Close relationship

How to read it

Lines drawn between two people’s symbols describe what the University of North Dakota’s guide calls the emotional quality of their relationship. On the Multicultural Family Institute’s chart of interactional patterns, two parallel lines are close and three are fused. Close-hostile is two parallel lines with a zigzag between them. A University of Texas at Austin social work guide labels the double line very close.

Also searched as: close genogram, close relationship symbol, genogram close relationship.

A record of one moment

A relationship line records what was reported when the genogram was drawn. SAMHSA’s guide to family therapy gives the example of a couple whose relationship is drawn as conflicted at first and with the symbol for a closer relationship later. The 2021 Research in Practice guide notes that a genogram represents a moment in time and that the people in it may see their relationships quite differently from each other and from the practitioner.

Other ways it is drawn

Some keys use colour instead. The Research in Practice guide labels lines close/supportive and close/strained, and its example genogram uses coloured lines for a strong relationship and a strained one. In a medical pedigree, a double line between two partners means they are related by blood.