You Can Go Home Again: Reconnecting With Your Family

by Monica McGoldrick MA, MSW, PhD

Overview

"Monica McGoldrick is one of the most extraordinary voices among us. Her splendid new book is a gift, a rich source of hope, information, and insight that will teach readers to reconnect with our past and invent a new future." —Harriet Lerner, Ph.D. author of The Dance of Anger, The Dance of Intimacy, and The Dance of Deception

In this revelatory book, esteemed family therapist Monica McGoldrick explores why families behave as they do, using genograms (family trees) to illustrate family patterns. Mapped out over a three-generation span, repeated estrangements, alliances, even divorces and suicides, prove more than coincidental. McGoldrick uses the genograms of famous families - including the Kennedys, Hepburns, Beethovens and Brontes - the discuss the influence of birth order and sibling rivalry, family myths and secrets, cultural differences, couple relationships and the pivotal role of loss. Relevant questions to ask appear at the end of each chapter, helping the reader become researcher, uncovering information previously withheld, misunderstood or overlooked.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393034943
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	04/17/1995
Pages:	332
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.60(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Monica McGoldrick, MA, MSW, PhD, cofounder and director of the Multicultural Family Institute and adjunct faculty at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, lives in Highland Park, New Jersey.

Editorial Reviews

Beginning with the premise that understanding personal family history is essential for making informed choices, McGoldrick, director of the Family Institute of New Jersey, offers an innovative method of combining genealogical research with self-awareness. An exploration of family history, according to the author, is done by plotting a ``genogram,'' which is a family tree spanning three generations. Genograms of famous families provided here-Roosevelts, Brontes, Freuds and others-illustrate McGoldrick's thesis that all families have repetitive patterns such as illegitimacy or suicide that have been hidden from descendants. Understanding one's family patterns makes it possible, McGoldrick claims, to connect with one's ancestors and to recreate better family relationships for oneself. Included are many suggestions for obtaining and interpreting the information necessary to plot your own genogram. Illustration. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

"Learning about your family heritage can free you to change your future," according to family therapist McGoldrick (Genograms in Family Assessment, Norton, 1985). Here she explores family patterns of birth order, sibling rivalry, family myths and secrets, couple relationships, class, cultural differences, suicide, and loss. McGoldrick believes that, when viewed properly, these patterns suggest that many repeated family experiences are not entirely coincidental. The key tool used is the genogram-a sort of annotated family tree that maps out family information, which she illustrates by mapping the genograms of several famous families. Questions at the end of each chapter prove to be extremely useful in aiding the reader to uncover family information that was previously clandestine, seemingly irrelevant, or simply overlooked. Although the writing is a bit dry at times-apparently targeting the educated lay reader and professional-general readers will find that this book is very helpful in researching and understanding family information and patterns of behavior. Recommended for marriage and family studies collections in academic as well as public libraries.-Dana L. Brumbelow, Auburn P.L., Ala.

Library Journal