Cutoff
A line between two people broken by two short upright bars means a cutoff: contact between them has ended.
Easily confused with
How to read it
Cutoff comes from Murray Bowen’s family systems theory. The Bowen Center for the Study of the Family describes emotional cutoff as people managing unresolved issues with parents, siblings and other relatives by reducing or totally cutting off emotional contact, either by moving away and rarely going home or by staying in contact while avoiding sensitive issues. SAMHSA’s guide to family therapy lists emotional cutoffs among the relationships a genogram depicts. On the Multicultural Family Institute’s chart the cutoff line is broken by two short bars, and a cutoff repaired has a small circle drawn over the break.
Also searched as: cut off, cutoff symbol, estranged genogram, genogram cutoff.
This explains what a symbol records on a genogram. Clinicians vary the notation, and a genogram’s own key takes precedence.
Look-alikes
Two diagonal slashes across a couple’s line beneath them are a Divorce, not a cutoff. A dotted line between two people is a Distant relationship relationship, where contact continues.
Read next
- Next in Genogram symbolsMaleA square on a genogram is a male family member. His age is written inside it, and his name and dates beside it.
- The same shape in African flagsFlag of EthiopiaEthiopia’s flag is green, yellow and red in equal horizontal stripes with a blue disc in the centre holding a yellow star of equal lines with yellow rays. Ethiopia’s Flag Proclamation makes the green labour, fertility and development, the yellow hope, justice and equality, and the red sacrifice and heroism for freedom and equality; the blue disc is peace and the star the unity of Ethiopia’s nations, nationalities and peoples.
More genogram symbols
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with circles, lines or squares and rectangles.
Sources
- Emotional Cutoff, The Bowen Center for the Study of the Family, Emotional Cutoff
- Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Family Therapy (Treatment Improvement Protocol 39), SAMHSA Publication No. PEP20-02-02-012, updated 2020, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (govinfo.gov), Chapter 4, Genograms
- Standard Symbols for Genograms, The Multicultural Family Institute (copy on a PBworks course wiki), Page 2
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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