Abstract
There are a wealth of resources to illustrate psychosocial counseling techniques that might be utilized by genetic counselors. However, it is unclear to what extent specific counseling techniques are actually used by genetic counselors in practice. The purpose of this study was to explore the current practice of genetic counselors with respect to specific counseling techniques, and to assess their comfort level in incorporating counseling elements into their patient interactions. We hypothesized that counselors would be mostly likely to endorse the techniques strongly associated with Rogerian theory (empathy, unconditional positive regard, and genuineness). We recruited genetic counselors currently practicing in a clinical setting through the NSGC listserv to participate in an online, anonymous survey. The survey consisted of twenty-four multiple choice, Likert scale and open-ended questions focused on the application of specific counseling techniques and counseling training that participants received. A total of 128 respondents counselors completed the survey. When asked to rank the usefulness of empathy, acknowledgement, validation, unconditional positive regard, promoting competence and autonomy, reframing, and genuineness as counseling techniques, respondents ranked acknowledgement, empathy, and validation as the most useful. Respondents reported that role playing and genograms were not used as often and were not as useful in a genetic counseling setting as the other techniques. Overall, respondents reported being comfortable incorporating psychosocial techniques into their practice. However, comfort level did not correlate with experience or coursework. Our findings suggest that in practice, Rogerian theory may not be the foundation upon which most counselors interact with patients. Future research should include study into the amount and type of psychosocial genetic counseling training in genetic counseling programs. Another area to be investigated is a possible underlying psychosocial theoretic base of genetic counseling which incorporates techniques being used by genetic counselors as well as counselors’ values and priorities.