ABSTRACT
The essence of genetic counseling is to provide couples with information that allows them to make informed choices about their reproduction. Risk may be of two kinds: genetic risk, which is the likelihood of certain genes or chromosomal configurations being transmitted to offspring, and recurrence risk, which is the likelihood of the repeat occurrence of a condition in an already born or conceived offspring. Such a condition may have genetic and/or environmental causes. The counseling process impacts on how parents come to view their options and their opportunity for influencing conception or birth. These perceptions often turn on how couples view the risks they are taking for themselves and their future offspring. People perceive risks based on a complex mixture of subjective and objective beliefs about risk taking generally: the nature of a specific risk, its irreversibility, the likelihood of its occurrence, and the consequences of different outcomes.
