PSYC201 Lecture 1: Introduction
2 Jun 2018
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Week 1 – PSYC201:
Opening an interview –
• Be welcoming
• Use your name
• Reiterate your name/position/context
• Make the client feel comfortable
• What’s the purpose/process/time frame
• Confidentiality and its limits
• Cultural/disability issues
• Taking notes
Aim → to establish rapport and start to develop a working relationship, to help the
client relax to make it easier to discuss personal issues and to set the context in which
presenting problem is embedded
• Begin the interview by saying ‘Before we start talking about your concerns, I
would like to find out a little about your life. It is okay to ask you a few
questions?”
• Ask specific questions in the following areas:
o Work and employment – how he/she likes this aspect of life
o Immediate family – names/ages
o Recreational activities/interests/sports
o Friends, supports, wide family, relatives
• Leave discussion of the problem to later in interview
• Observe patterns both verbal/non-verbal
• Problem stage:
o Aim is to obtain overview of presenting problem:
▪ “Thank you for telling me about yourself, so what brings you
here today”
▪ Do not offer advice
▪ Maintain a neutral curiosity
▪ Use open ended questions
▪ Use attending and empathy skills
• Behavioural sequence stage:
o Aim is to understand specific example of the presenting problem
▪ Ask client to give example of specific example of problem that
has occurred in recent weeks
▪ Obtain a step by step description of what occurred from start to
finish – ask ‘and what happened next/after that?’
▪ Convey empathy by suggesting possible emotions that your
client may have been feeling during the sequence e.g. ‘that
would have been stressful for you’
• Patterns of behaviour stage:
o Aim is to understand broader patterns and links to the family
▪ Think about family dynamics that are operating and ask
questions e.g. ‘when you raise problems with your mum, how
does she react?’
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