O-16: Genetic Counseling and Necessity of Psychological Counseling Skills

Individuals who are at risk because of their family history or concerned about the possibility of having an affected child based any reasons are seeking solution approaches. Nowadays genetic counseling offers hope to prevent from suffering some genetic diseases. Advances in genetics diagnosis testing have played effective role in this regards. Interestingly, Preimplantation Genetic Testing would be as an alternative to reduce or eliminate that affect generation in some cases, but not in all. Despite multitude progress, geneticist encounters with any ambitious in diagnosis or forecast. This ambiguity can be associated with emotional, social or financial consequences that make genetic counseling more difficult than expected. Genetic counseling is a communication process which deals with the human problems associated with the occurrence, or the risk of occurrence. A genetic counselor should be experienced in interview skills such as active listening associated with good history taking, summation, conclusion, formulation ability and empathy. Paying attention to non-verbal communication via body language such as gestures, will allow counselor to help his/her clients by providing an informed decision making procedures. On the other hand, priority and necessity of information which will be given to clients are too important. Genetic counselor must be prohibited to give information that just has emotional disturbance without useful yields. Trained genetic counselors can help not only to allay some of these emotions, but also to prevent it. Therefore, it is suggested that genetic counselors be trained by psychological counseling skills and a psychiatrist is also included in Genetic counseling team.