This article presents genetic counseling as a challenging field for psychologists. Developments in the field affect individual and public conceptions of the basic issues of reproduction and pregnancy, health and illness, and normality and abnormality. Genetic counseling provides a uniquely structured setting in which to examine major psychological topics, such as coping with threatening events, family dynamics, reactions to uncertainty, risk perception, and decision making. Psychological aspects of genetic counseling are presented on several key issues, including meanings of genetic information, patients' and families' coping with a genetic condition, recall and comprehension of information conveyed in genetic counseling, and decision making. Four roles are delineated for psychologists in this new field: providing direct services to counselees, consulting with counseling teams, training genetic counselors, and researching the psychological aspects of genetic counseling. The entry of psychologists into the field of medicine, which has gained momentum in the last decade (Taylor, 1990), requires adapting to a variety of new settings, My intent with this article is to familiarize psychologists with an area especially suited to psychological applications: genetic counseling. Contrary to popular belief, many genetic conditions are far from rare. Although only some 3% of all pregnancies result in the birth of a child with a significant genetic defect, progress in the treatment and prevention of other diseases has meant that today genetic disorders account for about 40% of childhood mortality and 5-10% of all pediatric hospital admissions. Many chronic diseases--including diabetes, cancer, hypertension, and schizophrenia-are now known to have a genetic component, and advances in genetic diagnostic technologies are dramatically expanding the possibilities for genetic screening and prenatal diagnosis (Gelehrter & Collins, 1990). These advances gained impetus from the Human Genome Project, which was initiated in 1988 by the United States Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health with the goal of obtaining the entire human DNA sequence (Watson, 1990). These developments have spawned major issues for individuals and for society. Pregnancies once assumed normal until proven otherwise are now viewed as risky and fraught with abnormalities until potential defects are ruled out by genetic tests. A birth defect that was once perceived as an unfortunate stroke