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For Therapists

Genogram Maker Genograms

Describe your family structure and our AI will build a professional genogram in moments. Ideal for family therapy sessions, social work assessments, and medical history documentation.

Standard Clinical SymbolsRelationship MappingMedical History TrackingMulti-Generation Support

Genogram Examples

Browse genogram examples or generate your own above

Three-Generation Family Genogram

A three-generation family genogram illustrating household structure across grandparents, parents, and children using recognized clinical notation for unions, separations, and descent.

family-therapymultigenerationalfamily-structure

Medical History Genogram

A medical genogram charting hereditary conditions including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer through three generations using color-fill notation and a clear legend.

medical-historyhereditaryhealth-assessment

Emotional Relationship Genogram

An emotional genogram mapping relationship quality between family members over two generations, using standard line styles to convey closeness, conflict, enmeshment, and disconnection.

emotional-patternsrelationship-mappingtherapy

Substance Abuse Pattern Genogram

A four-generation clinical genogram documenting substance use patterns and co-occurring mental health challenges for use in treatment planning and recovery support.

substance-abuseaddictionmental-health

Cultural Genogram

A cultural genogram capturing ethnic background, migration history, religious ties, and intercultural unions across three generations of a diverse family.

cultural-assessmentdiversitymigration

Social Work Assessment Genogram

A full social work genogram marking household units, formal support networks, community resources, and case-relevant intervention points for a three-generation family.

social-workassessmentcase-management

Prompt templates you can copy

Use fictional or de-identified details only. Copy a prompt, then replace names, generations, relationships, and symbols.

Three-generation family

Basic family structure for training or planning.

Create a fictional three-generation genogram. Grandparents John and Mary are married and have two adult children, Robert and Linda. Robert is married to Susan and they have two children, David and Emma. Linda is divorced from Tom and has one adopted child, Jake. Use standard genogram symbols, show marriage, divorce, adoption, and generational alignment. White background.

Medical history genogram

Hereditary condition pattern with a legend.

Create a fictional medical history genogram across three generations. Use color fills to show heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Show heart disease appearing on the paternal side and diabetes on the maternal side. Include a clear legend and standard symbols for male, female, deceased, marriage, and children. Clinical documentation style, white background.

Emotional relationship map

Relationship quality lines for therapy training.

Create a fictional emotional relationship genogram for two generations. Show two parents and three children. Mark a close relationship between mother and oldest child, a conflictual relationship between parents, a distant relationship between father and middle child, and a cutoff relationship with the youngest adult child. Include a legend for relationship line styles.

Social work assessment

Households, supports, and identified client.

Create a fictional social work assessment genogram. Show three generations, dashed household boundaries, one identified client with a double border, one foster placement with a dashed connection, and external supports including school, counselor, and community center. Use standard genogram symbols and a clean case-documentation layout.

What is a Genogram?

A genogram is a structured visual map of a family that goes well beyond what a conventional genealogy chart can show. Introduced by Monica McGoldrick and Randy Gerson in the 1980s, genograms use a shared set of clinical symbols to capture family composition, medical history, emotional relationship quality, and behavioral tendencies across multiple generations. Where an ordinary family tree records names and birthdates, a genogram documents the full texture of family life: second marriages, adoptions, pregnancy losses, emotional conflicts, hereditary illnesses, and patterns that repeat across generations. Clinicians in family therapy, social work, primary care, and genetic counseling rely on genograms to build a quick but thorough picture of the forces shaping a client's current wellbeing.

Standard Genogram Symbols

Males are represented by squares, females by circles, and persons of unknown or non-binary gender by diamonds
Horizontal lines link partners: a solid line for marriage, a single slash for separation, a double slash for divorce
Vertical lines connect a couple to their children, who are arranged left to right in birth order
Deceased individuals are marked by drawing an X through their shape
Adopted children connect to parents with dashed lines; foster children use dotted lines
Relationship quality is shown through special line styles: a zigzag for ongoing conflict, three parallel lines for enmeshment, a dotted line for emotional distance

Applications of Genograms in Professional Practice

Genograms are active assessment and planning instruments across a wide range of disciplines. In family therapy, they help clinicians spot recurring triangulation, loyalty binds, and the intergenerational transfer of trauma. Social workers rely on them for holistic family assessments that surface both protective strengths and areas of risk. Genetic counselors draw medical genograms to trace hereditary conditions such as cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, and psychiatric disorders through bloodlines. Psychiatrists use them to identify lineage patterns of addiction, mood disorders, and anxiety. Increasingly, nurses and primary care providers build genograms during intake to round out a patient's biological and psychosocial context before treatment decisions are made.

How to Create a Genogram

Begin with the identified client or patient, then expand outward to cover at least three generations of the family
Apply standard notation throughout: squares for males, circles for females, horizontal lines for partnerships
Annotate each member with relevant details such as name, age, birth and death dates, occupation, and location
Indicate relationship quality with the appropriate line style: close, distant, conflictual, enmeshed, or cutoff
Layer in medical, behavioral, or cultural information using color coding or supplementary symbols as needed
Our AI genogram maker positions symbols and routes connecting lines automatically based on your description

Genogram vs Family Tree: Key Differences

Family trees and genograms both chart family relationships, yet they are built for entirely different purposes. A family tree is a genealogical record: it answers the question of who is descended from whom, with an emphasis on lineage, names, and dates. A genogram is a clinical instrument: it answers how a family functions, capturing relationship quality, emotional dynamics, medical conditions, and behavioral patterns that unfold across generations. Genograms use symbols that are standardized across therapy, social work, and medicine, and they accommodate non-biological ties such as adoption, foster care, and step-family bonds. A family tree preserves history; a genogram reveals the patterns within that history that may be influencing a person's health and behavior today.

Frequently asked questions

Figviz provides a free AI-powered genogram maker that produces professionally formatted genograms in seconds. Describe the family structure, relationships, and any medical or emotional details you want captured, and the tool generates a diagram using recognized clinical notation automatically.

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