Trauma & Abuse Case View
Frames the family structure around the main counseling or therapy focus.
Trauma & Abuse Genogram
Key Relationships
Shows partners, parents, children, and siblings involved in the case.
Interaction Patterns
Leaves room to note conflict, closeness, distance, or support.
Session Context
Keeps discussion points visible for assessment and follow-up.
Generational Links
Connects current concerns with relevant family history.
Caregiver Roles
Clarifies caregiving, custody, parenting, or support responsibilities.
Team Review Ready
Supports shared review before deeper clinical notes are added.
Editable Case Map
Can be extended as the conversation reveals more family context.
Map trauma history, harmful dynamics, protective strengths, and support needs across generations in one careful clinical view.
About the Trauma & Abuse Genogram
This trauma and abuse genogram combines a three-generation family structure with trauma history, mental-health context, difficult relationships, and protective family strengths.
The example contains 10 people. The oldest generation includes paternal and maternal grandparents, followed by the father, mother, and maternal uncle. The youngest generation includes a veteran, a brother, and a sister. Three partner-status lines represent marriage and divorce across the two family branches and the parents.
Nine family members have contextual notes. Strengths include a stable paternal grandfather, supportive paternal grandmother, and stable brother. Other notes record wartime trauma, emotional distance, abuse survival, PTSD, substance use, anxiety, and engagement in therapy. A violence marker and a Distant / Poor relationship add interaction context to the map while keeping protective relationships visible.
- Maps 10 family members across three generations
- Records nine concise trauma, health, or strength profiles
- Includes marriage, divorce, violence, and distant relationship context
- Highlights stability, support, survival, and therapy alongside current concerns
Who Should Use This Example?
This trauma and abuse genogram supports professionals and care teams who need a trauma-informed view of family history, safety, strengths, and current support.
Trauma therapists and counselors
Explore intergenerational experiences, current impact, coping, and protective relationships.
Social workers and safeguarding teams
Organize reported concerns, safety needs, services, and responsible professionals.
Clinical supervisors and multidisciplinary teams
Review evidence, risk, strengths, and coordinated next steps in a shared case view.
Clients and families
Discuss family patterns and sources of support at an appropriate pace and with informed consent.
Symbols Used in This Genogram
Standard family symbols establish the structure, while relationship markers and concise notes add trauma, safety, mental-health, and protective context.
Square
Male family member
Circle
Female family member
Horizontal partner line
Marriage or partner relationship
Red partner line with status marks
Divorced relationship
Vertical descent line
Parent–child relationship
Red zigzag line
Violence or another harmful dynamic, as defined in the legend
Distant / Poor label
Limited, strained, or emotionally distant relationship
Context note
Trauma, mental health, substance use, treatment, stability, or support information
Color-filled symbol
Visual category that can be defined for roles, concerns, or strengths
When to Use This Example
Use this example when trauma-informed work needs a shared view of family history, safety, strengths, and support.
- During trauma-informed assessment, therapy, social work, or case formulation.
- When exploring abuse, violence, PTSD, anxiety, substance use, grief, or intergenerational trauma.
- For identifying stable relatives, supportive relationships, treatment, and protective factors.
- During safety planning, multidisciplinary review, supervision, referral, or coordinated care.
How to Customize This Genogram
- 1
Build the family structure first
Add the focus person, relevant relatives, partners, former partners, children, household groups, dates, and major family transitions.
- 2
Record strengths and protective factors
Mark stable, supportive, safe, caring, treatment-engaged, and resilient people or relationships that can contribute to recovery and planning.
- 3
Add trauma and relationship context carefully
Use concise language for reported experiences, symptoms, harmful dynamics, mental-health concerns, substance use, treatment, and current impact.
- 4
Connect the map to safety and care goals
Add immediate safety actions, support people, services, consent and access arrangements, referrals, responsible professionals, review dates, and agreed next steps.
Creately Clinical Capabilities for This Example
Creately Clinical supports careful trauma-informed mapping with structured profiles, relationship notation, and access-controlled collaboration. Teams can keep concerns, protective factors, evidence, and agreed actions connected without flattening the case into a single risk narrative.
- Relevant field packs: Family Therapy and Social Work fields for emotional dynamics, safety, services, supports, and case context.
- Best-fit view mode: Relationship Dynamics for family patterns, or Risk & Services when safeguarding and coordinated support are central.
- AI support: Draft a genogram from intake or case summaries and surface possible patterns for professional review rather than automatic conclusions.
- Collaboration and reporting: Use role-based sharing, real-time editing, auto-save, and case-file exports for supervision and multidisciplinary review.
Frequently Asked Questions
What information should I include?
Include only information relevant to the agreed purpose: family structure, reported trauma, relationship dynamics, current impact, mental-health or substance-use context, treatment, strengths, protective factors, and support resources.
How should sensitive information be documented?
Use neutral and specific language, distinguish reported from observed or confirmed information, record dates and sources where useful, follow consent and safeguarding procedures, and apply appropriate access controls.
Should strengths appear alongside trauma history?
Yes. Supportive people, stability, coping, treatment, community resources, resilience, and progress create a fuller picture and help connect the assessment with recovery and safety planning.
How can Creately Clinical support trauma-informed mapping?
Custom fields, notes, relationship markers, and visual categories can keep trauma and protective context organized. Shared editing, comments, version history, and exports support supervision, multidisciplinary review, and coordinated care.
Start in Creately Clinical, then deepen the trauma-informed case view
Edit the genogram to map the family, add supported trauma and strength information, and create a carefully structured visual for safety, assessment, and coordinated care.