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More than ‘information provider’ and ‘counselor’: Constructing and negotiating roles and identities of nurses in genetic counseling sessions[Note 1. The research reported here was fully supported by a ...]
Author(s) -
Zayts Olga,
Schnurr Stephanie
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of sociolinguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1467-9841
pISSN - 1360-6441
DOI - 10.1111/josl.12083
Subject(s) - negotiation , construct (python library) , identity (music) , genetic counseling , institution , identity negotiation , psychology , sociology , social psychology , nursing , medicine , computer science , social science , physics , biology , acoustics , genetics , programming language
This paper contributes to research on genetic counseling by exploring the complexity of this activity from the angle of identity construction. We argue that an analysis of the processes through which healthcare providers construct and negotiate their roles and identities in these encounters may contribute to a better understanding of the complexities of genetic counseling. Drawing on more than 150 video‐recorded genetic counseling encounters between nurses and clients in Hong Kong, we illustrate that the discursive processes involved in the construction of the nurses' identities are complex, overlapping and at times contradictory as the nurses respond to the (sometimes) competing norms and expectations of their institution, their clients and their own. They manage to solve these tensions by drawing on the roles traditionally assigned to nurses in these encounters such as information provider and counselor, as well as creating the new roles of co‐decision maker and cultural broker/mediator.