The essential aspects of the genetic counseling process may be summarized in these terms: genetic counseling is all of those professional activities which help and sustain the counselee from the moment of ascertainment or referral, through the diagnostic workup, to the point when the clinical, prognostic, therapeutic, and genetic conclusions are put before the counselee and relatives in the most effective and supportive way possible and attempts are made to enlist the counselee's collaboration in examining consequences and options concerning therapy and reproductive choices and to support the counselee in efforts to obtain help in effecting those decisions.