A counseling genogram is a powerful therapeutic tool used to visually map out family relationships, emotional patterns, and generational influences. Often referred to as a psychological family tree, it helps therapists and counselors uncover hidden dynamics, identify sources of stress or trauma, and gain deeper insight into a client’s behavioral and emotional history. Whether in individual, group, or trauma-focused therapy, counseling genograms are essential for facilitating meaningful conversations and driving personal growth.
In this post, we’ll explore six editable counseling genogram templates—each designed to support different counseling scenarios and make it easier to analyze complex family systems.
1. Simple Counseling Genogram
The simple counseling genogram template is ideal for clients who are unfamiliar with genograms or those seeking a straightforward overview of their family history. It illustrates the links between important family members, such as those between parents, siblings, and children, making it easier to identify patterns within the immediate family system. With its clean, user-friendly layout, this counseling genogram is perfect for starting conversations around family dynamics, emotional connections, and early life influences in therapy sessions.
2. Family Counseling Genogram
The family counseling genogram template expands the scope beyond the nuclear family to encompass extended family members such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. This broader perspective allows therapists to explore complex family relationship patterns, intergenerational influences, and communication patterns across the family system. This counseling genogram template is particularly useful in family counseling sessions, helping uncover recurring behaviors, inherited beliefs, and emotional dynamics that may impact the client’s current challenges.
3. Parenting Style Counseling Genogram
The parenting style counseling genogram helps visualize the parenting approaches used across generations and their psychological impact on family members. This template enables clients to explore how caregiver behaviors, such as authoritarian, permissive, or nurturing styles—have shaped their emotional development, coping strategies, and relationship patterns. In counseling sessions, therapists can use this genogram to identify recurring parenting dynamics and guide clients in recognizing both challenges and opportunities for growth in their own parenting journey.
4. Individual Counseling Genogram
The individual counseling genogram centers entirely on the client, offering a personalized view of their life story, key relationships, and formative experiences. This template helps clients map significant life events and emotional connections, allowing them to explore how family history, values, and past interactions have shaped their identity and behavior. In therapy, it serves as a reflective tool for building self-awareness and understanding the deeper roots of personal challenges and emotional patterns.
5. Trauma Counseling Genogram
The trauma counseling genogram is a powerful therapeutic tool for mapping the impact of trauma within a family system. This template highlights critical events such as abuse, neglect, grief, addiction, or other adverse experiences that may have shaped emotional responses across generations. By visualizing these patterns, therapists and clients can identify inherited trauma, emotional triggers, and coping mechanisms, creating space for healing, resilience-building, and deeper emotional insight during counseling sessions.
6. Group Counseling Genogram
The group counseling genogram template is designed specifically for group therapy settings, allowing multiple participants to build and share their genograms side by side. This collaborative approach fosters empathy, shared understanding, and connection among group members as they explore common themes such as generational patterns, emotional struggles, or family dynamics. Therapists can use this template to encourage dialogue, highlight relational parallels, and support collective healing within the group counseling environment.
Helpful Resources
Discover everything you need to know about genograms, from what they are, how to create a genogram, to how to understand what they mean.
Explore our collection of genogram templates.
Learn how different types of genograms can help visualize important aspects of life.
Explore the essential symbols used in genograms to represent everything from basic family structures to complex emotional and medical relationships.
The Right Tool to Create Counseling Genograms
Creating a counseling genogram is most effective when you have a flexible, intuitive tool that supports collaboration and clarity. That’s where Creately stands out. Designed for visual thinking and real-time collaboration, Creately offers a powerful platform for building counseling genograms that therapists and clients can work on together, whether in person or during virtual sessions.
With genogram templates tailored for counseling, mental health, and family therapy, you can drag and drop standardized genogram symbols, customize family structures, and annotate emotional or behavioral patterns. These features make it easier to visualize generational influences, trauma markers, and relational dynamics.
Whether you’re exploring genograms in psychology or learning how to create a genogram in Word or PowerPoint, Creately provides a smarter, more efficient alternative with collaborative capabilities and a user-friendly interface.
Any Comments on Our Guide to Counseling Genogram Templates
Creating a Counseling Genogram can be a complicated task. Customize the templates and exmaples given in the guide to simplify your counsling genograms.
Got anything to share? Do let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
FAQs About Counseling Genograms
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Resources:
Butler, J.F. (2008). The Family Diagram and Genogram: Comparisons and Contrasts. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 36(3), pp.169–180. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/01926180701291055.
Rempel, G.R., Neufeld, A. and Kushner, K.E. (2007). Interactive Use of Genograms and Ecomaps in Family Caregiving Research. Journal of Family Nursing, 13(4), pp.403–419. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/1074840707307917.
