Narrative and Medical Genetics: On Ethics and Therapeutics

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Abstract
Narrative, as a hermeneutic social science with its key concepts borrowed from literary theory, guides interpretation of lived-experience and has found expression in qualitative research in the health sciences. Narrative, as it will be advocated here, is an appropriate method for phenomenological investigations relating to genetic counseling. The benefits to the practice of medical genetics from qualitative-that is, narrative-studies will be explored and sources of resistance to phenomenological investigations will be identified. Narrative studies in medical genetics will be shown to have the potential clinical significance of fundamentally altering the stance of genetic counselors toward those who seek their services. By understanding the client's "illness experience," counseling practice, including the ethics of practice, is altered. Finally, the Human Genome Project, by compounding the social and ethical demands on genetic counseling, makes this advocacy especially timely.

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