Ecomap Analysis
Also known as: Ecomap, Eco-Map, Ecological Map, Hartman Ecomap
An ecomap is a graphical map of a household or individual set within their social environment, showing the connections between the focal system and the external systems around it — extended family, work, school, health care, friends, agencies, religion, and recreation — and coding each connection as strong, tenuous, or stressful, with arrows for the flow of energy and resources. Ecomap analysis is the practice of drawing and interpreting this map to assess the person-in-environment, the central organizing concept of social work. It was introduced by Ann Hartman in 1978.
Key highlights
- Operationalizes the person-in-environment perspective, making a household's web of external supports and stresses visible on one page.
- Quickly highlights both resources to mobilize and gaps or isolation to address, directly informing intervention planning.
- Collaborative and accessible: clients readily understand and contribute to the drawing, strengthening engagement.
- Codes the quality and direction of each connection, distinguishing supportive ties from draining or conflicted ones rather than merely listing contacts.
Intuition
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How it works
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When to use it
Use ecomap analysis when you need to assess and communicate a client's relationship with their social environment — in intake, family assessment, care planning, child welfare, health and hospital social work, and discharge planning. It is ideal for identifying available supports, gaps and isolation, and sources of stress, and for engaging clients in a collaborative picture of their world. It is less useful when the concern is purely intrapsychic, when environmental context is not the issue, or when the client cannot describe their connections. Like the genogram, its readings are interpretive hypotheses about the present and must be updated as circumstances change.
Strengths & limitations
- Operationalizes the person-in-environment perspective, making a household's web of external supports and stresses visible on one page.
- Quickly highlights both resources to mobilize and gaps or isolation to address, directly informing intervention planning.
- Collaborative and accessible: clients readily understand and contribute to the drawing, strengthening engagement.
- Codes the quality and direction of each connection, distinguishing supportive ties from draining or conflicted ones rather than merely listing contacts.
- It is a qualitative, subjective snapshot; the strength and quality of each tie reflect perception, not measurement.
- It captures a single point in time and must be redrawn as the family's connections change.
- There is no standardized scoring, so two practitioners may code the same relationships differently.
- It depicts connections but does not by itself explain why they are as they are or what will change them.
Common pitfalls
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Applications
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Frequently asked
How does an ecomap differ from a genogram?
A genogram looks inward and backward, mapping family structure and emotional patterns across at least three generations. An ecomap looks outward and at the present, mapping the household's current connections to external systems — work, school, health care, friends, agencies — and the quality and direction of those ties. They are complementary: the genogram situates the family in its own history, the ecomap situates it in its surrounding environment, and they are often drawn together.
What do the different line styles mean?
Ecomaps use a small standardized vocabulary of lines. A solid or thick line denotes a strong, positive connection; a thin or dotted line denotes a tenuous or weak one; and a hatched, jagged, or slashed line denotes a stressful or conflicted relationship. Arrowheads on the lines show the direction in which energy, resources, or support flow — toward the family, away from it, or both — so the map conveys not just whether a tie exists but its quality and reciprocity.
Can the ecomap be used as an outcome measure?
It is primarily an assessment and engagement tool rather than a validated outcome scale, because its codings are qualitative and unstandardized. That said, practitioners sometimes draw an ecomap at intake and again later to illustrate change — for example, new supportive connections or reduced stressful ones — as descriptive evidence of progress, while recognizing it does not provide a psychometrically validated score.
Sources
- 1.Hartman, A. (1978). Diagrammatic assessment of family relationships. Social Casework, 59(8), 465–476.
- 2.Hartman, A., & Laird, J. (1983). Family-Centered Social Work Practice. Free Press.ISBN 9780029140703
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Cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). Ecomap Analysis. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/social-work/ecomap-analysis