Going through my family's genogram shows some factors that may affect my social, psychological productivity. There are a number of issues that come out that I think shows a genetic history. One is the fact that the third generation of my family is suffering from anxiety disorder including me except one sister and brother. Such background may affect my social work, but I can find a way of actually turning this to work in my favor. Anxiety disorder results from worrying about social situations (Kiran & Chaudhury, 2016) and this means that doing social work which will involve dealing with people on a daily basis, and probably distressed people, can be a challenge for me. However, I can use this as my recovery journey and in some cases where I deal with individuals who have the same challenge I can, in fact, use my experience to help them.
Reflection
Some of the issues such as divorce from grandparents may end up affecting their parents or grandparents in their social and psychological functioning. However, the genogram shows that only one member of my direct bloodline in the almost three generation has gone through a divorce. This is a good sing for me as divorce is an issue that can affect the worldview of those affected. Furthermore, the person who went through a divorce is not my direct connection in the family tree. A genogram that shows a lower level of divorce may be prove indicator that I will not have problems with my social work. Divorce is a sign of poor family stability which can affect someone's social and psychological functions(Bitter, 2013). The less of it that one has had to deal with either as a child or an adult, the more stable they can be. However, I have to consider that my family is Hispanic where divorce is rare not as an assign of familial stability, but as a result of a culture that encourages people to stay in a marriage even when things are not working out.
From the genogram, there is also one more issue that comes up that I do believe will affect my work as a social worker. First, my family, starting from my grandfathers had a stable formal employment for most of their adult life. Most of my olderfamily retired from the same jobs they joined when they were young. This can be a positive factor that will mean that I can have stability. While this may not be genetically hereditary, some issues such as work ethics can be acquired from the family as they become a family tradition(Bitter, 2013). Being a social worker requires someone to be in formal employment, and also to be stable resilient, and I think that the fact that most of my family has had stable employment for the majority of their lives adds some value to my quest as a social worker. Both my parents have also had jobs that require serving the public, with my father working for the fire department and my mother for UPS. These jobs are close to what I will be doing as a social worker.
My family also seems to have ancestors who live long. For instance, two of my grandparents still have and, even those who are dead died at an older age of above seventy years. A history of longevity from both my maternal and paternal side can be a positive indication of both psychological and physiological health. That would be useful for someone who wants to get into social work, and I hope that it will be the same for me. Given the combination of lower rates of divorce and low mortality rates in my family tree, one can assume that this shows that my family has a history of moral support to each other, which would come in as important for my career in social work. Social work as Parry and Doan (1994)say requires that one must have stability at the family level as it requires dealing with a lot of distressed persons and families. Dealing with distressed families and the individual can leave someone carrying over their burdens and thus suffering from trauma. Having a supportive family back at home is therefore important for one to be able to cope and be useful in their support for other families.
Conclusion
From the genogram, I gather that my biggest problem that may emanate from my family history as I embark on social work is the fact that anxiety disorder seems to run in the family. The fact that almost all of my siblings have anxiety disorder means that this is a challenge that I have to deal with and in fact this is critical when comes to doing social work. I will use my won experience in cases where this will be feasible, to serve the people who will need my support. The fact that my family has a good history of employment and family stability as indicated by the low rates of divorce and the high levels of job retention are also a positive indicator for me as I embark on a social world career.
References
Bitter, J. (2013). Theory and Practice of Family Therapy and Counseling. New York, NY: Cengage Learning.
Kiran, C., & Chaudhury, S. (2016). Prevalence of comorbid anxiety disorders in schizophrenia.Industrial Psychiatry Journal, 25(1)
Parry, A., & Doan, R. (1994). Story Re-Visions: Narrative Therapy in the Postmodern World. New York City, NY: Guilford Press.
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