The Social Work Interview

Alfred Kadushin, Goldie Kadushin

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780231534888
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

The only textbook to outline the skills social workers need to conduct effective client interviews, this volume synthesizes recent research on interviewing and demonstrates its value in unique settings and with a variety of clients and issues. Connecting evidence-based approaches to the quality of practitioner-client relationships and the achievement of different objectives at each phase of the interview, the text shows students how to apply their learning systematically and develop specialized techniques for culturally competent interviewing and challenging client situations.

For this fifth edition, the authors have updated the text's research throughout and have adopted a more coherent chapter organization for teaching. The volume also includes new sections on breaking bad news and interviewing with aged, racial/ethnic, and sexual minority populations. Revised vignettes reflect the challenges practitioners now face in the field and represent the interests of diverse students and scholars.

PART ONE

GENERAL ORIENTATION AND BASIC CONCEPTS OF INTERVIEWING AND COMMUNICATION

1

DEFINING AND CHARACTERIZING THE SOCIAL WORK INTERVIEW

ALTHOUGH SOCIAL WORK involves a great deal more than interviewing, social workers spend more time conducting interviews than any other single activity. It is the most important and most frequently used social work skill. This is most clearly true for the direct service worker, but the group worker and community organizer also frequently participate in interviewing.

The human services literature describes an interview as “the most pervasive basic social work skill,” “a fundamental social work activity,” and “a primary social work tool-in-trade.” The interview is the context through which social workers offer and implement most human services. The interview is the primary instrument they use to obtain an understanding of clients and their situation and for helping clients deal with their problems.

Baldock and Prior (1981, 19–20) note that “the client interview, which lies at the heart of the social work process, is an event which is not merely the context of, but the basic resource for, social work practice.” Interviewing skills are the central skills on which all components of the social work process depend. The purpose of this chapter is to define the interview and make a distinction between it and another activity with which it is frequently confused: the conversation. Furthermore, the chapter distinguishes between social work interviews and other kinds of interviews and explicates the process of the interview.

THE INTERVIEW PROCESS

The primary purpose of the interview is to attempt to help the interviewee by implementation of a problem-solving process in the context of a positive relationship. This characterizes the general parameters of all social work interviews. Every social work interview follows, in some measure, the traditional problem-solving process: a series of sequential steps designed to achieve some objective:

1. Introduction/beginning

2. Social study/data gathering

3. Assessment

4. Intervention/treatment

5. Termination

The body of the process lies in the second, third, and fourth steps. The interviewer attempts, in concert with the interviewee, to develop some mutually acceptable remedial intervention (4) based on a joint understanding of the situation (3) derived from the facts (2).

The logic inherent in the process is indicated in that we cannot effectively do something to make positive changes in a situation (intervention/treatment) unless we understand the situation (assessment), which requires some knowledge about the nature of the problem (social study/data gathering).

The social work interviewer utilizes some applicable technique in moving through the steps of the process. Using his knowledge and skills, the interviewer reflects, clarifies, supports, advises, informs, interprets, questions, confronts, self-discloses, and activates some social policy resources and programs for which the interviewee is eligible.

While all direct service interviews are essentially similar in terms of the process implemented, and similar by the techniques employed, there is some diversity in how the interviews are conducted. One dimension of difference may be in terms of a focus on one component of the problem-solving process—for example, some interviews concentrate on the study component of the interview process. A psychiatric social worker might be asked to do a social study of a client for a staff presentation to determine the next steps in planning. A court may ask a social worker to do a social study of a juvenile in helping to determine a sentencing decision. Here the focus of the interview is directed toward a social study.

An interview may have a primarily assessment objective (Hersen and Turner 2003). A social worker might interview foster care or adoptive applicants to determine whether the agency should place a child with them. A mental health social worker might interview a client to determine whether she can be assigned a DSM classification for managed care purposes.

An interview may be primarily therapeutic in intent to help the client achieve changes in behavior and attitudes toward more effective social functioning. The school-based social worker interviews children to help them adjust to the classroom setting. The medical social worker interviews a convalescent mother to improve her attitude toward the home health aide assigned to help the family. The gerontological social worker interviews aged clients to intensify their motivation to use senior citizen facilities in the community. The family agency social worker may help a mother change her abusive behavior.

All direct service social work interviews tend to have some common, distinctive characteristics. The social work interview is usually diffuse because of the imprecision of the technical procedures for helping. The more precise a profession’s technology, and the more definite its solutions, the more likely it is to circumscribe its area for exploration and intervention. If we could specify what we needed to know to do precise things for and with the client in effecting change, our interview would be less diffuse.

Furthermore, social work interviews tend to be diffuse because clients’ problems are often ambiguous and have multiple determinants. As a result, social work interviewers have a difficult assignment. They generally cannot determine in advance much of what they have to do in the interview; they must respond to the situation as it develops. Interviewers must have considerable discretion to do almost anything they think might be advisable, under highly individualized circumstances, to achieve the purpose of the interview. As a consequence, the social work interview tends to be relatively unstructured. Evidence-based practice, however, encourages interviews that are more structured. The codification of practice in protocols and manuals derived from the research directs the practitioner to apply certain procedures in some ordered manner (Rubin and Parrish 2007).

Management by objective, which requires certain, specific information and explicit outcomes, further shapes in advance the conduct of the interview. The social work interview is more unidirectional than interviews generally. Many interviews are designed to achieve the needs and purposes of both the interviewer and the interviewee: a reporter is trying to get the story, a detective is trying to solve the crime, a lawyer is trying to win the case, and a salesperson is trying to make a sale and possibly get a commission. In contrast, the social work interview is designed, directed, and focused toward unidirectionally meeting the needs and objectives of only the client.

Interview diversity is a consequence of the theoretical approach to helping in which the interviewer has conviction. Such approaches come in many varieties (Roberts and Greene 2002), and each requires some interview adaptations and modifications. Cognitive-behavioral interviews have different goals from rational-emotional interviews, which in turn are different from ego-oriented, psychodynamic, motivational, and task-centered interviews. Each theoretically based procedure for helping requires a different balance and emphasis in the configuration of the techniques used.

The interview setting may determine the modification and adaption of the general social work interview approach. An interview in a hospital is different from an interview in a school or correctional facility. Demographic variables such as age, gender, ethnicity, and class also determine differences in approach.

DEFINING THE INTERVIEW AND DISTINGUISHING AN INTERVIEW FROM A CONVERSATION

The simplest definition of an interview is “a person-to-person interaction that has a definite and deliberate purpose that is recognized and accepted by both participants.” An interview resembles a conversation in many significant ways. Both involve verbal and nonverbal communication between people, during which they exchange ideas, attitudes, and feelings. Both are usually face-to-face interactions.

We have been conversing with people all our lives in a manner that resembles an interview. It is a frequent, common, everyday experience in which we have achieved some competence. Consequently, most of us assume that we know how to conduct an interview. Thus, we bring to the interview habits of interpersonal conversational interaction that have become routine. Most people, as frequent conversationalists, have learned and employ some “social and linguistic rules” as to how to behave in such encounters (Singleton and Straits 2001, 75).

However, because an interview is a special kind of communication event and not a conversation, such interactions may be inappropriate and/or inefficient for the interview context. Consequently, it is important to identify the differences between a conversation and an interview. The biggest difference is that an interview has a conscious goal, direction, or purpose. Conversational talk meanders without direction, without an agenda; we converse on a wide range of topics. Talk that is defined as an interview, however, has a specific agenda, a specific reason that brings people together to talk. From this critical characteristic of an interview, which differentiates it from a conversation, flow a series of consequences for the way participants relate to one another and the way interaction is structured.

CONTRASTING THE INTERVIEW AND THE CONVERSATION

PURPOSE Because it has a definite purpose, the interview focuses on the content that facilitates its achievement. The interviewer excludes any content, however interesting, that will not contribute to the purpose of the interview. The interview is structured in terms of content and direction. On the other hand, a conversation is open to the promiscuous inclusion of any content, however random and diffuse. The orientation of the conversation is associational; it has no central theme. The interview, in contrast, has unity, progression, thematic consistency, and continuity. Unlike a conversation, the interview is a bounded setting. The participants in an interview limit what commands their attention, what they notice, and what they include in their interaction. A conversation, on the other hand, covers everything but concentrates on nothing.

ROLES If interview content is necessarily selective in order to achieve its purpose, someone has to control content boundaries and direction. One person must take responsibility for directing the interaction so it moves toward the goal. In response to this necessity, the social structure of the interview as a communication event necessitates the allocation of roles. One person is designated as the interviewer and is charged with the responsibility for the process, and someone else is designated as the interviewee. The role relationships are structured. A conversation has no comparable terms that allocate different roles to each participant. Participants in a conversation have mutual responsibility for its content and direction.

Beck and Perry (2008, 7) define interview structure as “a function of the degree to which an interviewer controls, directs, and shapes the verbal interchange between the two protagonists. This involves regulating the length, focus, and depth of the interviewee’s discourse, as well as imposing limits and direction through the interviewer’s questions and interventions.” The degree of structuring needs to be applied with flexibility and sensitivity to the rights and needs of the interviewee, and the nature of the problem or concern.

TASKS The role of interviewer has clearly defined tasks. He or she is allocated primary, if not exclusive, responsibility for accomplishing the purpose of the interview. Consequently, conducting an interview requires some technical knowledge of interviewing procedures: how to start it, how to keep it on course, when and how to end it, how to facilitate productive interaction, how to recognize the difference between relevant and irrelevant content, and so on. The experienced interviewer, supposedly, has such knowledge and skills that justify his assignment to the role and to the responsibility for implementing associated tasks.

It needs to be noted that the role of the interviewee also involves responsibility for performing some tasks, the implementation of which is necessary to achieve the objectives of the interview. These involve openly and fully sharing the information that the interviewer needs to know if she is to be helpful and cooperating with the interviewer for joint formulation of the objectives of the interview.

DIFFERENTIAL STATUS Because the interviewer supposedly has the necessary interviewing knowledge and skills, validated by his professional education and ratified by his position in the agency and/or licensing, the interviewer has superior status in the interview. Unlike an interview, a conversation has no recognition of differential statuses and roles among the participants.

It is desirable, for both pragmatic and ideological reasons, to reduce the interviewee-interviewer difference in status and regard both participants as copartners in mutually endeavoring to achieve the purpose of the interview. However, despite our best efforts to minimize the difference in status, one level of difference, which is inherent in the nature of the interview, cannot be eliminated: the interviewer is primus inter pares—first among equals.

Although the behavior of all parties to a conversation may be spontaneous and unplanned, the actions of the interviewer must be planned, deliberate, and consciously selected to further the purpose of the interview; this is simply part of the prescribed role behavior. Unlike a conversation, an interview is a program of planned and organized communication. This pattern is predetermined by the positions people occupy in the interview—by the formal structure of reciprocal roles and expectations.

Because the interviewers are responsible for directing the interview so it achieves its purpose, they have to deliberately select the interventions they need to make. Further, unlike participants in a conversation, interviewers have to be cognizant of any feelings and attitudes they have toward the interviewee that may impede or distort the achievement of purpose. Because interviewers are responsible for consciously guiding the interview to achieve its purpose, they are obligated to plan the interview to whatever extent possible. People do not consciously prepare for engaging in a conversation.

USE OF TIME Another structural difference between a conversation and an interview relates to scheduling. Unlike a conversation, the interview is structured in terms of time and context. A conversation can start at any time and in any place, without preliminaries, but an interview is generally scheduled to begin at a particular time at a particular location. Also, a conversation has no specified duration, but an interview is scheduled to conclude at a predetermined time.

While conversational participants can terminate the conversation whenever they want, social work interviewers are professionally obligated to continue for the scheduled time period, or earlier if the interview objective has been achieved.

ACCOUNTABILITY Another difference between an interview and a conversation relates to the interviewer’s obligation regarding accountability. The interviewer has to remember and record what went on during the interview in order to make subsequent use of the material in helping the int...