Basic Interviewing Skills

Interviewing skills are not simple motor skills. Rather, they involve a high-order combination of observation, empathic sensitivity, and intellectual judgment. This guidebook, now available from Waveland Press, provides a process model and a corresponding set of classroom-tested exercises designed to improve basic interviewing skills. The modelcalled the Skill Learning Cycleprovides an initial, guided experience for the complete interview-learning process, including planning, doing, and analyzing phases. It also stands as a model for the student to use in the future for continued growth in interviewing skills. In order to focus on the most basic interviewing skills, only the information-gathering function, which is common to all interviews, is discussed.

Essential Interviewing Skills for the Helping Professions reaches beyond most other essential skills for clinical interviewing books with its emphasis on social justice, attention to the role of microaggressions in clinical practice, and the upmost importance of practitioner wellness as integral to longevity in the helping professions. Each chapter addresses interviewing skills that are foundational to the helping professions from mental health to physical health, includes detailed exercises, addresses social justice, and discusses practitioner wellness opportunities. Sometimes clients' stories are fraught with trauma, other times their stories are bound within generations of substance addiction or family violence, while other clinical stories present personal and social obstacles that arise from years of oppression at the hands of prejudice and discrimination. This book therefore goes beyond the basic ideas of choosing when to use an open question or to reflect emotions by covering how to integrate social justice and knowledge of power, privilege, and oppression into the interviewing arena. Essential interviewing skills require the practitioner to not only purposefully listen to the client's story, but also to be self-aware and willing to acknowledge mistakes and learn from them. The work of the clinical interviewer is a continuous challenge of balancing listening, responding, action, and self-awareness, and this book is designed to help.

This book offers clear and direct answers to the questions most frequently asked by students and trainees learning how to talk to clients and extract critical data from them. Its development reflects the old adage that "necessity is the mother of invention." For many years, the editors taught beginning level mental health clinicians. They found, however, no text to be satisfactory--including a number that they themselves were involved in producing. Some were too difficult; some were too simplistic; some were too doctrinaire; still others had missing elements. Written in a reader-friendly "how-to" style, the chapters in Basic Interviewing are not weighed down by references. Rather, each contributor suggests readings for students and instructors who wish to pursue questions further. After the initial overview chapter, there are 12 chapters addressing the nuts-and-bolts concerns of all clinicians that can be particularly vexing for neophytes. They cover a variety of issues from the most specific--like how to begin and end interviews--to the more general--like how to build rapport and identify targets for treatment. Throughout, rich clinical illustrations facilitate the pragmatic application of fundamental principles. Beginning graduate students in counseling and clinical psychology, social work, and other allied mental health fields, as well as psychiatric trainees, will find this text to be an indispensable companion.

This is a workbook of applied activities to assist foundation level social work students in developing basic interviewing skills and techniques.

A collection of simple techniques aimed at helping anyone answer even the trickiest interview questions as well as helpful tips on body language, what to wear, and how to conquer nerves.

Print+CourseSmart

Developing expertise in motivational interviewing (MI) takes practice, which is exactly the point of this engaging, user-friendly workbook. The volume is packed with real-world examples from a range of clinical settings, as well as sample interactions and hands-on learning activities. The author is an experienced MI researcher, clinician, and trainer who facilitates learning with quizzes, experiential exercises, and reproducible worksheets. The reader learns step by step how to practice core MI skills: raising the importance of behavior change, fostering the client's confidence, resolving ambivalence, solidifying commitment to change, and negotiating a change plan. The utility of the book is enhanced by the large-size format and lay-flat binding. The book shows how to navigate each session using microskills that many clinicians already know: open-ended questions, affirmations, reflective listening, and summaries, or OARS for short. This book is in the Applications of Motivational Interviewing series.