Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Why isn't there a symbol for "responsible"?

I am excited to do my family's genogram, but there is one thing that is kind of bothering me.  There are lots of symbols for negative traits (drug/alcohol addiction, mental health problems, gambling, abuse, etc.), yet there are almost no symbols for positive traits, even those that can be tied to genetics or otherwise passed on within families.  In my mind, the positive traits are at least as important as the negative ones (if not more so), even though they may not be as "interesting."  Even though all families have at least some dysfunction, some genograms are going to be much plainer than others, but I don't think that that means that the authors didn't dig deeply enough into family history.  If there were more ways to denote strengths, everyone's diagram could be as cluttered as President Clinton's.

My aim in pointing this out is to say that, should I ever be in a position -- professional or otherwise -- to help a family,  I think it is just as important to reinforce family and individual strengths as it is to suggest changes.

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