You Can Go Home Again: Reconnecting with Your Family [Paperback]

Monica McGoldrick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 17, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0393316505 | ISBN-13: 978-0393316506 | Edition: 1

"Monica McGoldrick's 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.

Those who learn from the past are not condemned to repeat it. In this revelatory book, family therapist Monica McGoldrick explains how the use of genograms (family trees) can bring to light a family's history of estrangement, alliance, divorce, or suicide, revealing intergenerational patterns that prove more than coincidental.

McGoldrick's genograms of famous families, such as the Kennedys, Hepburns, Beethovens, and Brontës, complement discussion of the influence of birth order and sibling rivalry, family myths and secrets, cultural differences, couple relationships, and the pivotal role of loss. At the close of each chapter are questions that train the reader to think as researcher; with McGoldrick's guidance, we learn to mine previously untapped information about our own family patterns. Photographs, drawings

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

"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.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (June 17, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393316505
• ISBN-13: 978-0393316506
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #362,890 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Monica McGoldrick, M.A., M.S.W., Ph.D., is co-founder and director of the Multicultural Family Institute in Highland Park, New Jersey, and adjunct faculty at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Her books include Ethnicity and Family Therapy, Third Edition, Genograms: Assessment and Intervention, Third Edition, The Expanded Family Life Cycle, Fourth Edition Living Beyond Loss, 2nd edition; Revisioning Family Therapy, 2nd edition; and The Genogram Journey, a new edition of You Can Go Home Again, a book published to explain family systems therapy for the general reader. This book offers the genograms and family histories of many famous people from Barack Obama to John Kennedy and Sigmund Freud.

Monica McGoldrick was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up there and in Solebury Pennsylvania. Her ancestors (on the McGoldrick side came from Donegal, Ireland, and her mother's Cahalane ancestors came from West Cork. She majored in Russian Studies at Brown University (called Pembroke in her time), and then received a masters degree in Russian Studies at Yale University, before switching to social work and family therapy, receiving her MSW and later an honorary PhD from Smith College School for Social Work.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful and readable book on family systems dynamics, October 24, 2000

By 

Ta-Wei Wang (Taiwan) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: You Can Go Home Again: Reconnecting with Your Family (Paperback)

This is a wonderful book. You won't see many family therapy jargons here. Insead, Monica McGoldrick delicately uses famous people's biographic stories to illustrate the complex intergenerational family systems dynamics. Ths book is easy to read. It is suitable for various kinds of readers. If you want to explore into your family history to better aware of what impacts your family have on you, this is for you. The book offers a lot of lively examples and tips on how to construct your own family genograms. You will experience the incredible power of the family systems, and also the intertwined influence of larger social-cultural-historical context. if you are a family/marriage counselor, the book is a necessary resource for you when you are dealing with the clients' family of origin issues. If you are simply insterested to delve into famous people's lives, the book also can satisfy your curiousity. It explains how family patterns accross generations would shape those people's personality characteristics and relationship patterns. I highly recommend this book to all mental health practitioners, and all who want to improve your life and get a better understanding of yourself!

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenal, November 11, 2000

By 

Ian M. Enriquez "Counselor and lover of life" (San Francisco, California United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: You Can Go Home Again: Reconnecting with Your Family (Paperback)

This is an incredible book, and a must have for anyone who is planning on researching their family history. The book demonstrates several family trees of famous people, and they are accompanied by their stories of loss, emotional abuse, and relationship patterns and coincidences. Each chapter also ends with a series of questions designed to help the readers uncover their family history and secrets from their family. It is a fun, inspirational, and informative book accessible to all readers.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Historical reviews of famous family from a Bowen system view, July 8, 1999

By 

T. Clark (Jacksonville, Fl) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: You Can Go Home Again: Reconnecting with Your Family (Paperback)

McGoldrick examined many of the central concepts of Bowens systems theory and how these concepts are illustrated vividly from many historical families. The book offers a ethnographic lively application of family therapy concepts! It is a must read for students of family therapy.