Clinical Skills
The micro-skills underneath the orientations — the actual moves in your hands. Browse by category, see how to execute, when to reach for it, and the mistakes that undo it.
Systemic
Exploratory
Mindfulness
Experiential
Affirming
Behavioral
Interpersonal
Cognitive
Compassion
Narrative
Somatic
Assessment
Preventive
Exposure
Narrative Integration
Re-evaluation
Dementia Adaptation
Reflective
Observational
Structural
Agentic
Engagement
Symptom Management
Stabilization
Problem-Solving
Feedback
Supportive
Existential
Dialectical
Review
Motivational
Safety
Questioning
Values
Defusion
Systems
Confrontation
Psychoeducation
Validation
Reflection
Reframing
Systemic
Genogram Construction
Mapping three generations of family relationships, patterns, and roles.
What it is
A visual tool from Family Systems: a family tree that records members, relationships, cutoffs, alliances, and repeating patterns across at least three generations, making systemic dynamics visible and discussable.
How to do it
- 1Explain the purpose and invite collaboration
- 2Map the client's generation, then parents, then grandparents
- 3Note dates, occupations, locations, and significant events
- 4Add relationship lines — close, conflicted, distant, cut off
- 5Identify repeating patterns (illness, divorce, roles)
- 6Explore what the genogram reveals with the client
When to use
- Family Systems and Bowenian work
- Clients stuck in repeating relational or generational patterns
- Identity exploration or role-transition work
When to avoid
- When the client has no safe family contact and the map would be destabilizing
- Session time too short to do it justice
- Client disinterested in family context
Example lines
'Let's draw out your family — who's close to whom, where are the cutoffs, what patterns do you see repeating?'
Common mistakes
- Treating the genogram as data collection rather than an intervention
- Filling it in without the client's interpretive input
- Missing the emotional charge of certain relationships