Description: This text provides a comprehensive account of the psychosocial aspects of genetic counseling, combining theoretical and practical approaches with many clinical vignettes. It covers the psychosocial effects of genetic disorders on individuals, couples, and families; counseling techniques and the counseling session agenda; prenatal diagnosis counseling, cancer risk counseling, and genetic counseling with children and adolescents; the psychology of risk interpretation and decision making; and the influence of ethnocultural issues on counselees and counselor.
Review Quotes: "An outstanding and significant addition to the genetic counseling literature, filling a curricular gap in medical genetics and genetic counseling training programs...Dr. Weil has composed a comprehensive discussion of the psychosocial aspects of genetic counseling; his scholarship is of the highest quality. The text is of interest to genetic counselors, genetic counseling students, clinical geneticists, genetic residents, obstetricians, pediatricians, social workers and any other health professionals who deal with patients and families with genetic or potentially genetic disorders."H. Eugene Hoyme M.D., Stanford University Medical Center