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Types of Interviews

The document discusses different types of clinical interviews used in psychological assessments including intake interviews, case history interviews, mental status examinations, crisis interviews, and diagnostic interviews. It describes the goals and techniques used in each type of interview. The document also briefly mentions psychological testing, observation, and references additional resources on overall abnormal psychology and classification systems.

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296 views4 pages

Types of Interviews

The document discusses different types of clinical interviews used in psychological assessments including intake interviews, case history interviews, mental status examinations, crisis interviews, and diagnostic interviews. It describes the goals and techniques used in each type of interview. The document also briefly mentions psychological testing, observation, and references additional resources on overall abnormal psychology and classification systems.

Uploaded by

Rahul
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Sindhu ma’am viva notes

THE REFERRAL

 The assessment process begins with a referral.


 Someone—a parent, a teacher, a psychiatrist, a judge, or perhaps a psychologist—poses a
question about the patient.

THE ASSESSMENT INTERVIEW

The most basic and the most serviceable technique used by the clinical psychologist.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF INTERVIEWS

 An Interaction- An interview is an interaction between at least two persons


 Clinical interview is initiated with a goal or set of goals in mind.
 Carefully planned, deliberately and skilfully executed, and goal-oriented throughout.
 Interviews versus Tests- interviews occupy a position somewhere between ordinary
conversation and tests. Interviews are more purposeful and organized than conversation but
sometimes less formalized or standardized than psychological tests
 Unique characteristic of the interview method is the wider opportunity it provides for an
individualized approach that will be effective in eliciting data from a particular person or
patient.
 The Art of Interviewing- Interviewing has often been regarded as an art.

INTERVIEWING ESSENTIALS AND TECHNIQUES

 Training and supervised experience in interviewing are very important.


 The Physical Arrangements- Two of the most important considerations are privacy and
protection from interruptions.
 Nothing is more damaging to the continuity of an interview than a phone that rings
relentlessly, an administrative assistant’s query, or an imperative knock on the door.
 Because lack of privacy can lead to many deleterious outcomes, soundproofing is also very
important.
 Note-Taking and Recording- All contacts with clients ultimately need to be documented.
 With today’s technology, it is easy to audiotape or videotape interviews. Under no
circumstances should this be done without the patient’s fully informed consent.
 clinician is more threatened by the recording than the patient, especially if the interview is
likely to be examined or evaluated by superiors or consultants
 Rapport- Rapport is the word often used to characterize the relationship between patient
and clinician.
 Good rapport can be a primary instrument by which the clinician achieves the purposes of
the interview.
 Characteristics of rapport- It does require that patients not be prejudged based on the
problems they seek help for.
 When patients realize that the clinician is trying to understand their problems in order to help
them, then a broad range of interviewer behaviour becomes possible.
 Rapport can be specifically challenging to achieve in cases that involve more than one
individual or a unique referral source. For instance, a family therapy or couples therapy case
involves simultaneously establishing a connection with multiple individuals, each of whom
may have very different perspectives and varying enthusiasm for attending the session.
 Rapport also can be especially challenging when the client is aware that the information
collected during the interview likely will be used to determine a school placement, to meet
employment criteria, or to formulate a legal disposition regarding child custody, legal
sanctions, or maltreatment allegations.

COMMUNICATION

 Beginning a Session- It is often useful to begin an assessment session with a casual


conversation.
 Language- extreme importance is the use of language that the patient can understand.
 At the same time, it may be necessary to abandon psychological jargon to be understood by
some patients.
 The Use of Questions- forms of questions, including open-ended, facilitative, clarifying,
confronting, and direct question.
 Silence
 Listening- our communication must reflect understanding and acceptance.
 Gratification of Self- clinicians should avoid discussing their personal lives or opinions.

The Patient’s Frame of Reference -If the clinician is going to be effective in achieving the goals of the
interview, it is essential that he or she have an idea of how the patient views the first meeting.

The Clinician’s Frame of Reference -In a sense, the general dictum here, as in any endeavour, is “Be
prepared.” This implies that the clinician should have carefully gone over any existing records on the
patient, checked the information provided by the person who arranged the appointment, and so on.
Such a posture will ensure that the clinician knows as much as can be known at that point about the
patient.

VARIETIES OF INTERVIEWS

For example, the purpose of one interview may be to evaluate a client who is presenting to an
outpatient clinic for the first time (intake-admission interview), whereas the purpose of another
interview may be to arrive at a DSMIV-TR diagnostic formulation (diagnostic interview). The second
major distinguishing factor is whether an interview is unstructured (often labelled a “clinical
interview”) or structured. In unstructured interviews, clinicians are allowed to ask any questions that
come to mind in any order. In contrast, structured interviews require the clinician to ask, verbatim, a
set of standardized questions in a specified sequence
THE INTAKE-ADMISSION INTERVIEW

 An intake interview generally has two purposes: (a) to determine why the patient has come
to the clinic or hospital and (b) to judge whether the agency’s facilities, policies, and services
will meet the needs and expectations of the patient.
 Talks are face-to-face, but there has been an increasing tendency to use telephone contacts
prior to the initial interview.
 Another function of the initial interview is to inform the patient of such matters as the clinic’s
functions, fees, policies, procedures, and personnel.

THE CASE-HISTORY INTERVIEW

 Personal and social history as possible is taken. The clinician is interested both in concrete
facts, dates, and events and in the patient’s feelings about them.
 Purpose of a case history is to provide a broad background and context in which both the
patient and the problem can be placed.
 The range of material covered in personal social histories is quite broad. It covers both
childhood and adulthood, and it includes educational, sexual, medical, parental-
environmental, religious, and psychopathological matters

THE MENTAL STATUS EXAMINATION INTERVIEW

 A mental status examination is typically conducted to assess the presence of cognitive,


emotional, or behavioural problems.
 Major limitation of mental status interviews has been their unreliability, because they are
often highly unstructured in execution.
 The clinician assesses the patient in a number of areas, including (but not limited to) general
presentation, quality of speech, thought content, memory, and judgment.

THE CRISIS INTERVIEW

 An interview conducted for the purposes of (a) defusing or problem solving through the crisis
at hand and (b) encouraging the individual to enter into a therapeutic relationship at the
agency or elsewhere so that a longer-term solution can be worked out.
 Purpose of the crisis interview is to meet problems as they occur and to provide an
immediate resource.

THE DIAGNOSTIC INTERVIEW

 An interview conducted for the purpose of arriving at a DSM-IV diagnostic formulation.


 Explores the patient’s problems, current situations, and background with the aim to
formulate diagnosis and prognosis as well as developing a treatment programme.
 Uses free form unstructured interview
 Resulted in unreliable ratings.
 Structured diagnostic interview was developed- standard set of questions asked in specific
order.
 Insurance companies, research protocols, or even court proceedings may require a diagnostic
evaluation.
PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING

https://www.personality-and-aptitude-career-tests.com/psychological-
tests.html#:~:text=Some%20typical%20examples%20of%20these%20tests%20include%2C%20Achie
vement,measure%20the%20potential%20of%20performance%20in%20a%20person

OBSERVATION

https://www.simplypsychology.org/observation.html

OVERALL

https://opentext.wsu.edu/abnormal-psych/part/part-ii-mental-disorders-block-1/

DSM, ICD AND CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM ARE NOT INCLUDED HERE, READ BY YOUR OWN.

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