Facilitating the Genetic Counseling Process Practice-Based Skills [Paperback]

Designed as an aid to students in Genetics counseling classes and professionals interested in honing their skills, Facilitating the Genetic Counseling Process will guide the reader through the why's and how's of assisting clients with these complex issues. The authors' collective years of both teaching students and counseling clients is reflected in the clear, practical approach of this manual.

Every parent hopes for a healthy, normal baby, but not all babies fall into that category. On a daily basis, genetic counselors help clients, at whatever stage of intended or actual pregnancy, navigate both the purely clincial manifestations of a complicated birth and the short and long term emotional impact. This manual helps students learn how to guide clients through this complex and difficult process. Designed to help students learn these basic counseling skills, FACILITATING THE GENETIC COUNSELING PROCESS takes a how to approach to these complex and emotionally charged client interactions.Guidelines for Book Users: Instructors, Supervisors, and Students.- Overview of Genetic Counseling: History of the Profession and the Reciprocal Model of Practice.- Listening to Patients: Attending Skills.- Listening to Patients: Primary Empathy Skills.- Gathering Information: Asking Questions.- Structuring Genetic Counseling Sessions: Initiating, Contracting, Ending, and Referral.- Collaborating with Patients: Providing Information and Facilitating Patient Decision Making.- Responding to Patient Cues: Advanced Empathy and Confrontation Skills.- Patient Factors: Resistance, Coping, Affect, and Styles.- Providing Guidance: Advice and Influencing Skills.- Counselor Self-Reference: Self-Disclosure and Self-Involving Skills.- Genetic Counseling Dynamics: Transference, Countertransference, Distress, Burnout, and Compassion Fatigue.- Professionalism: Ethically-Based Reflective Practice.- Appendix A: ACGC (2015) Pracl3