THE SPIRITUAL GENOGRAM IN FAMILY （精神GENOGRAM家族）.pdf

Journal of Marital and Family Therapy April 2000,Vol. 26, No. 2,211-216 THE SPIRITUAL GENOGRAM INFAMILY THERAPY Marsha Wiggins Frame Universityof Colorado at Denver Spiritual and religious issues ofen s u ~ a c eduring marital andfamily therapy. In this article, I describe a spiritual genogram that is a rnultigenerational map offamily members’ religious and spiritual afdiations, events,and conflicts. Used as a tool infamily therapy, the spiritual genogram enables clients to make sense of theirfamilies’religious/spiritualheritage and to explore the ways in which their experiences impactpresent couple orfamily issues. The genogram has longbeen a popular tool used by therapists to gather information about familiesover many generations. Although much early writing about genograms was approached from a Bowenian theoretical perspective (Carter Orfanidis, 1976; Guerin Pendagast, 1976;Pendagast Sherman, 1977), currently, family therapists schooled in a variety of theories employ the genogram in their work with differentpopulations (Carter McGoldrick, 1998;Doherty Baird, 1983; GarciaReto, 1996;Hardy Laszloffy, 1995;Kuehl, 1995, 1996; McGoldrick, Gerson, Shellenberger, 1999; Magnuson,Norem, Skinner, 1995;Wachtel, 1982). A genogram is a blueprint of multiple generations of a family. It includes family structure and composition,using symbols to depict family membership, biological, emotional,and legal relationships,and nodal events (McGoldrick et al., 1999). Family members’ perceptions of the nature of their relationships, such as cuttofs, conflict, and alliances, are also included (Friedman, Rohrbaugh, Krakauer, 1988).The genogram has been particularly useful in helping clients learn about the transmission of family patterns across g