GENOGRAM ASSIGNMENT

Genogram Assignment

Mark D. Mathews

Wake Forest University

Introduction
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One can see in the genogram I provided as a supplement that my family of origin has had

some difficulties with regard to mental illness and substance abuse, particularly on my father’s

side. My genogram doesn’t go back further than my grandparents because there was never a lot

of information shared about them. However, what information has been handed down I found

helpful when put into perspective of The Genogram Journey.

McGoldrick’s Help

At first I was reluctant to think simply drawing out a family tree, so to speak, would be

anything more than a busy-work exercise. However, once I began to read the intriguing stories

about the famous people she mentions. I was surprised to find out the rich background informa-

tion on these families. It seemed almost like an exercise in family genealogy. And to some de-

gree it was. But when I began working on the diagram and saw all of the many categories for

defining relationships, mental illnesses, marriages divorce, etc., I was quite surprised to see it

take shape in the people that I call family.

I especially appreciated the chapter on stories and myths that are perpetuated in families

and how they can influence a family’s perceptions of itself both as a whole and individually (Mc-

Goldrick, 2011). Being a scholar in ancient Judaism and the New Testament, particularly with

regard to traditions handed down both orally and written, I could see how that also happens

within families, something I’m not sure I have ever considered with regard to my own family.

But McGoldrick’s volume helped me to put these two things together.

With regard to my own family, this book helped me to see the various periods of fusion

and cutoff that occurred between my father and his two brothers (McGoldrick, 2011). I was al-

ways surprised by how they could get so angry with one another as to threaten each others’ lives

and then become fast friends again. I also realized how my own immediate family was always
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protective of the narrative of living in a violent, abusive, but very affluent home. We never had

sleep-overs because the environment was too volatile and there were secrets that need to be kept.

What happened behind the doors of our family home was always to kept among ourselves. These

were always surprising to me but seem to make more sense in light of this exercise.

New Insights

Being fifty-six years old, I’ve lived long enough to see most of the skeletons in my fam-

ily’s closet exposed long ago. In fact, being from an affluent family from a relatively small town

and having a father who was a violent alcoholic, most people knew our business rather quickly.

So I’m not sure that any new revelations were unveiled by the genogram exercise. There were,

however, a couple of things that stood out to me. For example, when I listed my father’s siblings

and noted that both he and his younger brother both were diagnosed with substance abuse and

were both violent toward their wives and children, that struck a cord. I remembered that when

they were younger, one thirteen and the other ten, they were hit head-on by a drunk driver. This

would have been around 1947. So automobiles were tanks and seatbelts were not a requirement,

nor did many cars have them. Consequently, my father was thrown through the windshield and

was pronounced dead at the scene, covered up, and sent to the coroner’s office. His brother suf-

fered a traumatic open fracture of his femur. Needless to say, they suffered extensive injuries.

My father revived on his own at the coroner’s office and was hospitalized for a significant

amount of time. Both of them suffered traumatic head injuries as well. I knew this story growing

up but I never put the two together with their living with mental illness and alcoholism. None of

their other siblings did. My grandfather and grandmother were not drinkers. So it seems to me

that there could be some correlation between the trauma they experienced as children, the head

injuries, and their mental illness and substance abuse.

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They both also had significant marital problems. My father divorced my mother after

thirty-four years and his brother has had an open relationship with another woman for years,

even fathering a child with her, while maintaining his marriage to his wife because of economic

issues related to their successful business. None of their siblings were ever divorced.

What is most interesting about this is that I also suffered three significant head traumas

growing up. When I was six I was hit by a pickup truck and nearly killed. When I was ten I

tripped and fell against a metal box that perforated the front part of my forehead. It was only a

small triangular gash but very deep. Finally, I was hit by a car on a motorcycle at age sixteen.

I’ve often wondered how these injuries may have impacted me mentally. Like my father and his

brother I have enjoyed success in my life both financially and academically. But I have also lived

with depression, sometimes self-medicating but never to the point of being diagnosed with sub-

stance abuse, and have had problems in my personal relationships.

I would certainly hesitate to correlate head trauma with family relationship failures, but

one wonders the degree to which they could be factored into the equation. I’m sure the substance

abuse and the hostile relationship I had with my father are also contributing factors. Nonetheless,

there does seem to be some degree of a repeating pattern there. Taken together with the fact that

I’m the youngest in my family, always referred to as the baby even to this day (!) I also seemed

to be more rebellious and much freer to buck family and social conventions than my siblings

(McGoldrick, 2011). So I would say that is the most enlightening bit of information I gained

from this exercise.

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References

McGoldrick, M. (2011). The Genogram Journey. New York: W.W. Norton.