Family Relationships, Genealogy - General & Miscellaneous, Family, Marital & Couples Counseling

You Can Go Home Again

Name: You Can Go Home Again
Author: Monica Mcgoldrick
ISBN: 9780393034943

by Monica Mcgoldrick

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Overview

McGoldrick explains how the use of genograms can bring light to a family's history of estrangement, alliance, divorce, or suicide by revealing intergenerational patterns that prove more than coincidental. Readers learn how to mine previously overlooked information about family systems.

"...examines the repetition of family patterns through such famous clans as the Kennedys and Brontes, explaining why generational patterns occur and why they don't have to be repeated."

Synopsis

Publishers Weekly

Beginning with the premise that understanding personal family history is essential for making informed choices, McGoldrick, director of the Family Institute of New Jersey, offers an innovative method of combining genealogical research with self-awareness. An exploration of family history, according to the author, is done by plotting a ``genogram,'' which is a family tree spanning three generations. Genograms of famous families provided here-Roosevelts, Brontes, Freuds and others-illustrate McGoldrick's thesis that all families have repetitive patterns such as illegitimacy or suicide that have been hidden from descendants. Understanding one's family patterns makes it possible, McGoldrick claims, to connect with one's ancestors and to recreate better family relationships for oneself. Included are many suggestions for obtaining and interpreting the information necessary to plot your own genogram. Illustration. (Mar.)

About the Author, Monica Mcgoldrick

Monica McGoldrick,, M.A., M.S.W., Ph. D., is Director of the Multicultural Family Institute in Highland Park, New Jersey, and adjunct faculty at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Her other books include Ethnicity and Family Therapy (3rd Edition), Genograms: Assessment and Intervention (2nd Edition), and The Expanded Family Life Cycle (3rd Edition).

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Library Journal

"Learning about your family heritage can free you to change your future," according to family therapist McGoldrick (Genograms in Family Assessment, Norton, 1985). Here she explores family patterns of birth order, sibling rivalry, family myths and secrets, couple relationships, class, cultural differences, suicide, and loss. McGoldrick believes that, when viewed properly, these patterns suggest that many repeated family experiences are not entirely coincidental. The key tool used is the genogram-a sort of annotated family tree that maps out family information, which she illustrates by mapping the genograms of several famous families. Questions at the end of each chapter prove to be extremely useful in aiding the reader to uncover family information that was previously clandestine, seemingly irrelevant, or simply overlooked. Although the writing is a bit dry at times-apparently targeting the educated lay reader and professional-general readers will find that this book is very helpful in researching and understanding family information and patterns of behavior. Recommended for marriage and family studies collections in academic as well as public libraries.-Dana L. Brumbelow, Auburn P.L., Ala.