comfort feature here — they are a professional necessity.

The question of control. Who moves the cursor? Who enters information, who deletes? On a shared screen, control becomes a relational question. If the practitioner takes over everything, the image can once again become their image. If clients are given too much autonomy, some become lost in the technology. The balance is part of the method, not merely of the interface.

Not every moment is digitally viable. In acute crises, during severe dissociation, or when a genogram suddenly makes an overwhelming truth visible, the physical space is irreplaceable. The capacity to hold someone in the room has narrow limits over a screen. Good digital practice recognises those limits — and knows when a face-to-face appointment is not an option but an obligation.

Complement, Not Replacement

Video-based genogram work is neither a step backwards nor a universal answer. It is an approach in its own right, with its own strengths and its own limits. Those who treat it as a mere substitute for in-person sessions will be disappointed. Those who understand it as a distinct channel — with the shared view, the reach, and the continuity it offers, but also with the care required around technology and data protection — gain an additional tool.

In the end, what determines the quality of the work is not the technology but the attitude behind it. Yet technology determines whether that attitude can unfold. A tool that works reliably in a digital setting, that clients understand immediately and that protects their data, frees the practitioner from precisely those concerns that would otherwise distract from what matters.

☀️ Summer Sale at GenoEasy Until 31 August: the individual licence for €49 instead of €79 (one-time, perpetual), the practice licence for €239 instead of €349 per year. GenoEasy draws genograms directly on screen — shared view in video counselling, AES-256 encrypted and stored locally on your device, no cloud involved. → View pricing