Personal Narrative: Family Of Origin Work

A genogram is a diagram that shows family members and their relationships. The information can sometimes include, ages, dates, deaths, and or geographic locations. Males are represented by squares and females are represented by circles. The horizontal lines indicate marriage; while the vertical line indicates parents and children. This paper outlines the assessment and analysis of the three generation of the Jones and Sheffield family, relationships, structures, and health struggles. The interview was conducted by myself (Katroya) and the interviewer was my mother (Sheryl).

Genograms are used to graphically represent a family tree and display detailed data on relationships among the individuals included in the family tree. In essence, families are complex systems that interact with kin groups in specific ways, and a genogram helps to show a diagram of a family tree, but also maps out interactions, relationships, traits, and characteristics that may otherwise not be noticed. The purpose of a genogram is to identify and understand patterns in family history which may influence an individual’s personal behavior and traits. Family Systems Theory, presented by Dr. Murray Bowen, suggests that an individual cannot be understood in isolation from their family members. According to Dr. Bowen, the family is an emotional

was present at home, my mother attempted to keep the peace. Emotionally, he would erupt in angry over the slightest things. At times, my father subjected violence against my brother and I. He physically abused my brother and emotional abused me. I recall that one night, when I was seven years old, my brother and father were arguing. In a rage, my father hit my brother repeatedly and once he was done hitting him. He threw my brother outside on the porch. I remember that night because it was freezing. My brother had no shirt on and my father locked him out. I cried and so did my mother. After ten minutes of my father blocking the door he eventually walked away and unlocked the door.

My grandmother Lynne Murphy is who I chose to interview for my heritage project. This summer at a family birthday party I was speaking short phrases in Spanish while joking around with my dad. My grandmother, sitting beside us, joined in the conversation and starting speaking fluent Spanish. I had no idea she could speak Spanish, so I asked her, “How can you speak Spanish?” Before answering my question she laughed. She went on to tell me that she lived in South America for many years as a teenager. I didn’t have the chance to learn anymore about her childhood until this project was assigned. When I learned we were to focus on a family member’s experience growing up, I immediately thought about my grandmother and the interesting life she seemed

Mapping out relationships and interactions between a family system can present a visual aspect to assist with understanding the function as a unit. Creating a genogram gives the clients realizations of why family traditions exist and traits that family members pass from generation to generation.

The genogram provided a visual aid for information, allowing it to be shared and monitored. In synchrony with developments in systemic family therapy such as attention on the process and not just the content of family interactions, the use of genograms broadened according to McGoldrick, et all {2008} a focus on not just generational systems but the systems of various dissimilar/similar characteristics of families such as rules, beliefs, role, structure and secrets.

Family genograms are essential to discover family history; it helps doctors and therapists to go deeper into an individual’s background to analyze the individual’s mental, physical and behavioral condition. In this paper, I will introduce my family’s genogram information to analyze three generations with events that impacted each generation. These generations include my grandparents, my parents and my own generation of procreation. I will examine the family structure of each generation, the family relational patterns and the critical family life events that took place. I will discuss the role that culture plays in my family genogram in regards of family development, interaction patterns and communication.

My family’s Native American heritage has influenced me by encouraging me to assist the poverty-stricken Lumbee community that I grew up in, whether that be by volunteering my time, energy, or resources. Growing up as a member of the Lumbee community, I have witnessed firsthand the struggles that many Native American families face, including living paycheck to paycheck, being ridiculed for our heritage, and alcohol abuse in many households. My culture has instilled in me the desire to educate the youth to be proud of their heritage despite the derogatory stereotypes that people associate Native Americans with. Unlike many children I was raised with, I have the opportunity to go to college and become only the second person in my family to do

Growing up with two different Heritages is like growing up in two different worlds, it was tough growing up being Native and Hispanic I would either get made fun of because I was Native or I was made fun of for being Hispanic. I guess you can say that I have somewhat of a different life, living with any Hispanic family but considering myself more Native, because just at home i just speak spanish, and eat amazing food made by my mother who isn’t even Hispanic who’s just Native American who didn’t consider herself Native American because she herself lived with my grandmother or she lived with a family friend who was Hispanic and showed her things about a culture that she didn’t know anything about.

Recently I took a trip to Nashville, and YES it was so much fun, I learned a lot about my business, met some of my AWESOME business partners, but most of all I got back my Country Roots !

I grew up in a catholic conservative family, but that did not define me. My mom’s heritage had a huge impact in our household. She is Hispanic and Italian and our life revolved around food and family. We would help my mom cook as we danced around to Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Dean Martin, and Celia Cruz. My dad worked a lot of the time, but when he was home we played sports outside and watched movies with him. Every Friday night was family movie night, which my brothers and I looked forward too.

I have come from a well-meaning but very scarring, ambivalent and dysfunctional family. My father was a sometimes physically, but often times very emotionally abusive person. Using a large amount of fear and intimidation of him to control our family and home. My mother regularly took out her anger and frustration towards my father on me since my parent’s first major separation when I was seven years old which in conjunction with the negative impact of my parents’ off and on separations leading up to their eventual divorce I developed depression, anger and other behavioral problems as well. I suffered many years of abuse from my mother as a result of these things. I understood both my parents cared for me, even though their actions often time both demonstrated it and contradicted it which lead to much confusion in relationships and friendships outside of my family. One of if not the most scarring experiences were of my mother and the adults she surrounded herself with sympathizing her abuse towards me because of the abuse she endured by my father and

My family has lived here in Oregon since the before the war between the states, and family tells us stories of the good times before all these japs started taking over. Around the turn of the century or so it started to seem like these people were everywhere. It all started with the building of the railroad. The companies brought in those people to build the railroad, and now that the railroad is completed they will not leave. To make matters even worse there is an effort by their leaders to get them to strike for the same pay as us white people that work for the railroad. There has been extremely little or no effort on their part to become like us Americans. I was walking through town the other day and what did I see, there was a huge Buddha statue in front of a new Buddhist temple. They can't even go to church like regular people.

The physical abuse stopped around this point, at 17 and 15 years old my brother and I were finally able to match him physically and he knew that we would no longer hesitate to intervene if he did anything to hurt one of us, yet the mental and emotional trauma continued he still had a temper and would become angry when he did not get what he wanted, he continued to lie about his drinking and affairs and worse of all he intimidated Madigan and Ewan when they had to visit with him. After attempting a generous partial visitation schedule my mom restricted his access to the smaller children. After several months of this he and I tried to revisit our relationship to see if there was anything salvageable as I still hoped that I would be able to have a man I could one day look up to as a father, however that ended when I learned he was becoming increasingly abuse towards Madigan and Ewan and that he was still continuing to drink despite being a self-admitted

My approach and interaction with the family was through an existing relationship with their daughter Amanda. Amanda Barnes is a 15 year old that was introduced to the family at age two. After living with the Barnes’s for more than 2 years as their foster child and not having any contact with her biological parents, Amanda adopted by the family. Amanda has been diagnosed with a series of behavioral problems that stemmed from her biological mother’s substance abuse use. During one of our many conversations, she has repeatedly talked about feeling depressed and disliking herself. She has also expressed concerns that her parents do not believe that these feelings are real or important.