Thread by @J9_Austin

Another powerful post (if you’re not following @AwareDare please do!) - this really shows how we have quite some work to do as a profession. Extending the same empathy and compassion to each other as we do to our patients is so key… #gcchat

https://twitter.com/awaredare/status/1405117959417204736

🧵 More reflections on this: it seems to me that we are invested in a model where we imagine that a GC cannot be a vulnerable/“imperfect” human (or indeed even just a whole complex human) AND be an effective helper of others. We hold ourselves to unachievable/undesirable ideals

Also, thinking about the history of our profession to try to understand what’s currently going on (if you’ve not read amazon.ca/Telling-Genes-… I strongly recommend it).

Genetic counseling started as something done by well-to-do, white cishet women…

Clearly we are currently struggling to actualize the next stage of our development. So perhaps explicitly articulating the obvious - that healers/helpers do not have to be “perfect” (whatever that is) to be effective - could be useful to our progress?

Also obvious: We all have struggles/challenges. Many (most?) of us are drawn to GCing b/c of something about our own experience (eg personal or family history of something). But historically people were expected to hide their own stuff to succeed.

Hence toxic “ideal GC” concept of type A, cardigan-wearing, cishet women.

We have to break the abusive cycle of “I had to pretend I’m fine to succeed, so you do too”.

It shouldn’t be “brave” to own ones whole personhood in our community. It needs to be normal ASAP. #GCchat