Studying for Domain 4A of the ABGC CGC Certification Exam: Counseling Skills

When studying for the American Board of Genetic Counseling (ABGC) Certification Examination, there comes a point when you must put down the condition flashcards and turn your attention to psychosocial skills. Counseling may be half of our profession’s name, but when it comes to exam preparation for Domain 4A: Counseling Skills, I wasn’t exactly sure where to begin. Studying clinical conditions, genetic testing strategies and human development all seemed relatively straightforward — certainly there was a lot of information, but by the end of my graduate training, I had already experienced plenty of exams that covered this type of content. But a multiple-choice exam on counseling issues? That felt completely new to me.

My Study Strategies for Domain 4A: Counseling Skills

1. Knowing the Terminology

To start, I wanted to make sure that I knew psychosocial keywords that could be on the exam. Several of these terms have counseling definitions that are distinct from their colloquial ones. I needed to be sure that even if I knew a given term, I was confident about applying it correctly in this context. My strategy here was to focus on memorization for the purpose of instant recall. Key terms to know could be found in “The Genetic Counseling Complete Study Guide, 2nd ed.” by GC Genius. The psychosocial section has definitions of coping styles, defense mechanisms, disruptions to the counseling relationship, and heuristics that I found useful to have memorized.

2. Understanding the Key Concepts

Once I felt comfortable with the terminology, I wanted to deepen my understanding of key psychosocial issues in genetic counseling. For this I started with “A Guide to Genetic Counseling” by Uhlmann et al. (2009), otherwise known as the “Green Book.” Chapter 5 is dedicated to psychosocial counseling and was particularly helpful with case examples that illustrate several of the terms I had memorized. I found it helpful to not just read through the book but try to connect each topic to a case I had seen or discussed. Additionally, “Psychosocial Genetic Counseling” by Jon Weil (2000), specifically chapter 3, “Techniques of Psychosocial Genetic Counseling” has useful information about strategies for challenging counseling situations.

3. Practice, Practice, Practice

For me, by far the most helpful part of studying Domain 4A was practicing with board exam-style questions. Practice questions helped me learn how to take the knowledge I had from my training and studying and apply it to the multiple-choice format — which is pretty different from anything that happens with a patient! There are many unofficial practice exam resources that may be floating around the internet. In my experience, the questions that most closely resembled those on the actual exam came from ABGC itself, through the official practice exam. Additionally, your program leadership may have resources with other exam-style practice questions.

4. Phoning a Friend (or Several)

My final strategy was to then go back to questions that I got wrong and discuss them with my former classmates. Their perspectives were invaluable in helping me understand how to approach a similar question in the future. What I found most helpful in going over questions was not focusing on why a particular answer was correct, but why all the other options were not. The trickiest part about psychosocial questions is that sometimes multiple responses could seem like an appropriate choice. However, through practice and discussion, I began to understand how to identify the best answer — even in questions with multiple reasonable answers. I also found it useful to try to create my own questions, based on practice questions and cases referenced in the books above, and share those with my study group.

Psychosocial skills are essential to the work of a genetic counselor, therefore are well represented on the exam. I found it very worthwhile to invest time in studying this material. You already know a lot about counseling from your training, both in the classroom and in the clinic — this study plan helped me adapt my knowledge to fit the testing structure of the ABGC Certification Exam.

References

Genetic Counseling Complete Study Guide. (2021). GC Genius. https://gcgeniusguides.com/products/genetic-counseling-complete-study-guide-91760

Uhlmann, W. R., Schuette, J. L., & Yashar, B. M. (2011). A Guide to Genetic Counseling. John Wiley & Sons

Weil, J. (2000). Psychosocial Genetic Counseling. Oxford University Press.