Ten ecomap examples from clinical practice.
Composite cases across addiction recovery, mental health, foster care, geriatrics, child welfare, refugee resettlement, couples work, school social work, chronic illness, and community/business use. Each one with a starter-template link.
How to read an ecomap example
Each example below follows the same structure: the identified client or family sits at the center, surrounded by external systems drawn as labeled circles. The lines connecting them carry clinical meaning — a thick solid line means a strong, supportive relationship; a dashed line means the connection is tenuous or still forming; a zig-zag line signals stress. Arrowheads show direction: pointing toward the center means the system is giving resources to the client; pointing outward means the client is giving energy to the system; arrows on both ends indicate a mutual exchange.
When reading an ecomap, pay attention to what is absent as much as what is present. A client with strong professional supports (therapist, sponsor) but a broken line to family and no recreation system is showing you a fragile scaffold — recovery or stability depends entirely on paid relationships. That pattern looks different from a client whose family line is stressful-strong: the intensity is high in both directions, which is protective but also exhausting. The examples below illustrate common versions of these patterns across different clinical domains.
James, 28
6 months sober. Sponsor + therapist (strong), AA group (strong), employer (mutual), mother (stressful), father (broken). Strong recovery scaffold but parental conflict is a relapse risk.
Open the addiction recovery guideMaya, 15
School counselor + therapist (strong), parents (mutual), friend group (stressful), sports team (strong). Three protective systems balancing one peer-related stressor.
Open the adolescent mental health guideEli, 9
Foster parents (strong), biological mother (weak, supervised), bio sibling (strong), caseworker (mutual), school + therapist (mutual). Visualizes case-plan compliance and natural supports.
Open the foster care guideMrs. Lin, 81
Adult son (mutual), in-home aide (strong), primary-care MD (mutual), neighbor (strong), church congregation (mutual), Meals-on-Wheels (toward-center). Limited but well-utilized supports.
Open the geriatric in-home guideFamily Chen
Mother + 3 children at center. Custodial parent (strong with all 3), non-custodial father (weak with 2, broken with 1), CPS caseworker (stressful), daycare + pediatrician (mutual).
Open the child welfare guideHassan family
IRC caseworker (toward-center), English class (mutual), mosque (strong), legal-aid attorney (toward-center), employer (stressful), distant relatives abroad (weak).
Open the refugee resettlement guideA & R
Both at center as a family unit. Friends (one stressful, one strong), in-laws (one mutual, one broken), couples therapist (mutual), workplaces (stressful for both).
Open the couples therapy guideTyler, 12
Mom (mutual), absent dad (weak), older sibling (strong), school counselor (mutual), teacher (stressful), basketball coach (strong), peer group (strong).
Open the school social work guideDavid, 54
Spouse (strong), kids (mutual), oncologist (toward-center), nurse navigator (mutual), employer (stressful), insurance (stressful_strong), support group (strong).
Open the chronic illness guideSmall business
A bakery at the center. Customers (mutual), suppliers (mutual), accountant (toward-center), legal (toward-center), competitors (stressful), landlord (stressful_strong). Non-clinical use of the same method.
Open the community/business guideBuild one from your own description
Paste a one-paragraph summary of your case into the AI ecomap generator. The model builds the canvas from your wording, including the right line styles.
Try the AI generatorFAQ
Are these real cases?+
No — all examples are composites for illustrative purposes. They use realistic system patterns drawn from common practice areas but contain no identifying information from real clients.
How do I use these in my own work?+
Click any example to open a parallel guide for that domain. Each guide includes a "open in canvas" CTA that loads a similar starter template you can adapt to your case.
Can I build my own from one of these?+
Yes — use the AI ecomap generator and paste any of the example summaries as the prompt. The AI will rebuild it as an editable canvas, then you adjust names + categories for your case.
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