Nevaeh Kuhl

SOWK 312

January 30, 2023

Genogram and Family Reflection

Everyone comes from a different family and no family is exactly alike. Coming from

different families is a factor that makes us who we are. I always understood why our own

relationships with our family's matter. However, I never knew that our families' relationships

with distant relatives would affect our family dynamics. My family situation is a little

complicated, which made it hard to decide who to put in my genogram. My father's side on the

genogram was based on my stepfather’s family. I know extraordinarily little about my biological

father, and his family had little to no impact on my life. My stepfather is the male figure who

raised me and created my two little sisters, so I decided to do his side of the family for my

genogram and for the rest of the paper my “stepfather” will be referred to as “father.”

My mother and father come from two completely opposite backgrounds. My parents'

relationships with their families have affected the relationships I have with their families. My

mother has a large family with my grandparents being together for 40 years and has 14

grandchildren total. However, my father comes from a tiny family with him being an only child

with divorced parents and two stepbrothers. Between my sisters and I, I am the only one who
consistently grew up on my mother's side. By the time I was 10, we moved over by my father's

mother and stepfather, so my sisters have a stronger bond with those grandparents. None of us

have relationships with our aunts, uncles, or cousins on my father's side due to religious

differences and distance. My mother is close with two of her sisters but has up and downs with

one sister and had a fallout relationship with her brother (my uncle).

My uncle and his wife had three kids and sadly it went down to two. My cousin passed

away two days after her first birthday. My cousin was laying on a bed with several blankets and

was left unattended, she rolled off the bed and suffocated in the blankets. My uncle was the one

responsible for watching her, but he was in the garage drinking. Her death affected several

relationships on my mother's side. After he lost his daughter, he became verbally and physically

abusive to his wife (my aunt) and his mother (my grandmother). He was arrested several times

and would call my family to bail him out. He destroyed his relationships with everyone,

especially after threatening my grandmother. His relationships falling apart with mother and my

aunts taught my sisters and I the importance of sibling relationships and the respect between each

other.

My family and I have not physically seen my mother's side of the family in forever. I

have not seen my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in nine years. I have never even met

the youngest grandchild yet. I lack relationships with that side of that family due to the
relationships between them and my father. My mother and father went through an extremely

rough patch and so did my father and I. The rough patches that we went through affected how

our distant family sees our family. My mother's parents have not come to visit us is over a

decade because of my father. My father also cannot name all his nieces and nephews due to the

lack of relationships. With my intermediate family not having relationships with my father's side

and hardly any relationships on my mother's side, the relationships within our household are

affected. My intermediate family diminishes family values which negatively affects the

relationships and results in barriers built around us. In my intermediate family, I am the only one

who believes in family traditions and follows through on them.

A continuous pattern on my mother's side is having children before marriage. Only one

out of the five siblings were married before children, but that one sibling is the only one who has

a history of divorce. I did not include all birth fathers on my genogram because that would have

made it more stressful, and I only included current spouses. Only two children who came before

marriage have contact with their birth father, who is my mother’s brother. My oldest cousin also

had a child before marriage. A lot of grandchildren of the family want to break the cycle and not

get pregnant before marriage because a lot of them, including me, dealt with “daddy issues” or

“abandonment issues” because of the lack of a father figure. Also, on my mother's side, I am the

first one to go to college. However, college is especially important on my father’s side, and it is

believed you cannot accomplish too much in life without an education.

 In my genogram you can see the relationship between me and my cousin. My cousin

repetitively sexual assaulted me from the time I was two up to the age eight. My cousin had

history of being sexually assaulted also. I never understood what he was doing to me or that it

was wrong until I was about 13. I thought what he did to me and what he made me do was a

normal relationship between cousins, but it was not. No one knew what happened until I was the

age of 15 and that's when relationships started to shatter. I was told that I was a liar, and he

would never do such a thing, or I just misunderstood what was happening. All family members

that supported my cousin were not spoken to until I was 18. However, this relationship built

stronger bonds between my mother and I, my aunt and I, and my sisters and me. The relationship

between my cousin and I affected my trust with others, specifically men. This relationship also

taught me that blood does not mean family, but love makes family.

With my family being large, I could go on about relationships and issues between

everyone. My intermediate family has had a lot of difficulties, but we always support one

another. I do not have close relationships with any distant family and I believe that is why I lack

certain emotional and social skills. It was hard to make my genogram because everyone there,

besides grandparents and my intermediate family, really have nothing to do with me and I have

nothing to do with them. However, the relationships between my distant and intermediate family

affected how the relationships between me and my intermediate family will turn out. The

genogram helps you find your story of who made you, you.
 My most valued strength during the interview was follow-up questions. I tried my best to

keep the conversation going so I could gather more information. I tried to pay attention to my

mom's body gestures as she spoke because it would change depending on who/what she was

talking about. I would also pause in between some questions to see if she would add more

information, giving her time to think would provide me with more than what I asked. I learned

that I'm better at retaining information when it is a conversation rather than just listening which I

feel is a limitation. When my mom would keep telling stories or certain situations, sometimes it

was hard to keep up with all the details and would feel rude to interrupt and ask them to repeat. I

think one thing that would help me with my limitation would be taking notes with keywords or

writing down the question that comes to mind as a future patient is telling a story/situation.

Every situation you hear as a social worker can be unpredictable which is why notes are

important so you can gather more information and have a better understanding. My identified

strength of pausing between answering would help me improve because as the client hesitates

and talks more, I can write some notes.

Appendix A