1. The attending skills that the genetic counselor employed. Identify the skills that you saw and explain how these contribute to the overall counseling session.
- The Genetic Counselor's attitude throughout the session was very recognizing and acknowledging towards the client, by way of nodding while the client speaks, maintaining eye contact which was consistent, and facing the client in a professional posture. She was also able to look through the anxious non-verbal cues of the client and agreed to it when Genetic Counselor (GC) asked. Another factor that contributed to the effectiveness of the session was, the Genetic Counselor's voice and pitch was very calm and sounded relaxed and composed. These factors were effective towards the client as the client responded with ease and was comfortable for the duration of the counseling and agreed with the advice. The counselor also let's the client finish speaking first before saying or asking another question to give the time to say what she want's to say and not to confuse the client when she responds.
2. The primary empathy skills that the genetic counselor employed. Identify the empathy responses of the counselor and explain how these contributed in further elucidating the thoughts and emotions of the client.
- I observed that summarizing and paraphrasing was evident in the session and the Genetic Counselor was able to explore more about the client's emotions and the client was able to speak more about her stresses. The GC also used encouraging phrases which was a way for the client to vent out her feelings. The counselor was very attentive with the concerns of the client and was able to provide support and advice to the client. The Genetic Counselor acknowledges the feelings and concerns of the client, and recognizes it as part of the journey of the client and was able to explain that these emotions are normally experienced given with the client's situation.
3. The effectiveness of the questions the genetic counselor asked.
- The Genetic Counselor was very organized in asking the client's family information. The construction of the questions was pleasing that the client did not feel offended and the overall session went smoothly. Open ended questions were mostly used during the exploration of the client's feelings and emotions while closed ended questions were used during the family history data gathering. The GC was very proper and formal throughout the session.