HGEN 700 PSYCHOSOCIAL GENETIC COUNSELING
Through didactic lectures, case discussion and role-playing, students learn to identify and understand the psychosocial aspects of genetic counseling and the impact of genetic knowledge on the individual and the family. Human development and the theoretical underpinnings of various counseling models and psychotherapy, as they relate to genetic counseling, are reviewed. The course focuses on specific techniques of the counseling process, including the rationale for the technique, the timing of the technique and the evaluation of the technique. Students learn to differentiate between content and process in the genetic counseling process and to formulate a comprehensive biopsychosocial assessment, with an appreciation of the function of race, gender, social class and sexual orientation in human behavior.