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Exercise 3: Defense Mechanisms
From the list of defense mechanisms in Table 9.1, identify two defenses that you are
most likely to use in your personal life, and discuss how they might affect your work
as a genetic counselor. Include a specific example of how each of your defense
mechanisms might play out during a session and how they might affect the patient.
[Hint: Although Chap. 9 refers to patient defense mechanisms, the same defenses
apply to genetic counselors.]
Exercise 4: Intellectual and Emotional Styles
Part I: Using the intellectual styles described in this chapter, identify your intellec-
tual style, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of your style for genetic
counseling. Do you think that your style might be more effective for some patients
and less effective for others? Why/how?
Part II: Using the emotional styles described in this chapter, identify your emo-
tional style, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of your style for genetic
counseling. Do you think that your style might be more effective for some patients
and less effective for others? Why/how?
[Hint: Think about how your intellectual and emotional styles might complement
or clash with the patient’s intellectual and emotional styles.]
Part III: Which patient intellectual and emotional styles will be most difficult for
you? What makes them difficult?
Exercise 5: Spiritual Assessment^1
Pretending they have a genetic condition, students select a partner from the class,
and the dyads take turns interviewing each other (outside of the class) using the
Anandarajah and Hight ( 2001 , as cited in Reis et al. 2007 ) HOPE Tool for spiritual
assessment questions. Upon completion of the interviews, students prepare reflec-
tion papers describing what it was like to answer the questions and what they learned
about themselves as interviewee and as interviewer.
Questions from the HOPE Tool for Spiritual Assessment as Presented in the
Survey Instrument
H: Sources of hope, meaning, comfort, strength, peace, love, and connection
- We have been discussing your support systems. I was wondering, what are your
sources of hope, strength, comfort, and peace? - What do you hold onto during difficult times?
- What sustains you and keeps you going?
(^1) Adapted from Anandarajah and Hight ( 2001 ).
9 Patient Factors: Resistance, Coping, Affect, andfiStyles