A genogram is a visual representation of family connections. Symbols used within the genogram can illustrate various social and emotional relationships between family members. In psychiatric-mental health nursing, genograms are helpful tools for exploring specific patterns within a family that span generations (Kneisl & Trigoboff, 2013, p. 652). For example, a client with alcoholism can generate a genogram to visualize patterns of alcoholism within his or her family (Kneisl & Trigoboff, 2013, p. 652). My genogram goes back three generations and highlights the psychological abuse passed down from my grandmother to my father and from my father to his children.
My paternal grandmother abused her children physically and psychologically. She is …show more content…
As a means of self-preservation, an individual can completely shut down his ability to feel shame. He can then walk through life more easily, but feel far less for the world around him. Shame is a normally a helpful emotion, because it teaches us what not to do. If we feel empathy for those around us, if we have a conscience, then we will feel shame when we hurt others. Perhaps by shutting down shame a person must, by necessity, shut down his empathy. I often wonder if my father is a psychopath and if so, then, perhaps a refusal to feel shame is partly the cause of his problem. My father married my mom when he was 30 years old. During their wedding reception my uncle pulled my mom aside and told her that my father was wearing a mask, that her husband was not the kind and caring man she met months before. Initially, she felt startled and insulted by his comment, but a year later she found out he was telling the …show more content…
Paul, who was around twelve at the time, came to my mom's defense. He bluntly declared that she was a faithful woman and had lost weight for my father. An argument ensued that ended with Paul being thrown onto the staircase and beaten. My father always treated Paul like an enemy. My mom told me that as a toddler Paul used to try to hug my father only to be pushed away, so eventually he stopped trying. When I was around five years old my father started to push me away, too. I used to sit on his side while he watched television, but when I started weighing too much he stopped letting me do that. As I grew up, he grew colder toward me, and it left me feeling completely rejected. I always felt like he resented his wife and children. I never felt that I lived up to his unvoiced standards. Now, I believe it was not that he had impossible standards, but that he simply did not care. He was neglectful toward his family just as his mother had been neglectful toward him. There was no pleasing him, and we all tried so hard. We tiptoed around, careful of all we said and did, but it was pointless. The more power we gave him the crueler he
My paternal grandmother abused her children physically and psychologically. She is …show more content…
As a means of self-preservation, an individual can completely shut down his ability to feel shame. He can then walk through life more easily, but feel far less for the world around him. Shame is a normally a helpful emotion, because it teaches us what not to do. If we feel empathy for those around us, if we have a conscience, then we will feel shame when we hurt others. Perhaps by shutting down shame a person must, by necessity, shut down his empathy. I often wonder if my father is a psychopath and if so, then, perhaps a refusal to feel shame is partly the cause of his problem. My father married my mom when he was 30 years old. During their wedding reception my uncle pulled my mom aside and told her that my father was wearing a mask, that her husband was not the kind and caring man she met months before. Initially, she felt startled and insulted by his comment, but a year later she found out he was telling the …show more content…
Paul, who was around twelve at the time, came to my mom's defense. He bluntly declared that she was a faithful woman and had lost weight for my father. An argument ensued that ended with Paul being thrown onto the staircase and beaten. My father always treated Paul like an enemy. My mom told me that as a toddler Paul used to try to hug my father only to be pushed away, so eventually he stopped trying. When I was around five years old my father started to push me away, too. I used to sit on his side while he watched television, but when I started weighing too much he stopped letting me do that. As I grew up, he grew colder toward me, and it left me feeling completely rejected. I always felt like he resented his wife and children. I never felt that I lived up to his unvoiced standards. Now, I believe it was not that he had impossible standards, but that he simply did not care. He was neglectful toward his family just as his mother had been neglectful toward him. There was no pleasing him, and we all tried so hard. We tiptoed around, careful of all we said and did, but it was pointless. The more power we gave him the crueler he