Open the social atom editor

The social atom goes back to Jacob Levy Moreno, the founder of psychodrama. His assumption was that every person carries within them a subjectively experienced web of relationships that embeds them in the world. What matters is not objective kinship, but how close or distant someone feels towards the people, animals, places and activities in their life. That web is the social atom – and it can be drawn.

How a social atom takes shape

Traditionally this is done on paper or a flip chart, and it works just as well digitally:

You first choose a symbol for yourself and place it.
Then another symbol is added – an important person, an animal, a hobby, your work, a place.
The type of connection shows how intense the relationship feels. If it is strained or painful, the line is crossed through.
This is repeated until all the important relationships are on the sheet.

What emerges is more than a list. The order in which symbols appear, the size someone gives them and the distance from their own symbol often say more than the conversation beforehand. This is exactly where the questions begin: why did this person come first? Why is this symbol so small? Why does work stand closer than family? In this way a web of relationships that usually works unconsciously becomes consciously perceptible – and therefore open to change.

What the editor can do

Placing symbols: choose a symbol on the left – “me”, “woman”, “dog” – and click on the canvas.
Labelling and styling: on the right you enter a label, over several lines if you wish, and choose size, background and the position of the label. Size lets you make subjective importance visible.
Connecting: choose a line type – single, double, each also with one or two strikes through – and click two symbols one after the other. The tool stays active until you press Esc, so you can draw several connections in one go.
Your own meanings: you define what the line types mean, and it appears automatically in the legend. That way you can adapt the notation to how you work, rather than the other way round.
Handling: drag elements, select several with Shift, zoom with the mouse wheel, fine-tune with the arrow keys, undo and redo with Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y.
Saving: as a *.sozialatom.json file for later work; in Chrome and Edge straight back into the same file.
Export: to PDF, PowerPoint and Visio – as individual, editable shapes rather than a flat image.

What it is good for

For taking stock at the beginning of a process: who and what belongs to your life, and in what relation? For transitions – moving house, retirement, separation, a new job – where a web of relationships is rearranging itself. For decisions where it is unclear whose expectations are actually speaking. And as a record of change: a second social atom a few months later shows differences more clearly than any memory.

An important qualification

In coaching, the social atom serves as a model for reflection and conversation, not as a diagnostic instrument. It measures nothing and establishes nothing. Coaching is not psychotherapy (§ 1 (3) of the German Psychotherapy Act).

Your data stays with you

The editor is a single HTML file that runs entirely in your browser. It loads nothing from the internet and sends nothing – which matters because a social atom contains names and judgements about other people. Your work lives in your own files; in addition, the browser keeps an interim state so that nothing is lost if it crashes. The tool is free of charge and is free software under the GNU General Public License (GPL-3.0-or-later).

Related tools

Where kinship across generations is the subject, the genogram editor is the right tool. If you want to do more than draw relationships – to set them up spatially and move them – take the systemic board or the 3D systemic board. For inner parts rather than outer relationships there is my inner team. All tools are listed under Resources.

If you would like to make progress with a personal or professional question, I am glad to accompany you in personal coaching – get in touch for a free initial consultation.

Editor for creating a social atom