Lehtinen2005a

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Lehtinen2005a
BibType ARTICLE
Key Lehtinen2005a
Author(s) Esa Lehtinen
Title Information, understanding and the benign order of everyday life in genetic counselling
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Medical EMCA, Genetic Counseling, Candidate understandings, Information Giving
Publisher
Year 2005
Language
City
Month
Journal Sociology of Health & Illness
Volume 27
Number 5
Pages 575-601
URL Link
DOI 10.1111/j.1467-9566.2005.00457.x
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

Genetic counselling as a medical encounter is characterised by the centrality of the provision of information. Much of the counselling session is filled by information delivery about the symptoms, the prognosis and the transmission of the disease, the risks involved and the possibilities for genetic testing. The present paper is a study of how information is delivered in actual genetic counselling sessions. The data consist of 10 video-recorded sessions from a genetics clinic in Finland, and the methodology is based on conversation analysis. The paper focuses on the doctor's talk in a specific interactional context, the slot after a candidate understanding by a client. The analysis shows that the doctors have two basic orientations: they work towards securing correct understanding and they display being attuned to what the information means to the clients, particularly to whether it is positive or negative to them. The latter orientation is related to what has been called ‘the benign order of everyday life’ (Maynard 2003). The findings in the paper offer a possibility for a discussion about the principles and practices of genetic counselling.

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