GENOGRAM
Family Systems
Every family is a system. As such, systems theory provides a useful tool to understand the ways that families operate. Under this theory, a system is understood as a group of elements that interact within a boundary; most systems are composed of smaller subsystems. Every system seeks stasis—to maintain itself. Systems theory first originated in the 1920s out of biologists’ desire to explain ecosystems. The science of systems has since been applied to many areas of study and was developed from Bertalanffy's General System Theory (GST), among others.
The family systems theory introduced by Dr. Murray Bowen suggests that we cannot be understood in isolation from one another, but rather as a part of our family system.
Families are systems of interconnected and interdependent individuals, none of whom can be understood in isolation from the system.
Our families are a system in which each member has a role to play. Members of the system are expected to act, behave, express, and respond to each other in certain ways according to their roles. And, as a system, the family system seeks to maintain itself—often through these fixed roles.
Roles can range from the Drama Triangle roles of Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer, to functional roles like those of the jobs in a city—mayor, cop, social worker, town drunk, etc. They can also be roles such as the good one, bad one, athletic one, popular one, smart one, handsome one, diplomatic one, comedic one, rebellious one, etc. You may find roles such as suppressor, enforcer, facilitator, limiter, driver, cheerleader, skeptic, problem-child/scapegoat, aggressor, help-seeker, gatekeeper, blocker, dominator, harmonizer, or resistor.
Differentiation, Family Roles, and Intimacy
Dr. Bowen posited that the more differentiated a family is, the more fluid their roles, and the more intimacy they experience in their lives. He postulated that in order to experience true intimacy, we need to be differentiated from our family system. We all have a drive for individuality and a drive for togetherness. Differentiation means that we balance the drive toward togetherness with the drive toward individuality. How we negotiate these two drives affects the degree of intimacy we experience in our relationships as an adult. When these drives are expressed in healthy, balanced ways, we experience meaningful, intimate relationships. Giving up your individuality to be together with someone is as defeating in the long run as giving up your relationship to maintain your individuality. Either way, you end up being less of a person with less of a relationship.
Differentiation means that we are not emotionally fused or enmeshed with family or loved ones—but that we have strong emotional bonds, not distance, and choose contact with others out of deep liking, without being compulsively driven toward them or away. Differentiation is your ability to maintain your sense of self when you are emotionally and/or physically close to others especially as they become increasingly important to you. Differentiation is related to developing the emotional maturity necessary for healthy intimate relationships. We develop a more solid sense of self and are able to self-validate rather than be dependent on others or being other-validated.
In undifferentiated families, family roles become somewhat locked in, which affects your sense of self and your ability to enter into healthy intimate relationships. When a family doesn’t have the skills to deal with anxiety and emotions, the roles become fixed. The more undifferentiated we are, the more we tend to act automatically and with emotional reactivity, without being mindful and aware—often ‘taking sides,’ complying, arguing, or rebelling—and without consciously responding with our true feelings and conscious thinking. We automatically try to deal with relational anxiety with automatic responses and/or established family roles. We tend to slip into familiar roles rather than expressing ourselves more fully and truthfully.
In well-differentiated families, family members’ roles are fluid. The more differentiated we are, the less likely we are to get “stuck” in particular roles, and instead we will experience a wider range of possibilities. We have more emotional maturity and greater flexibility. Our identity isn’t so dependent on our roles but rather on carefully chosen principles, beliefs, and values. These help us guide our behavior—like an inner compass—and determine our own opinions on important family and social issues. As we are differentiated, what we decide and say matches what we do. When we act in the best interests of the group, we choose thoughtfully, not because we are caving into relationship pressures. Confident in our own thinking, we can either support another's view without becoming wishy-washy or reject another's view without becoming hostile.
Differentiation means that there is less need for anyone to sacrifice growth or self-direction to maintain the stability of the family or marriage. Each person functions more independently and interdependently. True intimacy results from being able to maintain your sense of self while connecting deeply with others—to maintain who you are while being close to those important to you.
The more you learn about yourself, your beliefs, your preferences, and how your emotional reactivity gets triggered and managed, the more you can take conscious steps toward differentiation—and self-validated intimacy.
Family History of Differentiation: Mapping Your Relationship Genogram and Family Systems
Families are like multi-celled living entities. We gain or lose differentiation over generations depending on each successive generation’s struggle to develop. Human differentiation is the outcome of countless generations’ struggles to mate and develop. Your level of differentiation and that of your marriage and family results from how well your parents and grandparents succeeded in becoming well-developed individuals while maintaining emotional contact with the family.
Murray Bowen cited the most common relationship patterns as:
Emotionally fused – enmeshed
Fused with Conflict
Conflict
Distance
Cut of
Dysfunctional child
Over-Functioning/Under-Functioning Reciprocity—where one member overcompensates for the other, but neither are fully differentiated (also called Dysfunctional Spouse)
These patterns form to try to deal with relationship anxiety and stressors. However, they do not address the true basic problem—trying to complete ourselves through relationship with others, rather than differentiating and developing a solid sense of self and the emotional maturity to deal with relationship anxiety and the stresses of life.
Mapping your family genogram will help you see the patterns of differentiation throughout your family history, which in turn influence your current capacity for intimacy. Feel free to include any descriptors of the types of relationships you notice in your genogram. How did the people in your family relate? How did they deal with emotions? Are there affairs, alcoholism, abuse, distance, control, etc.?
This week, map the roles your family members play in your family of origin to begin to see your family system, how the roles influence each other and keep the system in place. Additionally, work on your Relationship Genogram, mapping the levels of differentiation, intimacy, and emotional facility throughout your family tree.
Differentiation Means Self-Validated Intimacy versus Other-Validated Intimacy
Keep in mind that your goal is to achieve self-validation and not other-validation—to have a clear sense of yourself in your intimate relationships so that you discover and develop—rather than lose—yourself in them. David Snarch’s articulations clarify the distinction between the two mindsets:
Other-Validated Intimacy: “I’ll tell you about myself, but only if you then tell me about yourself. If you don’t, I won’t either. But I want to, so you have to. I’ll go first, and then you’ll be obligated to disclose—it’s only fair. And if I go first, you have to make me feel secure. I need to be able to trust you!”
Self-Validated Intimacy: This involves providing support for yourself while letting yourself be known: “I don’t expect you to agree with me; you weren’t put on the face of the earth to validate and reinforce me. But I want you to love me—and you can’t really do that if you don’t know me. I don’t want your rejection—but I must face that possibility if I’m ever to feel accepted or secure with you. It’s time to show myself to you and confront my separateness and mortality. One day when we are no longer together on this earth, I want to know you knew me.”
Build Self-Validated Intimacy: Express and Agree with the Truth, Always
As you explore the roles in your family system and the patterns of relationships in your family genogram, also be aware of and practice Rule of Engagement #5: Express and agree with the truth, always.
When we are more real, genuine, and truthful, we experience more intimacy and stronger relationships. We become more individuated and differentiated, building a stronger sense of self and stronger relationships. Practicing Rule #5—Express and Agree with the Truth, Always—means we engage in more straight talk, give and receive feedback, telling the truth and acknowledging the truth.
Acknowledge the truth when you hear it—even in a fight. You’ll be surprised how quickly a fight ends when the truth is acknowledged Practice saying things like: “Good point,” “You’re right,” “I see your point,” “Got it”—or even, “I don’t like it, but you’re right” or “I don’t want to give you the satisfaction, but you are right/that’s a good point…”
Orienting to the truth is a powerful tool in becoming more of yourself and moving toward developing more self-validated intimacy.
Mapping Your Family System and Relationship Genogram
In the last few topics, you are breaking free from limiting beliefs and becoming free to live your life guided by empowering beliefs that lead to more YOU and more intimacy by creating a vision for yourself in all areas of your life and using the Rules of Engagement to make those visions a reality.
By breaking limiting family rules, switching to positive thinking instead of Stinking Thinking, and acting on empowering beliefs, you have been taking steps to Liberate. This week, it supports you to experience healthy intimacy and develop even better relationships. You begin to see your family as a system of interrelated roles.
You have been uncovering your family rules, myths, and beliefs; discovering your unfinished developmental business; and developing your vision for family and intimacy. This month, you analyze your family system to understand the family roles and generational relationship patterns. You continue to tend to your unfinished developmental business to become more conscious of it and how it limits your intimacy and fulfillment in life and begin to create more honest and fulfilling relationships with everyone in your life.
In many ways, it is time to grow up and take greater responsibility for your relationships. Your relationships don’t “just happen” to you. They are something that you create. It is time to understand that the way you feel and react in relationships is your responsibility and not the other person’s. When you have feelings in your relationships, whether upset, anger, hurt, fear, or joy and love, it helps to understand that something is not being done to you—you decide how you feel and respond. By being aware of your feelings and reactions and what triggers them, you can become more responsible in communicating your emotions. This is a powerful tool to increase mutuality, partnership, intimacy, and trust in relationships.
In the past, you may have experienced hurt and anger, yet not expressed it fully, openly, and responsibly. You then built up an inner sense of resentment, which has kept you emotionally distant. You may have held it all in, building up stockpiles of resentment, or walls of protection, distancing yourself from your feelings. Now, you have an opportunity to identify, share, and express these resentments and let them go—to express the truth of your experience to others. This is true freedom—to release withheld communications of the past, to no longer hold on to past resentments, no longer blame your upbringing and others for your circumstances. You can learn to complete these unexpressed thoughts and feelings and be free. You can become current and up to date in your relationships, paving the way for greater intimacy.
In the assignments, you continue to understand what it is to take emotional responsibility for your relationships and tend to your unfinished business. The time has come for you to grow yourself up and take charge of your life—to be a fully alive and expressed adult. You begin to learn how to express your unexpressed thoughts and feelings in a responsible manner. From the work this month, you have a greater sense and acceptance of who you are. You have the opportunity to begin to free yourself of the burdens, upsets, and cases you have built over the years. You learn to live more fully in the moment and be present to the feelings you have with those around you. You begin to experience what it is like to live a moment––and eventually a day—free of unexpressed thoughts and feelings. You create more room for new opportunities as you let go of the past and its unfinished business.
Learning to see your family as a system provides a lens into your development as well as a template in which you can view your roles and your degree of intimacy in your current relationships.
You will have the opportunity to be with or speak to family members this coming week or for Thanksgiving—this is a perfect opportunity to begin to map your family system and complete a genogram of your family’s relationships! Do this assignment together with your family of origin and your family of creation if you can; it will provide a fascinating perspective into your family without any persecution or blame, and it is a great way to promote understanding between one another.
Growing Yourself Up: Tending to Your Unfinished Developmental Business
Map Your Family System & Your Family Genogram
Main Assignment
This week, you have three parts to your assignment:
PART 1: Map Your Family System
Map your Family System and fill in your Family Genogram—interview your family and involve them in looking at the roles in your family and the generational patterns of dealing with individuality and the drive for emotional closeness.
Start by mapping your parents and your siblings in their birth order. Remember, roles can range from the Drama Triangle roles of Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer to functional roles like those of the jobs in a city—mayor, cop, social worker, town drunk, etc. They can also be good one, bad one, athletic one, popular one, smart one, handsome one, diplomatic one, comedic one, rebellious one, etc. You may find roles such as suppressor, enforcer, facilitator, limiter, driver, cheerleader, skeptic, problem-child/scapegoat, aggressor, help-seeker, gatekeeper, blocker, dominator, harmonizer, and resistor. Attached to the lesson is a list of roles that participants from the Family Systems workshop developed.
PART 2: Map Your Family Relationship Genogram
Map your Family Genogram—your family tree—and indicate the types of relationships and how they dealt with emotions. Were their relationships conflictual, enmeshed, hostile, best friends, argumentative…? Look for how they related and how they dealt with emotions—are there patterns such as alcoholism, drug addiction, philandering, control, abuse, distance, co-dependence, emotionally shut down, irresponsible expression of emotion, etc.?
See the Genogram and Genogram Key attached to this lesson for examples of how Bowen marked the levels of differentiation in families—conflict, fused and conflictual, cut off, or emotionally fused/enmeshed, over-/under-functioning spouse, dysfunctional child, etc. But feel free to use other descriptors and roles as you explore your family relationship genogram. (We’ve also included a more detailed chart of symbols of different types of relationships and patterns in case it helps you explore your family relationships. It’s more detailed than you need for this assignment, but some students have found it helpful in their exploration.)
Very-Able Assignments
Do These with Your Family of Origin and Your Family of Creation
You may be fascinated to discover how family roles are “distributed” and what role each person in the family plays. We have done family systems maps with families with small children. Children are often remarkable at calling out the family roles. Involve your family and fill in the roles that different members play. Discuss what you are discovering with one another.
Interview family members to fill in your Genogram. What do they know about the relationships in your family tree? Discover the patterns together.
Do Your Journal
Reflect on this exercise. What have you learned? How do those family patterns play out in your own relationships—both past and present? What do you see about Family Rules, Myths, and Beliefs that come through the family system to you? What implications does this have for you in your life and relationships? What family work are you aware of that you will need to do to have more intimate and productive relationships? What mistaken beliefs will you need to consciously change and Rematrix to have the kind of relationships you yearn for?
Orient to the truth to your highest vision as often as possible this week.
Look for the truth, tell the truth, ask for truth, and acknowledge the truth.
And if you are in a disagreement or a fight and someone says something that is true (especially when you don’t want to give them the satisfaction of acknowledging it), here’s some vocabulary for you to practice:
“Good point.”
“I don’t like it, but you’re right.”
“Got it.”
“I’m still really pissed at you, but you’re right and I don’t want to give you the satisfaction of acknowledging it.”
As you reflect on your family systems and genogram this week, you may find yourself expressing and agreeing with truths that seem unpleasant at first. Whenever you uncover a truth about yourself or your family system, think of it as great news! Only when we see the truth of the way things are can we effectively envision pathways toward who we want to become. Enjoy your journey of discovery and transformation!
PART 3: Express and Agree with the Truth, Always
By inventorying your unfinished business and mapping your family roles and genogram, you are in a greater position to discover, express, and acknowledge the truth.
Observe Your Roles—and the Roles Others Play
Not sure what roles you played in your family growing up? Just look around. Chances are you are playing those same roles in your relationships now—look at the roles you play with your friends, at work, at a business meeting. Keep notes about the roles that you see yourself and others playing.
If you are spending Thanksgiving with your family or a group of people, observe the roles. Who is in the kitchen doing the work, making jokes, soothing tempers, acting out, checking out, or being the ‘cop,’ social worker, driver…? Name the roles as you see them.
Break Out of Your Roles
Try on different family roles this week. Break out of old patterns. Play the roles of other family members. Experiment!
Risk to Express Truth In Declarations and Invitations
Take the risk to express the truth as you declare your intentions and visions about the holidays—both for yourself and with your family. Practice expressing the truth of your experience to your highest vision in your daily life, and invite family and friends to join you in an increasingly conscious holiday season!
