counseling skills
M8 Written Assignment: Part 3 Interview Project (with textbook page reference)
1. Plan to conduct an interview with a family member, a friend, or a co-worker. This interview should last at least 20 minutes (although most prefer a longer time) and should follow the basic five-stage structure. It should be an interview you are satisfied to present to others. Before you conduct the interview, be sure you have your client’s permission to document the session (create the appropriate form, present it, and get written approval).
2. Choose a topic agreeable to both parties. This may be fictional or not (interviewee will be anonymous to professor at any rate). Some suggestions by the text authors include:
Relationship problems
School- or job-related issues
Family concerns
Getting started on vocational planning
Anger management
Expressing feelings more openly
Friendship, partner, or child difficulties
3. Before this interview is actually held, create a plan for the session.
4. Document the interview by taking notes. Do not concentrate so hard on your notes that it interrupts the flow of the interview. Taking notes will help you re-create your interview later.
5. Develop a transcript of the session. Place the transcript in a format similar to that of the interview in the format provided for you here. Leave space for comments on the form.
6. Classify your interviewing leads by skill only (not focus). See pages 333 – 338 of the 9th edition text for an example of how this is written to describe skills used in a cognitive behavioral therapy session. There is another example on p. 325-327 using a crisis intervention session. These can serves models for how to write the final assignment. Your final presentation does not have to include the same table/format used in the text example, but needs to show the interviewing leads by skill for your example and in an organized/logical manner.
7. Identify the specific stages of the interview as you move through them. Note that you may not always follow the order sequentially: Indicate clearly that you have returned to Stage 2 from Stage 4 if that occurs.
8. Make comments on the transcript. Use your own impressions plus the descriptive ideas and conceptual frames of this book.
9. RELATE your experiences, showing not only your understanding of the key concepts and skills (see list below) involved in interviewing, but also the strengths and weaknesses of the interview. (What did you do well? Not so well? What would you do better the next time? And how?)
10. Here is a list of the skills and/or concepts that have been covered over the course of the semester. Your final product should demonstrate your understanding of these topics.
Attending behavior
Questioning
Observation skills of both self and others
Encouraging/restatement
Paraphrasing
Summarizing
Reflecting feelings
Basic listening sequence
Positive asset search
Empathy
Five stages of the interview
Confrontation
Focusing
Reflection of meaning
Interpretation/reframing
Logical consequences
Self-disclosure
Feedback
Information/advice/opinion/ instruction/suggestion
Directives
Ethics
Multicultural awareness
It may help you to review the following University of Oklahoma webpage document to help in your preparation and organization of your response: Attending Behavior: Basic to Communication. The site has an excellent summary of many important points covered.
Assignment: Develop a transcript of your interview and include comments as indicated above.
