Response to A Different Vantage Point Commentary: Psychotherapeutic Genetic Counseling, Is it?
Whether genetic counseling is a form of psychotherapy is open for debate. Early practicioners in genetic counseling described it as such, and this claim has been replicated in recent publications. This commentary is a rebuttal to the claim that genetic counseling is distinct from psychotherapty. We argue that it is a a form of psychoterapy that aims to help clients manage a health threat that affects their psychological wellbeing, paralleling the goals of psychotherapy.
National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Maryland, Bethesda, MD, 20897-2073, USA. barbarab@mail.nih.gov.
Barbara
0000-0001-9665-8963
B
Biesecker
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Jehannine
J
Austin
Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA.
Colleen
C
Caleshu
D003376:Counseling; D005817:Genetic Counseling; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D011613:Psychotherapy
Genetic counseling; Psychotherapeutic genetic counseling; Psychotherapy