Psychosocial aspects of genetic counseling.

A competent and effective genetic counselor must recognize and deal with the psychological defense mechanisms which affected persons and parents of affected children use to cope with the strain of genetic disease in the family. Denial, guilt, hostility, grief and mourning and the psychology of defectiveness are all potent emotional factors that must be dispelled or worked through before parents should make reproductive decisions. If the counseling experience is to be satisfactory, the counselor must help parents meet the immediate and long term social needs of affected individuals in addition to their medical needs.