Affinographs

Book excerpt: The need for a new method for assessment and imaging of families, couples, and individuals has emerged in response to changes in family forms during the twentieth century. In the twentieth century divorce, remarriage, out-of wedlock child bearing, and alternate life styles have replaced monogamy as predominant form of marriage and the family. The methods of representation and assessment on the other hand remain based on the nineteenth century eugenics models embedded in the modern day genograms. This book is based on the premise that changes in family structure require changes in methods of representation, assessment, research, and teaching. This book introduces such a method in the form of a model named the affinograph. The affinograph provides a method which allows a greater respect for individuals, especially if their relationships contradict the preconceived institutional notions of marriage and the family. Improvement in visualizing families of various types and complexities can make affinographs an important new method that can bring together the theory, research, and application across varied disciplines that comprise family sciences.